"For example those Keechais who stole Noah Smithwick's horses outside of Bastrop were technically Pawnees."
Only if by linguistics! Keechis were Caddoan..... Just like the Anadarko, Adai, Bedias, Nebadache, Nachito, and Neche etc........ They were recorded early on by both French and Spanish.
I believe Pawnee's were once refered to as the plains Caddo and were supposedly associated with the Quapaws of SE Arkansas. Another Caddoan linguistics group member.
Quapaws were clear up in our area. Just south of Joplin is Quapaw, Oklahoma, near the infamous Spooklight.
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Henri de Tonti had built a post (Askansas Post) amongst the Quapaw, close to where the Arkansas runs into the Mississippi. His post was established when he came down the Mississippi with La Salle in the 1670's!
The Quapaws were known to build high towers for sleeping to catch the breezes that would keep the mosquitos off of them in the warmer months! It was Tonti's Arkansas Post that the remnants of La Salle's party (led by Henri Joutel) was trying to reach (and they eventually did) after La Salles assassination by Archleveque in 1685.
The irony of this was that Tonti was also looking for them as he had heard from Les Sauvage of "lost white men" looking for him. Unfortunately de Tonti caught a fevr on this journeyr and died before he could return to his post.
Tonti was an interesting sort. He had a hand blown off by a grenade while serving as a mercenary in Sicily. In it's place was a brass ball. The Sauvage called him "Iron Hand".
