n ( pl Pawnees or Pawnee )
a member of a Native-American people of whom only about 2 500 survive. Some live in northern Oklahoma on a reservation (= land given and protected by the US government). They originally lived on the Great Plains of Kansas and Nebraska as farmers who also hunted buffalo. They helped white people who came into their land, and often fought the Sioux . The Pawnee were moved to the reservation in 1876.