No doubt the correspondence between the ages of the victims and
the state of the corn was supposed to enhance the efficacy of the
sacrifice.
The Pawnees annually sacrificed a human victim in spring when they
sowed their fields. The sacrifice was believed to have been enjoined
on them by the Morning Star, or by a certain bird which the Morning
Star had sent to them as its messenger. The bird was stuffed and
preserved as a powerful talisman. They thought that an omission of
this sacrifice would be followed by the total failure of the crops
of maize, beans, and pumpkins. The victim was a captive of either
sex. He was clad in the gayest and most costly attire, was fattened
on the choicest food, and carefully kept in ignorance of his doom.
When he was fat enough, they bound him to a cross in the presence of
the multitude, danced a solemn dance, then cleft his head with a
tomahawk and shot him with arrows. According to one trader, the
squaws then cut pieces of flesh from the victim's body, with which
they greased their hoes; but this was denied by another trader who
had been present at the ceremony.
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