The Morning Star Sacrifice Ceremony
The Morning Star ceremony was a Skidi Pawnee ritual involving the sacrifice of a captive girl to ensure agricultural fertility and cosmic order. It was performed when a man dreamed that Morning Star commanded it. A captive girl was taken from an enemy tribe, treated with respect but kept isolated. In spring, she was ritually cleansed and painted, symbolically transformed into the Evening Star. At dawn on the final day, she was placed on a scaffold and shot through the heart with a sacred arrow while a priest opened her chest. Her blood fell to fertilize the earth. The ceremony reenacted the Mo