The Pawnee are a Central Plains Indian tribe that historically lived in Nebraska and northern Kansas but today are based in Oklahoma. They are the federally recognized Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, who are headquartered in Pawnee, Oklahoma. Their Pawnee language belongs to the Caddoan language family, and their name for themselves is Chatiks si chatiks or "Men of Men".

Historically, the Pawnee lived in villages of earth lodges near the Loup, Republican, and South Platte rivers. The Pawnee tribal economic activities throughout the year alternated between farming crops and hunting buffalo.

In the early 18th century, the Pawnee numbered more than 60,000 people. They lived along the Loup (ickariʾ) and Platte (kíckatuus) river areas for centuries; however, several tribes from the Great Lakes began moving onto the Great Plains and encroaching on Pawnee territory, including the Dakota, Lakota (páhriksukat / paahíksukat) ("cut throat / cuts the throat"), and Cheyenne (sáhe / sáhi). The Arapaho (sáriʾitihka) ("dog eater") also moved into Pawnee territory. Collectively, the Pawnee referred to these tribes as cárarat ("enemy tribe") or cahriksuupiíruʾ ("enemy"). The Pawnee were occasionally at war with the Comanche (raaríhtaʾ) and Kiowa (káʾiwa) further south. They had suffered many losses due to Eurasian infectious diseases brought by the expanding Europeans and European-Americans. By 1860, the Pawnee population was reduced to just 4,000. It further decreased, because of disease, crop failure, warfare, and government rations policy, to approximately 2,400 by 1873, after which time the Pawnee were forced to move to Indian Territory, which later became Oklahoma. Many Pawnee warriors enlisted to serve as Indian scouts in the US Army to track and fight their old enemies, the Lakota, Dakota, and Cheyenne on the Great Plains.

Government
In 2011, there were approximately 3,200 enrolled Pawnee and nearly all of them reside in Oklahoma. Their tribal headquarters is in Pawnee, Oklahoma, and their tribal jurisdictional area includes parts of Noble, Payne, and Pawnee counties.

The tribal constitution established the government of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma. This government consists of the Resaru Council, the Pawnee Business Council, and the Supreme Court. Enrollment into the tribe requires a minimum of one-eighth Pawnee blood quantum.

The Rêsâru'karu, also known as the Nasharo or Chiefs Council consists of eight members, each serving four-year terms. Each band has two representatives on the Nasharo Council selected by the members of the tribal bands, Cawi, Kitkahaki, Pitahawirata, and Ckiri. The Nasharo Council has the right to review all acts of the Pawnee Business Council regarding the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma membership and Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma claims or rights growing out of treaties between the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma and the United States according to provisions listed in the Pawnee Nation Constitution.

2013–2017
 Morgan Little Sun, 1st Chief Kitkehahki Band
 Ralph Haymond, 2nd Chief Kitkehahki Band, 2nd Nasharo Council Chief
 Matt Reed, 2nd Chief Chaui Band
 Pat Leading Fox Sr., 1st Chief Skidi Band
 Jimmy Horn, 1st Chief Chaui Band, Nasharo Council Treasurer
 Warren Pratt Jr., 2nd Chief Skidi Band, Nasharo Council 1st Chief
 Francis Morris, 1st Chief Pitahauirata Band
 Lester Moon Eagle, 2nd Chief Pitahauirata Band, Nasharo Council Secretary

2017-2021
 Morgan Little Sun, 1st Chief, Kitkahaki Band
 Ralph Haymond Jr., 2nd Chief, Kitkahaki Band
 Pat Leading Fox, 1st Chief, Ckiri Band
 Warren Pratt Jr., 2nd Chief, Ckiri Band
 Ron Rice Sr., 1st Chief, Pitahawirata Band
 Tim Jim, 2nd Chief, Pitahawirata Band
 Matt Reed, 1st Chief, Cawi Band
 Jimmy Horn, 2nd Chief, Cawi Band

2021-2025
 Morgan Little Sun, 1st Chief, Kitkahaki Band
 Adrian Spotted Horsechief, 2nd Chief, Kitkahaki Band
 Gilbert Beard, 1st Chief, Ckiri Band
 Pat Leadingfox, 2nd Chief, Ckiri Band
 Frank Adson, 1st Chief, Pitahawirata Band
 Tim Jim, 2nd Chief, Pitahawirata Band
 Matt Reed, 1st Chief, Cawi Band
 David Kanuho, 2nd Chief, Cawi Band

Officers for the Resaru Council are:
 Pat Leadingfox, Head Resaru;
 Matt Reed, 2nd Resaru;
 Tim Jim, Treasurer;
 Gilbert Beard, Secretary

The Pawnee Business Council is the supreme governing body of the Pawnee Tribe of Oklahoma. Subject to the limitations imposed by the Constitution and applicable Federal law, the Pawnee Business Council shall exercise all the inherent, statutory, and treaty powers of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma by the enactment of legislation, the transaction of business, and by otherwise speaking or acting on behalf of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma on all matters which the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma is empowered to act, including the authority to hire legal counsel to represent the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma.

Current Pawnee Business Council (as of July, 2023)
 Misty Nuttle, President
 Jordan D. Kanuho, Vice President
 Carol Chapman, Treasurer
 George Gardipe, Secretary
 Council Seat #1 Cynthia Butler
 Council Seat #2 Dawna Hare
 Council Seat #3 Dr. Gene Evans
 Council Seat #4 Sammye Kemble

Adult Pawnee citizens elect new council members. The nation holds elections every two years on the first Saturday in May.

Economic development
The Pawnee operate two casinos, three smoke shops, two fuel stations, and one truck stop. Their estimated economic impact for 2010 was $10.5 million. Increased revenues from the casinos have helped them provide for education and welfare of their citizens. They issue their own tribal vehicle tags and operate their housing authority.

Culture
The Pawnee were divided into two large groups: the Skidi / Skiri-Federation living in the north and the South Bands, which were further divided into several villages. While the Skidi / Skiri Federation were the most populous group of Pawnee, the Cawi / Chaui Band of the South Bands were generally the politically leading group, although each band was autonomous. As was typical of many Native American tribes, each band saw to its own. In response to pressures from the Spanish, French, and Americans, as well as neighboring tribes, the Pawnee began to draw closer together.

Bands

South Bands called Tuhaáwit ("East Village People") by the Skidi-Federation
 Cáwiiʾi (S.B. dialect), Cawií (Sk. dialect), variants: Cawi, Chaui, Chawi, or Tsawi ('People in the Middle', also called "Grand Pawnee")
 Kítkehahki (S.B. dialect), Kítkahaahki (Sk. dialect), variants: Kitkahaki,Kitkehahki, or Kitkehaxki ('Little Muddy Bottom Village', 'Little Earth Lodge Village', often called "Republican Pawnee")
 Kitkehahkisúraariksisuʾ (S.B. dialect) or Kítkahaahkisuraariksisuʾ (Sk. dialect) (Kitkahahki band proper, literally 'real Kitkahahki' – the larger of two late 19th century divisions of the Kitkahahki band)
 Kitkehahkiripacki (S.B. dialect) or Kítkahaahkiripacki (Sk. dialect) (literally 'Little Kitkahahki' – a small Kitkahahki group that split off from the main band)
 Piitahawiraata (S.B. dialect), Piítahaawìraata (Sk. dialect), variants: Pitahawirata or Pitahauirata ('People Downstream', 'Man-Going-East', derived from Pita – 'Man' and Rata – 'screaming', the French called them "Tapage Pawnee" – 'Screaming, Howling Pawnee', later English-speaking Americans "Noisy Pawnee")
 Piitahawiraata, Piítahaawìraata, Pitahaureat, Pitahawirata, (Pitahaureat proper, leading group)
 Kawarakis (derived from the Arikara language Kawarusha - 'Horse' and Pawnee language Kish - 'People', some Pawnee argued that the Kawarakis spoke like the Arikara living to the north, so perhaps they belonged to the refugees (1794–1795) from Lakota aggression, who joined their Caddo kin living south)

Skidi-Federation or Skiri  the northernmost band; called themselves Ckírihki Kuuruúriki ("Look like wolves People") and were known by the South Bands as Ckiíri ("Wolf People") (both names derived from Ckirir /Tski'ki – "Wolf" or Tskirirara – "Wolf-in-Water", therefore called Loups, ("Wolves") by the French and Wolf Pawnee by English-speaking Americans),
 Turikaku ('Center Village')
 Kitkehaxpakuxtu ('Old Village' or 'Old-Earth-Lodge-Village')
 Tuhitspiat or Tuhricpiiʾat (S.B. dialect) ('Village-Stretching-Out-in-the-Bottomlands', 'Village Across Bottomland', 'Village In The Bottoms')
 Tukitskita ('Village-on-Branch-of-a-River')
 Tuhawukasa ('Village-across-a-Ridge' or 'Village-Stretching-across-a-Hill')

 Arikararikutsu ('Big-Antlered-Elk-Standing')
 Arikarariki ('Small-Antlered-Elk-Standing')
 Tuhutsaku ('Village-in-a-Ravine')
 Tuwarakaku ('Village-in-Thick-Timber')
 Akapaxtsawa ('Buffalo-Skull-Painted-on-Tipi')
 Tskisarikus ('Fish-Hawk')
 Tstikskaatit ('Black-Ear-of-Corn,' i.e.'Corn-black')
 Turawiu (was only part of a village)
 Pahukstatu (S.B. dialect) or Páhukstaatuʾ (Sk. dialect) ('Pumpkin-Vine Village' or 'Squash-Vine Village', did not join the Skidi and remained politically independent, but in general were counted as Skidi)
 Tskirirara ('Wolf-in-Water', although the Skidi-Federation got its name from them, they remained politically independent, but were counted within the Pawnee as Skidi)
 Panismaha (also Panimaha, by the 1770s this group of the Skidi Pawnee had broken off and moved toward Texas, where they allied with the Taovaya, the Tonkawa, Yojuane and other Texas tribes)

Villages

Historically, the Pawnee led a lifestyle combining village life and seasonal hunting, which had long been established on the Plains. Archeology studies of ancient sites have demonstrated the people lived in this pattern for nearly 700 years, since about 1250 CE.

