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KEARNEY - The Pawnees are returning and they've invited their long-lost cousins to join them.

"It's going to be very historic and very significant," Pawnee Head Chief Pat LeadingFox said about plans for another powwow in Nebraska. At the June 2010 event, the Pawnees will reunite in Kearney with members of the Arikara Tribe of North Dakota.

Centuries have passed since the Pawnees and Arikaras both stood on their ancestral lands.

"It's been a long, long time since our tribes have been together in Nebraska," LeadingFox said.

The Pawnee-Arikara reunion will be June 18-19, 2010, at the Great Platte River Road Archway.

The Arikara once belonged to the Skidi Band of the Pawnees, but the Arikaras left the Skidis and headed north. The reason for the split and when it occurred are unknown, but LeadingFox said some believe it might have been 500 years ago.

The Pawnee Tribe is made up of four bands: Skidi, Chaui, Kitkehahki and Titahawirata.

The remaining Pawnees were forced from their ancestral lands about 135 years ago when they were relocated to the reservation in Oklahoma where they live today.

LeadingFox has attended about nine Arikara powwows at White Shield, N.D.

He said there are subtle differences between the Pawnee and Arikaras' native costumes, but the languages sound similar and the tribes sing some of the same songs.

He said the Arikaras are hospitable and welcoming. "They always ask us to sing together and sit at their drum. The drum has healing power."

Ronnie O'Brien, operations manager at the archway, said she's excited to hear the drumbeats of the two tribes during the reunion in 2010. She said it's a compliment to Nebraskans' hospitality and interest in native culture that the Pawnees plan to return and have asked the Arikaras to join them.

"The Pawnee were so thrilled about what happened last year that they wanted to do this next year," O'Brien said.

The Pawnee powwow this summer attracted nearly 5,000 Kearney-area residents to experience native dancing and cultural demonstrations. A rainy Saturday afternoon forced an early end for the festivities.

Kearney is about the midpoint between the Pawnee Reservation and Fort Berthold Reservation, which the Arikara share with North Dakota's Mandan and Hidatsa tribes.

O'Brien said as she begins to study the Arikara culture, she's excited to learn that the tribe reveres corn. O'Brien has been working with the Pawnee to resurrect seed stock of the strands of the corn their ancestors grew along the banks of the Platte and Loup rivers in Nebraska.

This year's Pawnee corn soon will be harvested. Some of the crop will be displayed at the archway's Oct. 10 Harvest Festival.

e-mail to:

mike.konz@kearneyhub.com