At the sound of the first thunder in spring, the keeper of the sacred bundle (the chúharipiru) must immediately open it with the proper procedure and make an offering of dried bison meat to the west, the direction of the Evening Star, the home of the thunderers, from whence the powers of the bundle comes. This offering is burned, but after the ceremony the remaining meat is cooked and served from the ceremonial earth lodge (pictured).

Such is a common feature of spiritual life across the Skidí, Chauí, Kit’kaháxki, and Pítahauírata Pawnee. The songs and stories from Pawnee ceremonial rites were documented extensively in the 1921 book Ceremonies of the Pawnee by James Rolfe Murie, born Ri·tahkacihari’ (“Young Eagle”), the son of a Skiri Pawnee mother and an uninvolved Scottish father. Murie was fluent in Pawnee, English, and Arikara.