The Pawnee generally settled close to the rivers and placed their lodges on the higher banks. They built earth lodges that by historical times tended to be oval in shape; at earlier stages, they were rectangular. They constructed the frame, made of 10–15 posts set some  apart, which outlined the central room of the lodge. Lodge size varied based on the number of poles placed in the center of the structure. Most lodges had 4, 8, or 12 center-poles. A common feature in Pawnee lodges were four painted poles, which represented the four cardinal directions and the four major star gods (not to be confused with the Creator). A second outer ring of poles outlined the outer circumference of the lodge. Horizontal beams linked the posts together.

The frame was covered first with smaller poles, tied with willow withes. The structure was covered with thatch, then earth. A hole left in the center of the covering served as a combined chimney / smoke vent and skylight. The door of each lodge was placed to the east and the rising sun. A long, low passageway, which helped keep out outside weather, led to an entry room that had an interior buffalo-skin door on a hinge. It could be closed at night and wedged shut. Opposite the door, on the west side of the central room, a buffalo skull with horns was displayed. This was considered great medicine.

Mats were hung on the perimeter of the main room to shield small rooms in the outer ring, which served as sleeping and private spaces. The lodge was semi-subterranean, as the Pawnee recessed the base by digging it approximately  below ground level, thereby insulating the interior from extreme temperatures. Lodges were strong enough to support adults, who routinely sat on them, and the children who played on the top of the structures. (See photo above.)

As many as 30–50 people might live in each lodge, and they were usually of related families. A village could consist of as many as 300–500 people and 10–15 households. Each lodge was divided in two (the north and south), and each section had a head who oversaw the daily business. Each section was further subdivided into three duplicate areas, with tasks and responsibilities related to the ages of women and girls, as described below. The membership of the lodge was quite flexible.

The tribe went on buffalo hunts in summer and winter. Upon their return, the inhabitants of a lodge would often move into another lodge, although they generally remained within the village. Men's lives were more transient than those of women. They had obligations of support for the wife (and family they married into), but could always go back to their mother and sisters for a night or two of attention. When young couples married, they lived with the woman's family in a matrilocal pattern.

Political structure
The Pawnee are a matrilineal people. Ancestral descent is traced through the mother, and children are considered born into the mother's clan and are part of her people. In the past, a young couple moved into the bride's parents' lodge. People work together in collaborative ways, marked by both independence and cooperation, without coercion. Both women and men are active in political life, with independent decision-making responsibilities.

Within the lodge, each north–south section had areas marked by activities of the three classes of women:
Mature women (usually married and mothers), who did most of the labor;
Young single women, just learning their responsibilities; and
Older women, who looked after the young children.

Among the collection of lodges, the political designations for men were essentially between:
the Warrior Clique; and
the Hunting Clique.

Women tended to be responsible for decisions about resource allocation, trade, and inter-lodge social negotiations. Men were responsible for decisions which pertained to hunting, war, and spiritual/health issues.

Women tended to remain within a single lodge, while men would typically move between lodges. They took multiple sexual partners in serially monogamous relationships.

Agriculture
The Pawnee women are skilled horticulturalists and cooks, cultivating and processing ten varieties of corn, seven of pumpkins and squashes, and eight of beans.
 They planted their crops along the fertile river bottomlands. These crops provided a wide variety of nutrients and complemented each other in making whole proteins. In addition to varieties of flint corn and flour corn for consumption, the women planted an archaic breed which they called "Wonderful" or "Holy Corn", specifically to be included in the sacred bundles.

The holy corn was cultivated and harvested to replace corn in the sacred bundles prepared for the major seasons of winter and summer. Seeds were taken from sacred bundles for the spring planting ritual. The cycle of corn determined the annual agricultural cycle, as it was the first to be planted and first to be harvested (with accompanying ceremonies involving priests and men of the tribe as well.)

In keeping with their cosmology, the Pawnee classify the varieties of corn by color: black, spotted, white, yellow, and red (which, excluding spotted, related to the colors associated with the four semi-cardinal directions). The women kept the different strains separate as they cultivated the corn. While important in agriculture, squash and beans were not given the same theological meaning as corn.

In 2005, the last 25 remaining seeds of the Pawnee Eagle Corn variety were successfully sprouted. The unique taste of Eagle Corn is described as being similar to almonds with cream. In November 2010, a traditional Pawnee ceremony with Eagle Corn soup was held in Oklahoma. According to True West Magazine, Eagle Corn soup had not been available for ceremonies for 125 years.

Hunting

After they obtained horses, the Pawnee adapted their culture and expanded their buffalo hunting seasons. With horses providing a greater range, the people traveled in both summer and winter westward to the Great Plains for buffalo hunting. They often traveled  or more in a season. In summer the march began at dawn or before, but usually did not last the entire day.

Once buffalo were located, hunting did not begin until the tribal priests considered the time propitious. The hunt began by the men stealthily advancing together toward the buffalo, but no one could kill any buffalo until the warriors of the tribe gave the signal, in order not to startle the animals before the hunters could get in position for the attack on the herd. Anyone who broke ranks could be severely beaten. During the chase, the hunters guided their ponies with their knees and wielded bows and arrows. They could incapacitate buffalo with a single arrow shot into the flank between the lower ribs and the hip. The animal would soon lie down and perhaps bleed out, or the hunters would finish it off. An individual hunter might shoot as many as five buffalo in this way before backtracking and finishing them off. They preferred to kill cows and young bulls, as the taste of older bulls was disagreeable.

After successful kills, the women processed the bison meat, skin and bones for various uses: the flesh was sliced into strips and dried on poles over slow fires before being stored. Prepared in this way, it was usable for several months. Although the Pawnee preferred buffalo, they also hunted other game, including elk, bear, panther, and skunk, for meat and skins. The skins were used for clothing and accessories, storage bags, foot coverings, fastening ropes and ties, etc.

The people returned to their villages to harvest crops when the corn was ripe in late summer, or in the spring when the grass became green and they could plant a new cycle of crops. Summer hunts extended from late June to about the first of September; but might end early if hunting was successful. Sometimes the hunt was limited to what is now western Nebraska. Winter hunts were from late October until early April and were often to the southwest into what is now western Kansas.

Religion

Like many other Native American tribes, the Pawnee had a cosmology with elements of all of nature represented in it. They based many rituals in the four cardinal directions. Pawnee priests conducted ceremonies based on the sacred bundles that included various materials, such as an ear of sacred corn, with great symbolic value. These were used in many religious ceremonies to maintain the balance of nature and the Pawnee relationship with the gods and spirits. In the 1890s, already in Oklahoma, the people participated in the Ghost Dance movement.

The Pawnee believed that the Morning Star and Evening Star gave birth to the first Pawnee woman. The first Pawnee man was the offspring of the union of the Moon and the Sun. As they believed they were descendants of the stars, cosmology had a central role in daily and spiritual life. They planted their crops according to the position of the stars, which related to the appropriate time of season for planting. Like many tribal bands, they sacrificed maize and other crops to the stars.

Morning Star ritual
The Skidi Pawnees in Village Across a Hill practiced human sacrifice, specifically of captive girls, in the "Morning Star ritual". They continued this practice regularly through the 1810s and possibly after 1838 – the last reported sacrifice. They believed the longstanding rite ensured the fertility of the soil and success of the crops, as well as renewal of all life in spring and triumphs on the battlefields. The sacrifice was related to the belief that the first human being was a girl, born of the mating of the Morning Star, the male figure of light, and the unwilling Evening Star, a female figure of darkness, in their creation story.

The ritual stood outside the organization of the ceremonial year and was not necessarily an annual occurrence. The commencement of the ceremony required that a man had been commanded to sponsor it while asleep. Typically, a warrior would dream of the Morning Star, usually in the autumn, which meant it was time to prepare for the various steps of the ritual. The visionary would consult with the Morning Star priest, who helped him prepare for his journey to find a sacrifice. During the initial meeting both would cry and cry, because they knew the missions forced upon them by divine demand were wrong to carry out. With help from others, the warrior would capture a young unmarried girl from an enemy tribe. The Pawnee kept the girl and cared for her over the winter, taking her with them as they made their buffalo hunt. They arranged her sacrifice in the spring, in relation to the rising of the Morning Star. She was well treated and fed throughout this period.

When the morning star (either the planet Mars, Jupiter, or some times Venus) rose ringed with red, the priest knew it was the signal for the sacrifice. He directed the men to carry out the rest of the ritual, including the construction of a scaffold outside the village. It was made of sacred woods and leathers from different animals, each of which had important symbolism. It was erected over a pit with elements corresponding to the four cardinal directions. All the elements of the ritual related to symbolic meaning and belief, and were necessary for the renewal of life. The preparations took four days.

