Presentation on the Skidi Pawnee Native Americans

Part of Native American Heritage Month

The Chicago Public Library, McKinley Park Branch, at 1915 W. 35th St., will offer a presentation on a Native American culture — the Skidi Pawnee — on Saturday, November 15 at 11 a.m. 

The Skidi Pawnee were the earliest Pawnee band to settle in the Platte River region of present-day central Nebraska. The Skidi belief that they descended from the sky — as opposed to originating from the Earth — is unique among traditional Native American cultures. This presentation examines several details of traditional Skidi material culture and settlement patterns associated with their extensive star-based cosmology. 

Topics include a unique star chart drawn on hide and included in a powerful medicine bundle, as well as the Pawnee earth lodge, a model of how the Pawnee incorporated their view of the cosmos where they lived.

Presenter Lee Minnerly, formerly an archives assistant at the Webster Institute for the History of Astronomy at Adler Planetarium, holds a master's degree in anthropology and teaches classes on cultural astronomy at the Newberry Library and Harper College.