TIRAWA and the Pawnees...

Through the years, many people have asked me what Tirawa's name means. The name was shared with me by some malamute breeders in Australia, when I knew I was getting a new puppy (almost 11 years ago now)...the story they sent was wrong regarding the name, but it too was beautiful.

Tirawa was actually Pawnee

Once among the strongest tribes of the Plains Indians, the Pawnee were found from the shores of the Platte River in Nebraska
south to the Arkansas River. Today they live mostly in Oklahoma.
'The white man' said the Kurahus, 'speaks of a heavenly Father; we say Tirawa atius, the
Father above, but we do not think of Tirawa as a person. We think of Tirawa as
in everything, as the Power which has arranged and thrown down from above
everything that man needs. What the Power above, Tirawa atius, is like, no one
knows; no one has been there.'When Kawas explains to the Kurahus the meaning of
the signs in the East, 'she tells him that Tirawa atius there moves upon
Darkness, the Night, and causes her to bring forth the Dawn. It is the breath of
the new-born Dawn, the child of Night and Tirawa atius, which is felt by all the
powers and all things above and below and which gives them new life for a new
day.'
H.B. Alexander, The World's Rim (University of Nebraska Press, 1953)
p.132