Most of the actual ceremony took place in the earth lodge of the visionary, since the Pawnee villages did not have a special ceremonial lodge. Bystanders outside dug holes in the wall and tore the roof apart to follow the elaborate ceremony. A procession of all the men and boys – even male infants carried among the men – accompanied the girl out of the village to the scaffold. Together they awaited the morning star. When the star was due to rise, the girl was placed and tied on the scaffold. At the moment the star appeared above the horizon, the girl was shot with an arrow from a sacred bow, then the priest cut the skin of her chest to increase bleeding. She was shot quickly with arrows by all the participating men and boys to hasten her death. The girl was carried to the east and placed face down so her blood would soak into the earth, with appropriate prayers for the crops and life she would bring to all life on the prairie.

About 1820–1821, news of these sacrifices reached the East Coast; it caused a sensation among European Americans. Before this, US Indian agents had counseled Pawnee chiefs to suppress the practice, as they warned of how it would upset the American settlers, who were arriving in ever greater number. Superintendent William Clark in St. Louis had pointed out the government's view on the ceremony to a visiting Pawnee delegation already in 1811. Slowly, a Skidi faction that opposed the old rite developed. Two Skidi leaders, Knife Chief and his young relative Petalesharo, spearheaded the reformist movement. Knife Chief ransomed at least two captives before a sacrifice. Petalesharo cut loose a Comanche captive from the scaffold in 1817 and carried her to safety. For this, he received lasting fame among the whites. Indian agent John Dougherty and a number of influential Pawnees tried in vain to save the life of a captive Cheyenne girl on 11 April 1827. For any individual, it was extremely difficult to try to change a practice tied so closely to Pawnee belief in the renewal of life for the tribe. In June 1818, the Missouri Gazette of St. Louis contained the account of a sacrifice. The last known sacrifice was of Haxti, a 14-year-old Oglala Lakota girl, on 22 April 1838.

Writing in the 1960s, the historian Gene Weltfish drew from earlier work of Wissler and Spinden to suggest that the sacrificial practice might have been transferred in the early 16th century from the Aztec of present-day Mexico. More recent historians have disputed the proposed connection to Mesoamerican practice: They believe that the sacrifice ritual originated independently, within ancient, traditional Pawnee culture.

History

Before metal or horses
The ancestors of the Pawnees were speakers of Caddoan languages, who had developed a semi-sedentary neolithic lifestyle in valley-bottom lands on the Great Plains. Unlike other groups of the Great Plains, they had a stratified society with priests and hereditary chiefs. Their religion included cannibalism and human sacrifice.

At first contact, they were distributed widely through modern Oklahoma and Kansas, and they reached modern Nebraska about 1750. (Other Caddoan-speakers lived to the south, in modern Texas, forming a belt of related populations along the eastern edge of the Great Plains.)

Their unfortified villages of well-scattered grass lodges and earth lodges reflected an assumption that large raiding parties would not arrive without warning; their inhabitants could not rapidly co-ordinate defense against a large party of enemies. The Pawnees, with the Wichita and Arikara, were the only Caddoan groups to survive the era of iron, firearms, and horses, and they all did so by forming compact villages on high ground and surrounding them with ditch and wall defenses. Most of the year was spent in these well-insulated homes, but many would go on communal deer hunts several days' travel from their homes. Some would even hunt buffalo, though without horses this was difficult and dangerous.

The first written records of Caddoans comes from Coronado's entrada  in 1541. With cavalry, steel weapons, and guns he had forced his way through the Apaches, Pueblos, and other nations of the modern southeastern US, but they had no gold. Coronado's interpreter repeated rumours (or confirmed Coronado's fantasies) that gold was to be had elsewhere in a location named Quivira.

After more than thirty days journey, Coronado found a river larger than any he had seen before. This was the Arkansas, probably a few miles east of present-day Dodge City, Kansas. The Spaniards and their Indian allies followed the Arkansas northeast for three days and found Quivirans hunting buffalo. The Indians greeted the Spanish with wonderment and fear, but calmed down when one of Coronado's guides addressed them in their own language.

Coronado reached Quivira itself after a few more days of traveling. He found Quivira "well settled ... along good river bottoms, although without much water, and good streams which flow into another". Coronado believed that there were twenty-five settlements in Quivira. Both men and women Quivirans were nearly naked. Coronado was impressed with the size of the Quivirans and all the other Indians he met. They were "large people of very good build". Coronado spent twenty-five days among the Quivirans trying to learn of richer kingdoms just over the horizon. He found nothing but straw-thatched villages of up to two hundred houses and fields containing corn, beans, and squash. A copper pendant was the only evidence of wealth he discovered. The Quivirans were almost certainly Caddoans, and they built grass lodges as only the Wichita were still doing by 1898.

Coronado was escorted to the further edge of Quivira, called Tabas, where the neighboring land of Harahey began. He summoned the "Lord of Harahey" who, with two hundred followers, came to meet with the Spanish. He was disappointed in his hopes for riches. The Harahey Indians were "all naked – with bows, and some sort of things on their heads, and their privy parts slightly covered". Hyde identifies them as Awahis, the old Caddoan name for the Pawnees, possibly including the ancestors of the Skidis and the Arikara. Another group, the Guas, may have been known later as the Paniouace. These people put up ferocious resistance when Coronado started to plunder their villages.

In 1601, Juan de Oñate led another entrada in search of the wealth of Quivira. He met "Escansaques", probably Apaches, who tried to persuade him to plunder and destroy "Quiviran" villages.

Arrival of horses and metal weapons
About 1670 the Apaches of the Southern Plains obtained horses and metal weapons in sufficient quantity to make them the dread of all their neighbors. For some decades the Pawnees were the victims of intensive raiding by large bands of mounted Apaches with iron weapons, and also by war parties of Chickasaws and Choctaws from the east who had firearms as well. The Siouan groups that became Quapaws, Osages, Omahas, Poncas and Kansas also appeared on the Plains about this time, driven west by the expansion of the Iroquois, and they too raided the Pawnees. Archaeology indicates that pressure from hostile Apaches may have persuaded the Skidi Pawnees to move from their settlements on the Republican River to the upper Loup River in the course of the next century or so. Their settlement pattern also changed from little villages of small rectangular earth-lodges to more defensible larger, compact villages of larger, circular lodges, the Skidis uniting in this way about 1680 while their close relations the Arikaras established a separate identity.

Pawnees enslaved

In French Canada, Indian slaves were generally called Panis (anglicized to Pawnee), as most, during this period, had been captured from the Pawnee tribe or their relations. Pawnee became synonymous with "Indian slave" in general use in Canada, and a slave from any tribe came to be called Panis. As early as 1670, a reference was recorded to a Panis in Montreal. "In the middle of the 17th century the Pawnees were being savagely raided by eastern tribes that had obtained metal weapons from the French, which gave them a terrible advantage over Indians who had only weapons of wood, flint, and bone. The raiders carried off such great numbers of Pawnees into slavery, that in the country on and east of the upper Mississippi the name Pani developed a new meaning: slave. The French adopted this meaning, and Indian slaves, no matter from which tribe they had been taken, were presently being termed Panis. It was at this period, after the middle of the 17th century, that the name was introduced into New Mexico in the form Panana by bands of mounted Apaches who brought large numbers of Pawnee slaves to trade to the Spaniards and Pueblo Indians." George E. Hyde, The Pawnee Indians :24Raiders primarily targeted women and children, to be sold as slaves. In 1694, Apaches brought a large number of captive children to the trading fair in New Mexico, but for some reason, there were not enough buyers, so the Apaches beheaded all their slaves in full view of the Spaniards.

By 1757 Louis Antoine de Bougainville considered that the Panis nation "plays ... the same role in America that the Negroes do in Europe." The historian Marcel Trudel documented that close to 2,000 "panis" slaves lived in Canada until the abolition of slavery in the colony in 1833. Indian slaves comprised close to half of the known slaves in French Canada (also called Lower Canada).

Pawnees acquire metal and horses

By 1719 when de la Harpe led an expedition to Caddoan lands at the mouth of the Arkansas River, the Pawnees had also acquired horses and metal weapons from French traders, and they were attacking Apaches in turn, destroying their villages and carrying off Apache women and children. In 1720, Boisbriant reported that the Paniassas or Black Pawnees had recently captured a hundred Apaches, whom they were burning, a few each day. de la Harpe planned to establish French trading posts at the mouth of the Canadian River and elsewhere in Caddoan territory, but this was not done and the Pawnee remained dependent on infrequent and casual traders, while their enemies – the Osages – benefited from a regular trade.

In 1720, Spanish colonists sent the Villasur expedition try to turn the Pawnees away from their French connections (which had been greatly magnified in Spanish imagination). Guided mainly by Apaches and led by an officer lacking experience with Indians, the expedition approached the Skidi Pawnee villages along the outflow of the Loup River into the Platte River in modern Nebraska. The expedition sent their only Pawnee slave to make contact; he did not obtain any welcome for the Spanish party and he failed to return to the Spanish camp. The Pawnees attacked at dawn, shooting heavy musketry fire and flights of arrows, then charging into combat clad only in paint, headband, moccasins and short leggings. Villasur, 45 other Spaniards, and 11 Pueblos were killed, and the survivors fled. In 1721, pressure on the Pawnees was increased by the establishment of a colony in Arkansas by John Law's Mississippi Company; this settlement too formed a market for Indian (mostly Caddoan) slaves and a convenient source of weapons for the Osages and their relations.

