James Murie, early twentieth century ethnographer and member of the Pawnee Nation, once wrote that the “things that are most acceptable to the Pawnee gods are smoke, fat, paint, and flesh” (Murie 1981:466). Here we describe red paint at Kitkahahki Town, a late eighteenth–early nineteenth-century Kitkahahki Pawnee village in north-central Kansas. Using laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy, we compare archaeological paint and pigment samples to three pigment materials – pipestone powder, vermilion, and ochre – all documented in the Great Plains after European colonization. We ultimately find no evidence of pipestone powder or vermilion as pigment at Kitkahahki Town and conclude that ochre (some of which may be from the Lower Cretaceous Dakota formation) is the most likely pigment material at the site. Ochre may have been especially significant because of links between this earth pigment and Pawnee sacred geography.

二十世纪早期的民族志学家和波尼民族成员詹姆斯·穆里 (James Murie) 曾写道，“波尼诸神最能接受的东西是烟、脂肪、油漆和肉”(Murie 1981:466)。在这里，我们描述了 Kitkahahki 镇的红色油漆，这是一个 18 世纪末至 19 世纪初堪萨斯州中北部的 Kitkahahki Pawnee 村庄。我们使用激光烧蚀电感耦合等离子体质谱和拉曼光谱，将考古涂料和颜料样品与三种颜料材料（烟灰石粉、朱红和赭石）进行比较，所有这些材料都在欧洲殖民后的大平原上有记载。我们最终在 Kitkahahki 镇没有发现烟灰石粉末或朱砂作为颜料的证据，并得出结论，赭石（其中一些可能来自下白垩世达科他地层）是该地点最有可能的颜料材料。