Mr. James, one of the members of the exploring party, stated that the star to which the sacrifice was made, was the planet Venus. It is probable therefore that this ceremony had some connection with the worship of the sun, as the Indians, who were accurate observers of all natural events, would have noticed that Venus, both as a morning and evening star, appeared to govern the movements of the greater light, and either announced its approach at dawn or followed its departure at sunset. The Pawnees and the Dakotas are the only North American tribes known to have had the custom of killing human beings, for the purpose of presenting them to their gods as propitiations in time of distress, or as thanksgiving offerings after successful wars. The sacrifices made to their gods of war by the Aztecs were probably introduced into Mexico by that fierce race. The last human sacrifice offered by the Pawnees occurred in the year 1837, and in this case it is believed that the offering was made to the spirit who caused the land to produce fertile crops. A young girl of fourteen years of age had been captured during a war with the Sioux, and it was decided that she was to be killed and sacrificed to this particular Manito. The strange character of the method of immolation arrests attention. The girl was carefully secured upon a framework made of light poles, raised a few feet above the ground. When she was in the right position for the sacrifice, a fire was kindled beneath, but before the flames had actually begun to touch her, and precisely at the moment when it was perceived that the fire was sufficiently strong to begin to burn her, she was suddenly killed by a flight of arrows.[38] She was then taken down from the scaffolding and the flesh was cut into small portions and taken away into the fields, where the blood was sprinkled over certain parts of the land which had been planted. [Illustration: SHA-TO-KO (BLUE HAWK). A PAWNEE.] The fact of a sacrifice so important as that of a girl on the verge of womanhood being made to the god believed to have power over all matters relating to the growth of corn and other vegetable produce, proves that the Pawnees cultivated the earth to a greater extent than other tribes. Their neighbours, the Dakotas, were more exclusively a hunting race, and their human sacrifices, as far as has been ascertained by events that have happened within the past century, were usually made for the purpose of propitiation in the more solemn forms of Sun worship, or of appeasing the anger of evil spirits or demons when manifested by storms of lightning and thunder.