The French responded by sending Bourgmont to make peace (in the French interest) between the Pawnees and their enemies in 1724. He reported that the Pawnee were a strong tribe and good horsemen, but, located at the far end of every trade route for European goods, were unfamiliar with Europeans and were treated like country bumpkins by their southern relatives. The mutual hatred between Pawnees and Apaches was so great that both sides were cooking and eating many of their captives. Bourgmont's "peace" had little effect.

In 1739 the Mallet brothers visited the Skidi Pawnee. In 1750 the Skidis were reported to be ruled by a grand chief who had 900 warriors.

From about 1760, smallpox epidemics broke out on the Great Plains, reducing the Skidi from eight large villages in 1725 to one by 1800.

Increasing contact with English-speakers, ongoing tribal warfare

A Pawnee tribal delegation visited President Thomas Jefferson. In 1806 Lieutenant Zebulon Pike, Major G. C. Sibley, Major S. H. Long, among others, began visiting the Pawnee villages. Under pressure from Siouan tribes and European-American settlers, the Pawnee ceded territory to the United States government in treaties in 1818, 1825, 1833, 1848, 1857, and 1892. In 1857, they settled on the Pawnee Reservation along the Loup River in present-day Nance County, Nebraska, but maintained their traditional way of life. They were subjected to continual raids by Lakota from the north and west.

 Until the 1830s, the Pawnee in what became United States territory were relatively isolated from interaction with Europeans. As a result, they were not exposed to Eurasian infectious diseases, such as measles, smallpox, and cholera, to which Native Americans had no immunity. In the 19th century, however, they were pressed by Siouan groups encroaching from the east, who also brought diseases. Epidemics of smallpox and cholera, and endemic warfare with the Sioux and Cheyenne caused dramatic mortality losses among the Pawnee. From an estimated population of 12,000 in the 1830s, they were reduced to 3,400 by 1859, when they were forcibly constrained to a reservation in modern-day Nance County, Nebraska.

The Pawnee won a "hard fought" defensive battle around 1830, when they defeated the whole Cheyenne tribe. A Pitahawirata Pawnee captured one of the most sacred tribal bundles of the Cheyenne, the Sacred Arrows, and Skidi Chief Big Eagle secured it quickly. The Cheyennes stopped fighting at once and returned to their own country.

The Pawnees in the village of Chief Blue Coat suffered a severe defeat on 27 June 1843. A force of Lakotas attacked the village, killed more than 65 inhabitants and burned 20 earth lodges.

In 1852, a combined Indian force of Cheyennes and invited Kiowa and Kiowa Apaches attacked a Pawnee camp in Kansas during the summer hunt. First when a Pawnee shot a very reckless Cheyenne with an arrow in the eye, it was discovered he wore a hidden scale mailed armor under his shirt. The killing of this notable Cheyenne affected the Cheyennes to the point, that they carried their Sacred Arrows against the Pawnee the following summer in an all-out war.

Warriors enlisted as Pawnee Scouts in the latter half of the 19th century in the United States Army. Like other groups of Native American scouts, Pawnee warriors were recruited in large numbers to fight on the Northern and Southern Plains in various conflicts against hostile Native Americans. Because the Pawnee people were old enemies of the Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche, and Kiowa tribes, they served with the army for 14 years between 1864 and 1877, earning a reputation as being a well-trained unit, especially in tracking and reconnaissance. The Pawnee Scouts took part with distinction in the Battle of the Tongue River during the Powder River Expedition (1865) against Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho and in the Battle of Summit Springs. They also fought with the US in the Great Sioux War of 1876. On the Southern Plains, they fought against their old enemies, the Comanches and Kiowa, in the Comanche Campaign.

Relocation and reservation

As noted above, the Pawnee were subjected to continual raids by Lakota from the north and west. On one such raid, 5 August 1873, a Sioux war party of over 1,000 warriors ambushed a Pawnee hunting party of 350 men, women, and children. The Pawnee had gained permission to leave the reservation and hunt buffalo. About 70 Pawnee were killed in this attack, which occurred in a canyon in present-day Hitchcock County. The site is known as Massacre Canyon. Because of the ongoing hostilities with the Sioux and encroachment from American settlers to the south and east, the Pawnee decided to leave their Nebraska reservation in the 1870s and settle on a new reservation in Indian Territory, located in what is today Oklahoma.

In 1874, the Pawnee requested relocation to Indian Territory (Oklahoma), but the stress of the move, diseases, and poor conditions on their reservation reduced their numbers even more. During this time, outlaws often smuggled whiskey to the Pawnee. The teenaged female bandits Little Britches and Cattle Annie were imprisoned for this crime.

In 1875 most members of the nation moved to Indian Territory, a large area reserved to receive tribes displaced from east of the Mississippi River and elsewhere. The warriors resisted the loss of their freedom and culture, but gradually adapted to reservations. On 23 November 1892, the Pawnee in Oklahoma were forced by the US federal government to sign an agreement with the Cherokee Commission to accept individual allotments of land in a breakup of their communal holding.

By 1900, the Pawnee population was recorded by the US Census as 633. Since then the tribe has begun to recover in numbers.

Recent history

In 1906, in preparation for statehood of Oklahoma, the US government dismantled the Pawnee tribal government and civic institutions. The tribe reorganized under the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act of 1936 and established the Pawnee Business Council, the Nasharo (Chiefs) Council, and a tribal constitution, bylaws, and charter.

In the 1960s, the government settled a suit by the Pawnee Nation regarding their compensation for lands ceded to the US government in the 19th century. By an out-of-court settlement in 1964, the Pawnee Nation was awarded $7,316,097 for land ceded to the US and undervalued by the federal government in the previous century.

Bills such as the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 have allowed the Pawnee Nation to regain some of its self-government. The Pawnee continue to practice cultural traditions, meeting twice a year for the intertribal gathering with their kinsmen the Wichita Indians. They have an annual four-day Pawnee Homecoming for Pawnee veterans in July. Many Pawnee also return to their traditional lands to visit relatives and take part in scheduled powwows.

Notable Pawnee

 Big Spotted Horse, 19th-century warrior and raider
 John EchoHawk, lawyer and founder of the Native American Rights Fund, older cousin of Walter Echo-Hawk (below)
Larry Echo Hawk, Bureau of Indian Affairs Director He was elected Attorney General of Idaho (1991–1995)
 Marlene Riding In Mameah (1933–2018), jeweler, painter
 Old-Lady-Grieves-the-Enemy, 19th century female warrior
 Petalesharo, Skidi Pawnee chief who in 1817 rescued an Ietan Comanche girl from Pawnee ritual human sacrifice
 Anna Lee Walters (b. 1946), Otoe-Missouria-Pawnee author and educator
 Wicked Chief, visited President James Monroe in 1822 with a delegation of Native American dignitaries
 Moses J. "Chief" Yellow Horse, Major League Baseball player
 Bright Star, professional roller skater

See also
Pawnee mythology

References

Further reading

External links

  (See also: Gene Weltfish.)

Federally recognized tribes in the United States
Plains tribes
Caddoan peoples
Native American tribes in Oklahoma
Great Sioux War of 1876
Native American tribes in Kansas
Native American tribes in Nebraska
Native American tribes in Colorado

Pawnee people


A paraglider is a free-flying, foot-launched aircraft.
In mountain areas, pilots usually take off from great height to fly down to the valley. In flat areas, a winch is used to tow the paraglider to a height of up to 400 meters before it is released. It is also possible to soar on the coast in laminar sea breeze. Some more advanced pilots also launch from hot air balloons or helicopters.

Aircraft

Paraglider


Edwin Wilbur Rice Jr. (6 May 1862 in La Crosse, Wisconsin – 25 November 1935 in Schenectady, New York) was a president and considered one of the three fathers of General Electric (along with Elihu Thomson  and Charles A. Coffin).

Early life
He attended the Boys' Central High School in Philadelphia and was a student of Elihu Thomson. Rice graduated in 1880 and considered going to Yale but decided to join Thomson in New Britain, Connecticut, at the American Electric Company as Thomson's assistant at $30 a month.

Career
In 1883 he continued with Thomson, and moved from New Britain to Lynn, Massachusetts, to work for the newly formed Thomson-Houston Electric Company. There he worked on converting Thomson's inventions into manufactured products. In 1885 he became the factory superintendent when John Meech moved to Europe to head up Thomson-Houston International. Under Rice the Lynn factory grew from almost nothing in 1883 to an enterprise with $10 million in sales and 4,000 employees in 1892.  Primary products included arc light systems, electrical generators, dynamos, meters, transformers, and electric motors. By 1892 the primary products were electric trolley car systems and the company had built over 2700 electric trolley cars and 870 electric generator stations. The entire factory reported to Rice and in 1890 supervisors who reported to him included D. M. Barton - Production Manager, I. F. Baker - Mechanical Superintendent, G. E. Emmons - Factory Auditor, W. H. Knight - Chef Electrical Engineer, and A. I. Rohrer - Chef Assistant.

In 1892 General Electric Company was created after a merger with Edison General Electric. Rice was originally its technical director. He became, in 1896, vice president in charge of manufacturing and engineering, and eventually senior vice president. In 1913 he was chosen president of the company replacing Charles A. Coffin who moved on to be the chairman of the board of GE. When Rice retired in 1922 was made honorary chairman of the board.

Rice was elected president in 1917 of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE). He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1928.

In 1931 the AIEE awarded him the Edison Medal "For his contributions to the development of electrical systems and his encouragement of scientific research in industry."

References

 Hammond, John Winthrop. Men and Volts, the Story of General Electric, publishecd 1941. Citations: personal interest in young experts - 166, steam turbine interest - 275; work on Niagara power plant plans 235; superintendent at Lynn - 87; Thomson-Houston organization plan 102; Technical Director of GE 197; VP in charge of Engineering and Manufacturing 247; President of GE 349; Honorary Chairman of the Board 382.
 Carlson, W. Bernard. Innovation as Social Progress, Elihu Thomson and the Rise of General Electric, 1870-1900, published 1991, Cambridge University Press.

External links
 IEEE Legacies Bio
Hall of History

1862 births
1935 deaths
People from La Crosse, Wisconsin
American electrical engineers
IEEE Edison Medal recipients
General Electric people
Members of the American Philosophical Society

Edwin W. Rice


Ferdinand Maria, Elector of Bavaria (31 October 1636 – 26 May 1679) was a Wittelsbach ruler of Bavaria and an elector (Kurfürst) of the Holy Roman Empire from 1651 to 1679.

Biography

He was born in Munich and was the eldest son of Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria and Maria Anna of Austria a daughter of Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor.

On 8 December 1650 he married Henriette Adelaide of Savoy, daughter of Victor Amadeus I of Savoy and Christine Marie of France. The couple had seven children.

Still a minor he succeeded his father in 1651, his mother and his uncle Albert VI of Bavaria served as regents of Bavaria for three years.

Ferdinand Maria was crowned on 31 October 1654. He was an absolute monarch. He allied with France. Ferdinand Maria supported the wars of the Habsburgs against the Ottoman Empire with Bavarian forces (1662-1664). During the Franco-Dutch War since 1672 Bavaria became neutral. The marriage of his eldest daughter Maria Anna and her cousin Louis, Grand Dauphin in 1680 cemented the alliance with France. Ferdinand Maria modernised the army and introduced the first Bavarian local government code. He made Bavaria a rich nation.

He died in Schleissheim Palace and was succeeded by his son Maximilian II Emanuel. He is buried at the Theatiner Church.

Issue

 Maria Anna Victoria of Bavaria (28 November 1660 – 20 April 1690) married Louis, Grand Dauphin and had issue; King Juan Carlos I of Spain descends from her.
 Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria (11 July 1662 – 26 February 1726), next Elector of Bavaria; married Maria Antonia of Austria and had issue; married Theresa Kunegunda Sobieska and had issue.
 Luise Margarete Antonie of Bavaria.
 Ludwig Amadeus Victor of Bavaria.
 Kajetan Maria Franz of Bavaria.
 Joseph Clemens of Bavaria (5 December 1671 – 12 November 1723) Elector and Archbishop of Cologne.
 Violante Beatrice of Bavaria (3 April 1673 – 3 June 1731) married Ferdinando de' Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany.

1636 births
1679 deaths

People from Munich
German Roman Catholics
Dukes and duchesses
House of Wittelsbach
Electors and Electresses

Ferdinand Maria, Elector of Bavaria


Kaleva or Kalevi and his sons are people or creatures in Finnish, Karelian and Estonian stories. However many things about them are forgotten.

History

Estonian history
The name of Estonian national Epos Kalevipoeg means "Sons of Kalevi" and the name of Finnish national epos Kalevala means "Land of Kaleva".

In Estonian stories sons of Kaleva are sons of King.

Finnish history
Finnish people called Sirius Kalevantähti which means "Star of Kaleva". Belt of Orion was called Kalevas sword.

In Finnish stories they are more often giants. People told that some things in nature, like big or weird stones, are made by Kalevas sons. Stories tells that while people became Christians, they started to hate Kaleva's sons who remained pagans. Soon Kaleva's sons had to go away. All the time Christian people took more land, Kaleva's sons had to go farther away. At one island they staid and did not want to leave. Priests came and they cursed Kaleva's sons until they took a big stone and sailed with it away. They have not been seen since that, but sometimes they come at night and hits crop or even forest down.

Other creatures
Almost the same thing happened to Hiisi people who resembles trolls. Christian humans made them to flee also.

Finnish mythology

Kaleva


Martin Paul Bicknell (born 14 January 1969) is a former English cricketer. He played in four Test matches, with the last two, against South Africa in 2003, coming ten years after the first two in the 1993 Ashes series. England had played 114 matches between his appearances, a record. He was considered most unlucky to be constantly overlooked for selection in home Test matches when constantly proving himself a prolific wicket taker in county cricket.

He was a very effective medium-fast swing and seam bowler who reached one thousand first-class wickets for his county, Surrey, in 2005, having achieved the milestone in all first-class matches the previous year. In 2000 he had match figures of 16-119 for Surrey against Leicestershire at Guildford, the second best match figures ever returned for the county. His figures in the second innings were 9-47. His best innings figures were 9-45, against Cambridge University at The Oval in 1988.

He was also an increasingly useful tail-end batsman, verging on all-rounder status, with three first-class centuries to his name and an average of 24.87.

His brother Darren Bicknell was a sound county batsman formerly with Surrey and finishing his career with Nottinghamshire.

Bicknell lives in Churt, Farnham, He is married to Sarah, and has four children: Ellie, Charlotte, Mia-May and Millie-Coco.

Bicknell was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 2001.

He made his first-class debut in 1986. Having initially intended to cease playing at the end of the 2006 season, he was struck by a series of niggling injuries which forced him to announce an earlier retirement from first-class cricket on 9 August 2006, moving on to take up a post at Charterhouse School as the Master in Charge of Cricket.

His autobiography, Bickers. was published in 2008.

References

External links

1969 births
Living people
England One Day International cricketers
England Test cricketers
English cricketers
Cricketers from Guildford
Surrey cricketers
Wisden Cricketers of the Year
Test and County Cricket Board Under-25s XI cricketers
First-Class Counties Select XI cricketers

Martin Bicknell


In music, a pentatonic scale is a scale with five notes in each octave. Pentatonic scales are very common and are found in folk music from all over the world.

Any scale using five notes is "pentatonic" ("penta" is Greek for "five"). However, the pentatonic scale which is used in most Western music uses notes which do not have any semitones. A pentatonic scale starting on C will use the notes C,D,E,G,A (the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th notes of a major scale).. An easy way to find such a pentatonic scale is by using all the black notes of a keyboard.

Using the pentatonic scale is a good way for children to make up their own tunes. It does not matter too much which note is used for the start and the finish, because there is no feeling of a clear key. The notes always sound good when played together.

Many folk songs are pentatonic, or nearly pentatonic. Well-known songs such as "Land of the Silver Birch" or "Auld Lang Syne" are pentatonic tunes.

Classical composers have sometimes used pentatonic scales, especially Claude Debussy. His piano piece La fille aux cheveux de lin has a tune which is pentatonic except for one note. Maurice Ravel used it to write music which sounded Chinese, and in his Mother Goose suite (Ma Mère l'Oye) which sounds like a fairy tale.

The pentatonic scales used in Indonesian gamelan music are called slendro and pelog.

pentatonic song:
sing out your melody
sing out your song
sing a pentatonic scale
starting on lah
lah
doh
ray
meh
soh
lah!

Difficult words: Octave - An octave is the distance between two musical notes that have the same letter name.

Folk music - Folk music includes both traditional music and the genre that evolved from it during the 20th century folk revival. The term originated in the 19th century but is often applied to music that is older than that. Some types of folk music are also called world music.

Semitones - A semitone, also called a half step or a half tone, is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically. It is defined as the interval between two adjacent notes in a 12-tone scale (e.g. from C to C♯). This implies that its size is exactly or approximately equal to 100 cents, a twelfth of an octave.

Major scale - The major scale or Ionian scale is one of the most commonly used musical scales, especially in Western music. It is one of the diatonic scales. Like many musical scales it is made up of seven notes: the eighth duplicates the first at double its frequency so that it is called a higher octave of the same note (from Latin "octavus", the eighth).

Music theory

Pentatonic scale


Samuel Cornelius Phillips (January 5, 1923 – July 30, 2003), better known as Sam Phillips, was an American businessman, record executive, record producer and DJ.  He played an important role in the rock and roll world in the 1950s. He was a producer, label owner, and talent scout throughout the 1940s and 1950s.

He was the founder of both Sun Studios and Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee.  He was most successful in the launching of Elvis Presley's career in 1954.

Other websites
Sun Studio official website
Interview with Sam Phillips
Rock Hall of Fame
Elvis Presley at Sun Studio

1923 births
2003 deaths
American record producers

Sam Phillips


is a tile-matching puzzle video game released for the Windows and MS-DOS in 1994. It was created by Steve Fry for the Japanese company ZOO Corporation and published by Spectrum HoloByte, for the North American market.

The game would later be re-released on a number of different platforms. In the same year the game was ported for the Super NES and the original Game Boy. These two versions were developed by different companies and published by Spectrum HoloByte in North America. A year later, Shoeisha ported/published the game in Japan for the Sega Saturn and PlayStation.

Gameplay
In the game, the player must move the cursor amongst a grid of different colored squares. All squares must be "removed", and squares can only be removed if they are directly touching two or more squares of the same color. Once squares are removed, blocks then shift downward and either to the left or right, to fill in the blanks. The game ends when either all blocks are removed, or time has run out.

If the player comes to a point in which none of the remaining square match, a few options remain. A few "special items" help clear out blocks that do not necessarily match, such as an airplane block that eliminates a full line of square in the direction it is pointed in, or a block of dynamite that blows up every square touching it. Additionally, the player can also choose to drop new, randomly generated squares into the equation.

Development
The game is commonly attributed to being designed by Alexey Pajitnov, who also originally designed Tetris, and published by Spectrum HoloByte, the company who first published Tetris outside of Soviet Union, Pajitnov's home country. However, despite Pajitnov's name and face being on the game's title screen and box art, the PC version of the game clearly states that he only "endorses" and his only actual credits for the game is a "Special Thanks".<ref>BreakThru! -  Back Game Cover, PC Version,: "BreakThru carries on the challenging and addicting tradition of Tetris and I am proud to endorse this product. I hope you enjoy playing it as much as I do. - Alexey Pajitnov, Mathematician and Puzzle Game Designer</ref> It is a reworked version of a game called TheWALL that was also created by ZOO Corporation in 1994 and published by Arrow Micro-Techs Corp.

After being released for the MS-DOS and Super NES, the game was later ported to the original Game Boy. Because the game's original concept is so heavily based on matching same colored squares, the squares in this version of the game have different patterns within them to distinguish between different square types. Another version of the game, identical to the Super NES version, was made playable on the Genesis exclusively through the Sega Channel subscription service, which allowed subscribers to temporarily download games to their Genesis system for as long as the system was left on. Additionally, ports for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn were released exclusively in Japan. A version for Game Gear was planned but never released.

Reception
Reception for the game was generally mixed. Reviewing the Game Boy version, GamePro praised a few aspects, such as the ability to reverse approaching blocks, but felt that the "eye-straining graphics" severely hamper the gameplay: "While Tetris has simple, easy-to-see shapes that fall individually, BreakThru! has a complex wall of tiny, hard-to-see bricks with special bricks and bombs that are sometimes difficult to identify." However, they commented that this problem is considerably alleviated when playing on the Super Game Boy. They gave a more positive review of the SNES version. Though they criticized some aspects of the graphics, they applauded the game's simple-to-learn yet strategically deep gameplay and variety of modes. Reviewing the SNES version, a Next Generation critic said it was "OK" but too derivative of Tetris to be of real interest. He remarked that the use of special objects complicates the gameplay without truly adding to it, and gave the game two out of five stars.

In a retrospective review of the SNES version, Honest Gamers'' appreciated the initial concept of the game, but criticized how it frequently degrades into slow and frustrating gameplay once none of the remaining squares match each other. Allgame stated that while the graphics and sound effects were "less than dazzling", the gameplay was praised, stating that it had "...that special Pajitnov mix of simplicity and strategy that makes for a compelling, addictive experience."

Notes

References

External links
 BreakThru! at MobyGames
 Zoo Corporation official website

1994 video games
DOS games
Cancelled Game Gear games
Game Boy games
PlayStation (console) games
Puzzle video games
Realtime Associates games
Sega Saturn games
Super Nintendo Entertainment System games
Video games developed in Japan
Windows games
Zoo Corporation games
Multiplayer and single-player video games
Spectrum HoloByte games
Artech Studios games
Shōeisha games

BreakThru!


Diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) is a medical emergency that can happen in people with diabetes mellitus. DKA happens mostly in people with Type 1 diabetes, although it may happen in some people that have Type 2 diabetes.

DKA happens when a person does not have enough insulin in their body.  All of the cells in the body need glucose (sugar) to survive, because the body needs sugar to make energy.  Insulin breaks down glucose into a form that the body can use for energy.  Without insulin, sugar stays in the blood and cannot get into the cells.  This causes high blood sugar levels and makes it impossible for the cells to use glucose to make energy.

DKA can be caused by not having enough insulin, eating too many carbohydrates, and sometimes physical or mental stress.  DKA can also be a sign that a person has diabetes that has not been discovered, or is not being controlled well.

DKA is diagnosed through blood and urine testing.  These tests will show high blood sugar, which does not happen with other forms of ketoacidosis.

DKA was first discovered around 1886.  Before insulin therapy was first used in the 1920s, DKA almost always caused death.

Symptoms
Symptoms of DKA include:
 Nausea and vomiting
 dehydration
 The "3 polys" of DKA:
 Polydipsia (feeling very thirsty; this is caused by dehydration)
 Polyphagia (feeling very hungry; the brain realizes the body's cells are not getting enough sugar and triggers hunger, because normally eating would give the cells the sugar they need)
 Polyuria (urinating a lot; this is the body's way of trying to get rid of the extra glucose in the bloodstream)
 A "fruity" smell on the breath (acetone breath, caused by the body trying to blow off the acids and waste products created by DKA)
 Abdominal pain

As DKA gets worse, it can cause these symptoms:
 Confusion, which becomes worse and worse (because the brain is not getting enough sugar to work properly)
 Lethargy (feeling very tired), because the body is not able to make enough energy
 Eventually, the person will go into a coma because the brain does not have enough sugar to stay awake
 Kussmaul respirations (breathing that is deep, gasping, and difficult), because the body is trying to blow off extra acids

Without proper treatment, DKA can cause death.

How Does DKA Happen?
First, because there is not enough insulin to bring glucose into the cells, glucose builds up in the blood.  This causes there to be too much sugar in the blood and not enough in the cells.  The cells start starving, because they do not have insulin to break down glucose into a form that the cells can use for energy.

To try to create energy for the cells, the liver breaks down fat into fatty acids and ketones.  These create a little bit of energy, but they are also acidic.  The blood starts to get too acidic, and the body starts to get poisoned.

Because the cells still do not have enough glucose to create the energy they need, the liver also breaks down glycogen to make more glucose.  (The body stores sugar in different forms in case it needs energy later.  Glucagon helps break down some of these sugar stores into glucose.)  However, there is still not enough insulin in the blood to break down the glucose into energy.  Because of this, the glucose stays in the blood (making the blood sugar levels get even higher) and the cells keep starving.

Next, the body begins to break down protein.  (When the body cannot create enough energy by breaking down fat and glycogen into sugar, it breaks down protein.)  This causes the tissues in the body to lose nitrogen.

Now there is much more glucose in the bloodstream than in the cells.  The body always tries to stay in homeostasis.  In homeostasis, there would be an equal amount of sugar in the bloodstream and the cells.  To try to make this happen, the cells (which have very little sugar in them) give up water to the blood (which is very sugary).  The goal is to try to dilute the sugar in the blood, and decrease the high levels of hyperglycemia.  If the cells give up too much water, they can get dehydrated (not have enough fluid left in them).  Because DKA also causes a person to urinate often, a person with DKA can get dehydrated very quickly.  This dehydration can be a medical emergency.

The kidneys try to filter out the extra glucose in the bloodstream.  This causes glucosuria (too much sugar in the urine).  The extra glucose going through the kidneys causes more urine to be created.  When a person urinates more, they lose more electrolytes, like sodium and potassium.  Without enough electrolytes, the heart, muscles, and nerve cells cannot work properly.  Also, eventually, the kidneys can fail because they are overworked by the amount of glucose they are trying to filter.

Treatment
People with DKA need to be treated in a hospital.  Usually, treatment involves:
 Giving insulin.  Insulin reverses all of the changes in the body that cause DKA.  It brings sugar out of the bloodstream and into the cells.  Once the cells have enough insulin, they can break down glucose to get energy.
 Giving fluids.  Because people with DKA can get so dehydrated, they are usually given fluids.  Fluids may be given by mouth or through a needle placed in a vein.  The extra fluid helps dilute all the sugar in the bloodstream.  It also replaces the fluids that people with DKA lose by urinating so much.
 Giving electrolytes.  Not having enough insulin can lower the amount of electrolytes in the blood (see "How Does DKA Happen?").  To fix this, electrolytes can be given through a needle placed in a vein.

References

Diabetes mellitus

Diabetic ketoacidosis


Disneyland Resort is a recreational resort in Anaheim, California. The resort is owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Parks and Resorts division and is home to two theme parks, three hotels and a shopping, dining, and entertainment area.

The area now known as the Disneyland Resort was developed by Walt Disney in the 1950s and for over 40 years was known simply as Disneyland. When it opened to guests in 1955, the property consisted of Disneyland, its  parking lot, and a hotel known as the Disneyland Hotel, owned and operated by Disney's business partner Jack Wrather.

After doing well with the multi-park, multi-hotel business model at Walt Disney World in Florida, Disney decided to do the same thing in Anaheim and bought a lot of land next to Disneyland. This included buying the Disneyland Hotel from the Wrather company as well as the Pan Pacific Hotel from its Japanese owners. Disney renamed the Pan Pacific Hotel to the Disneyland Pacific Hotel. After its first publicly known proposal for a second theme park in Anaheim was scrapped, construction began in 1998 on a theme park called Disney's California Adventure Park; a hotel called Disney's Grand Californian Hotel, a renovation, renaming, and re-theming of the Disneyland Pacific Hotel; and an admission-free shopping and dining area called Downtown Disney. During the expansion, the name Disneyland Resort was coined to refer to the entire Disney complex, while Disneyland Park was coined to refer to the original theme park.

Location
The Disneyland Resort is located several miles south of downtown Anaheim, near the border of neighboring Garden Grove. The resort is bordered by Harbor Boulevard to the east, Katella Avenue to the south, Walnut Street to the west and Ball Road to the north. Interstate 5 borders the resort at an angle on the northeastern corner.

Not all land bordered by these streets is part of the Disneyland Resort, particularly near the intersection of Harbor Boulevard and Katella Avenue, and along Ball Road between Disneyland Drive and Walnut Street. Disneyland Drive cuts through the resort on a north-south route and provides access to the Mickey & Friends Parking Structure, Downtown Disney, and the three hotels. Magic Way connects Walnut Street to Disneyland Drive just south of the Mickey & Friends Parking Structure and provides access to the parking structure, Disneyland Hotel, and Downtown Disney.

Special offramps from Interstate 5 combined with a reversible flyover over the intersection of Ball Road and Disneyland Drive permit easy access into and out of the Mickey & Friends parking garage during peak morning and evening traffic times. The official address of the resort is 1313 South Harbor Boulevard.

Attractions

Theme parks
 Disneyland Park, the original theme park built by Walt Disney, which opened on July 18, 1955.
 Disney California Adventure, a theme park that celebrates the history and culture of California, which opened on February 8, 2001.

Hotels
 Disneyland Hotel
 Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel
 Disney's Grand Californian Hotel & Spa

Other attractions
 Downtown Disney, an outdoor retail, dining and entertainment area between the entrance promenade of the Disneyland Resort theme parks and the Disneyland Hotel.

Resorts
 Disneyland Hotel, the original hotel built by Jack Wrather which opened in October 1955 and was acquired by Disney in 1988.
 Disney's Grand Californian Hotel & Spa, based on the craftsman style of architecture of the early 1900s.
 Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel, a hotel themed after the section of Disney California Adventure it overlooks.

Other websites

Official Disneyland Resort website

The Walt Disney Company
Anaheim, California
1955 establishments in California

Disneyland Resort


Gulliver's Travels is a book written in 1726 by Jonathan Swift. It is a satire about human nature—how humans act—and was very popular. It is about a man named Gulliver who goes to a place with very tiny people that are less than 6 inches tall.

The book was an immediate success. John Gay said that "It is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery".

After many scientists have tried to calculate the approximate height of Gulliver, the closest result has come from Townsville, Australia with an approximate height of Gulliver 14.79647688 metres tall.

18th-century books
British novels
1720s works

Gulliver's Travels


Sidoktaya, also Sitoktaya or Setoketaya () is a town and seat of Sidoktaya Township in Minbu District of Magway Division,  situated in middle west region of Burma. It is bordered with Salin township to the east, with Pwintbyu township to the south-east, with Ngape township to the south, with Minbya township (Rakhine State) to the west, with Kanpelek township (Chin State) to the north-west and with Saw township to the north. It is a hilly region of Rakhine. Mount Sun Taung, the highest mountain in Rakhine,  high, is in Sidoktaya township.

History
Sidoktaya is one of the oldest ancient towns in Myanmar. It is established by Prince Yazakumar (a. Min Zaya Khittaya or Min Thiri Khittaya) in Year 460 (Myanmar Era) (about 1098 A.D.). Now it is over 900 years of age. there are many archaeological places including Si-kyek-taung Pagoda, Aung-kyar Thiri Pagoda, and Sutaungpyi Pagoda. The ancient city wall had been found buried in some places.

Geography
Sidoktaya is situated at Latitude (lat): 20°25'29"N and Longitude (lon): 94°15'36"E and Elevation (approx.): 108m. The area is about , and it is the second largest area township next to Taungdwingyi township in the Magway division. Mone Creek which is the largest in the sub region flows through the Sidoktaya township. This creek is started from Mount Khaw Nu Thon which is the highest mount in the Chin Hills. The area is very mountainous and most of the mountains are above .

Demographical Condition
About 80% of the population are Chins and 20% are Bamars. Almost all are Theravada Buddhists.

Administration
Sidoktaya is a township level town and the township consists of 46 village tracts (total of 120 villages). The large villages include Pa-Aing, Kyee-Wa, Dabwin, Buywa, Ohnwah, Khwemalaung and Myaynigone.

Transportations
As it is a hilly region, there is only one main land road to Salin (37 miles). airports close to Sidoktaya, Myanmar are: the closest airport is KYP - Kyaukpyu, located 135.8 km south west of Sidoktaya. More nearby airports include AKY - Sittwe 148.1 km west, SNW - Thandwe 220.3 km south, MDL - Mandalay Intl 226.8 km north east. There are no railways and flight to Sidoktaya.

Production
The main products of Sidoktaya township are teak woods and bamboo. Annual production of bamboo is over 300,000 bamboos. Although there are agriculture, the area is only a small amount. The main crops are paddy, sesame, corn, vegetables and some kinds of beans. Industries include only rice mills and sesame mills.

Education
There is only one Basic Education High School in Sidoktaya, and five Basic Education Middle Schools, and 98 Basic Education Primary Schools.

References

External links
Geography of Sidoktaya
Map of Sidoktaya

Populated places in Magway Region
Township capitals of Myanmar

Sidoktaya


Zacatecoluca () is the capital municipality of the La Paz Department of El Salvador.

Located in Southern El Salvador, in the Rio Lempa valley, at the foot of San Vicente (Chinchotepec) Volcano. A commercial center for the surrounding agricultural area, it also trades in cotton goods, baskets, salt, and lumber.

History

An earthquake in 1932 caused severe damage.

Zacatecoluca was the birthplace of José Simeón Cañas, who fought for and secured the emancipation of slaves in Central America by Spaniards in 1825.

Zacatecoluca houses many traditional Spanish buildings including the Santa Lucia Catholic Church and used to hold the house where José Simeón Cañas lived, until poor economy due to the many years of war caused the local government to sell the house to a supermarket branch, the house was destroyed and a poorly marked stone on the left of the supermarket entrance is all that is left of Cañas' housing legacy.

Santa Lucia Catholic Church holds a dear history to the people of Zacatecoluca, as an image of Virgin Mary placed on top is said to have stopped an eruption of lava and ash from completely destroying the city and its local population. On May 11, 1844, Zacatecoluca received the title of Generous and Loyal City becoming the Departmental Head of La Paz on February 21, 1852.

Geography

Climate

Sports
The local professional football club is named Platense and they are former national league champions. They currently play in the Salvadoran First Division.

Gallery

References

Municipalities of the La Paz Department (El Salvador)

Zacatecoluca


Sleeping Dogs is an action-adventure video game. It was developed by United Front Games and published by Square Enix. It was released on 14 August 2012. The game is set in Hong Kong and focuses on an undercover operation to infiltrate the Triads (an underground society). The main character in the game (who the player controls) is Wei Shen. He was sent away to the United States to become a police officer and then decided to come back to Hong Kong to stop the Sun On Yee shipping company who do many illegal things. This game consist of three major parts: cops, traids, and face.

2012 video games
Adventure games

Sleeping Dogs


Paul Anthony Griffiths  (born 1947) is a British music critic, novelist and librettist. He is particularly noted for his writings on modern classical music and for having written the libretti for two 20th century operas, Tan Dun's Marco Polo and Elliott Carter's What Next?.

Career
Paul Griffiths was born on 24 November 1947 in the Welsh town of Bridgend to Fred and Jeanne Griffiths. He received his BA and MSc in biochemistry from University of Oxford, and from 1971 worked as a freelance music critic. He joined the editorial staff of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians in 1973 and in 1982 became the chief music critic for The Times, a post which he held for ten years. From 1992 to 1996, he was a music critic for The New Yorker, and from 1997 to 2005, for The New York Times. A collection of his musical criticism for these and other periodicals was published in 2005 as The substance of things heard: writings about music, Volume 31 of Eastman Studies in Music.

In 1978, he also began writing reference books and monographs on classical music and composers starting with Modern music: A Concise History from Debussy to Boulez and Boulez (Volume 16 of Oxford Studies of Composers). Although the majority of these publications have dealt with 20th-century composers and their music, he has also written more general works on classical music, including The String Quartet: A History (1985), The Penguin Companion to Classical Music (2005), and A Concise History of Western Music (2006). The last of these has been translated into seven languages.

Griffiths has been a guest lecturer at institutions including the University of Southern California, IRCAM, Oxford University, Harvard University, Cornell University (Messenger Lectures, 2008) and the City University of New York Graduate Center (Old Lecture, 2013), and has served on juries for international competitions, among them the Premio Paolo Borciani and the ARD Musikwettbewerb. He was named a Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2002 and a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011, when he also won a Deems Taylor Award for his notes for Miller Theatre.

In 1989, Griffiths published his first novel, Myself and Marco Polo: A Novel of Changes, which went on to win the 1990 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for the best first novel in the Europe and South Asia region. The novel is a fictional version of Marco Polo's memoirs which he dictated to Rustichello da Pisa, his fellow inmate in the Genoese prison where he had been incarcerated upon his return from China. (Rustichello is the "myself" of the title.) Two years later, he published his second novel, The Lay of Sir Tristram, a retelling of the Tristan and Iseult legend interjected with the narrator's own love story and his meditations on the legend's fluctuating influence and interpretation over time. Griffiths's third novel, let me tell you (2008), uses a constrained writing technique similar to those employed by the avant-garde Oulipo group. In let me tell you, Ophelia tells her story in a first-person narrative devised by Griffiths using only the 481-word vocabulary given to her in Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Griffiths's first excursion as an opera librettist was The Jewel Box which used music from Mozart's unfinished operas Lo sposo deluso and L'oca del Cairo as well as several arias and ensembles that he had written for insertion into operas by other composers. The story-line is an imagined reconstruction of a pantomime in which Mozart and Aloysia Weber are said to have taken part in 1783. The Jewel Box premiered in 1991 in Nottingham performed by Opera North and conducted by Elgar Howarth. It was subsequently performed in the United States by Skylight Opera Theatre (1993), Wolf Trap Opera (1994), Chicago Opera Theater (1996), and New Jersey State Opera (1996). It was revived by Bampton Classical Opera in 2006 for the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth. His second work of this type, Aeneas in Hell, was set to songs and dance music from Purcell's theatre scores and was devised as a "prequel" to the composer's 1689 opera, Dido and Aeneas. It premiered in 1995 at the University of Maryland's Ulrich Recital Hall conducted by Kenneth Slowik.

Griffiths's libretto for Tan Dun's Marco Polo was his first for an opera by a living composer. In the late 1980s Tan Dun has been commissioned by the Edinburgh International Festival to compose an original opera. As he recounted in a 1997 interview:
 I first tried to write the libretto myself, about something from myself, and wasn't getting anywhere. Then someone, in 1990, said why not read Paul Griffiths's novel Myself and Marco Polo? I read it and phoned him at his home near Oxford. And he agreed to write a libretto.
Marco Polo finally received its world premiere in 1996, not in Edinburgh as originally planned, but in Munich at the Munich Biennale. Although Griffiths's libretto was not directly related to or based on his novel, the first line of the opera, "I have not told one half of what I saw", was the novel's final statement.

Griffiths's next commission as a librettist was for Elliott Carter's only opera, What Next?. The work premiered in 1999 at Berlin's Staatsoper Unter den Linden, conducted by Daniel Barenboim who also conducted its US premiere in a concert performance by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra the following year.

In addition to his original libretti, Griffiths has produced modern English translations of those for Stravinsky's Histoire du soldat, Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, and Puccini's La bohème.

Griffiths has also written original texts for non-operatic settings, including The General, which premiered in Montreal on 16 January 2007, with Kent Nagano conducting the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. The General, a concert piece for symphony orchestra, narrator, soprano and chorus was conceived by Nagano as a tribute the Canadian General Roméo Dallaire. Griffiths's narrative texts, inspired by Dallaire's attempts to stop the Rwandan genocide, are interwoven with the music from Beethoven's complete Egmont score, other theatre music and Opferlied (Song of Sacrifice).

Other musical collaborations have come out of his novel let me tell you, including there is still time, subtitled "scenes for speaking voice and cello", with spoken narration accompanying music by the cellist-composer Frances-Marie Uitti. The work was recorded in 2003 by ECM Records with Griffiths himself as the narrator.

More directly connected to the novel is a concert work by Hans Abrahamsen, also titled let me tell you and composed for Barbara Hannigan with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, who gave the first performance on 20 December 2013, Andris Nelsons conducting.

Griffiths was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to music, literature, and composition.

Bibliography
Music history and criticism
Modern Music: A Concise History from Debussy to Boulez, Thames and Hudson, 1978  (Revised&Subsequent version, 1994, )
Modern Music: The avant garde since 1945, Braziller, 1981 (revised and expanded as Modern Music and After: Directions since 1945, Oxford University Press, 1995 ; third edition, Oxford University Press, 2010
A Guide to Electronic Music, Thames and Hudson, 1981.
The String Quartet: A History, Thames and Hudson, 1985.
New Sounds, New Personalities: British composers of the 1980s in conversation with Paul Griffiths, Faber and Faber, 1985
The Penguin Companion to Classical Music, Penguin Group, 2005.
The Substance of Things Heard: writings about music, Volume 31 of Eastman Studies in Music, University of Rochester Press, 2005.
A Concise History of Western Music, Cambridge University Press, 2006.
La musica del novecento, Einaudi, 2014.

Monographs on 20th-century composers
Boulez (Volume 16 of Oxford Studies of Composers), Oxford University Press, 1978
Cage (Volume 18 of Oxford Studies of Composers), Oxford University Press, 1981
Peter Maxwell Davies (Contemporary Composers series), Robson Books, 1982.
Second Viennese School: Schoenberg, Webern, Berg (with Oliver Neighbour and George Perle for the New Grove Composer Biographies series) Norton, 1983.
György Ligeti (Contemporary Composers series), Robson Books, 1983.
Bartók (Master Musicians series), J.M. Dent & Sons, 1988
Olivier Messiaen and the Music of Time, Faber & Faber, 2008.
Stravinsky (Master Musicians series), J.M. Dent & Sons, 1992.
The Sea on Fire: Jean Barraqué (Volume 25 of Eastman Studies in Music), University of Rochester Press, 2003. ,

Librettos
The Jewel Box, or, A Mirror Remade – premiered 1991 (published by Chatto & Windus, )
Aeneas in Hell – premiered 1994 (unpublished)
Marco Polo – premiered 1996 (published by G. Schirmer, )
What Next? – premiered 1999 (published by Boosey & Hawkes)
Gulliver (unpublished)

Novels and short stories
Myself and Marco Polo: A Novel of Changes, Chatto & Windus, 1989.
The Lay of Sir Tristram, Chatto & Windus, 1991.
"Leda" in Ovid Metamorphosed (Philip Terry ed.), Chatto & Windus, 2000.
let me tell you, Reality Street Editions, 2008.
The Tilted Cup: Noh Stories, Sylph Editions, 2013.
Pavillon lunaire: contes nô, Éditions de la Différence, 2014.
Mr. Beethoven, Henningham Family Press, 2020. . New York Review Books, 2021.
The Tomb Guardians, Henningham Family Press, 2021.

References

Sources
CBC News, "Montreal Symphony premieres Dallaire tribute", 18 January 2007. Retrieved 30 August 2009.
Cummings, Paul (ed.), "Griffths, Paul", International Who's Who in Classical Music, Europa Publications, 2003, p. 299. .
Grimbert, Joan T., Tristan and Isolde: A casebook, Routledge, 2002.
Kennedy, Michael and Bourne, Joyce (eds), "Griffths, Paul", The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music, 5th edition, Oxford University Press, 2007. . Retrieved 30 August 2009.
Kerner, Leighton, "Mind voyager", The Village Voice, 11 November 1997. Accessed via subscription 30 August 2009.
Kimberley, Nick, "North by East-West", The Independent, 15 November 1998. Retrieved 30 August 2009.
McLellan, Joseph, "Aeneas in Hell: The Sequel", The Washington Post, 20 November 1995. Accessed via subscription 30 August 2009.
Rich, Alan, "Dark Elegies", LA Weekly, 30 June 2005. Retrieved 30 August 2009.
Tommasini, Anthony, "6 Characters in Search of a Dimension, in Different Operatic Tempos", The New York Times, 10 December 2007. Retrieved 30 August 2009.
Tonkin, Boyd, "Singing in the chains: a tongue-tied heroine", The Independent, 16 January 2009. Retrieved 30 August 2009.

External links
Official web site
Twitter
Selected writings by Paul Griffiths for The New York Times
"How Music Spins a Web Of Meaning" (1 February 1998)
"Of the Mind And Artists Who Lose It" (26 July 1998)
"Iannis Xenakis, Composer Who Built Music on Mathematics" (5 February 2001)
"Facing Challenges of Greatness and Mortality" (18 February 2001)
"A Hymn To England's Divinity" (4 March 2001)
"To Listen, Perchance To Sleep" (14 April 2002)
"Luciano Berio, Composer of Mind and Heart" (28 May 2003)
"Gyorgy Ligeti, Central-European Composer of Bleakness and Humor", (6 June 2006)

1947 births
Living people
20th-century British novelists
21st-century British novelists
Alumni of Lincoln College, Oxford
British male novelists
British music critics
British opera librettists
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
Opera in Wales
People from Bridgend
Pupils of Darius Milhaud
The New Yorker critics
The Times journalists
Welsh male novelists
Ligeti scholars
Messiaen scholars
Bartók scholars

Paul Griffiths (writer)


In cryptography, plaintext is the information which the sender wants to transmit to the receiver(s).

Before computers, plaintext meant text in the language of the communicating parties.  Since computers, the definition has been expanded. It now includes not only the electronic representation of text, such as emails and word processor documents, but also the computer representation of speech, music, pictures, videos, ATM and credit card transactions, sensor data, and so forth. That is basically any information which the communicating parties might wish to hide from others.  The plaintext is the normal representation of the data before any action has been taken to hide it.

The plaintext is used as input to an encryption algorithm; the output is termed ciphertext.  Some systems, however, use a cascade of layers of encryption (called 'rounds') in which case the ciphertext output of one encryption algorithm becomes the plaintext input to the next. Triple DES is an example.

Related pages
 Cleartext

Cryptography

Plaintext