Pahuk

Pahuk
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Pahuk, seen from the south
Nearest city	Cedar Bluffs, Nebraska
Area	85 acres (34 ha)
NRHP Reference #	73001074
Added to NRHP	August 14, 1973

Pahuk, also written Pahaku, or Pahuk Hill, is a bluff on the Platte River in eastern Nebraska in the United States. In the traditional Pawnee religion, it was one of five dwellings of spirit animals with miraculous powers. The Pawnee occupied three villages near Pahuk in the decade prior to their removal to the Pawnee Reservation on the Loup River in 1859.

Pahuk is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Pahuk was defined by erosion of the Platte River and tributary gullies into the plain south of the river. The north side of the bluff is a near-vertical face rising 150 feet (46 m) from the river. The east and west sides are delimited by deep and steep-sided gullies about 1,000 feet (300 m) apart. The ground dips slightly to the south; there is a gentle rise about 40 feet (12 m) high near the bluff edge, making Pahuk the highest point for several miles in any direction.

The Pawnee name "Pahuk" is generally translated as "hill island". The accent is on the second syllable; the vowel in the first syllable is pronounced like the "a" in "father"; and the "u" is pronounced short, as in "us". More recently, the name has often been rendered "Pahaku".

In the Pawnee traditional religion, the supreme being Tirawa conferred miraculous powers on certain animals. These spirit animals, the nahurac, act as Tirawa's messengers and servants, and can intercede with him on behalf of the Pawnee.

The nahurac had five underground lodges, of which Pahuk was one. The others were Lalawakohtito, or "dark island", an island in the Platte near present-day Central City, Nebraska; Ahkawitakol, or "white bank", on the Loup River opposite the mouth of the Cedar River in what is now Nance County, Nebraska; Pahur, or "hill that points the way", a bluff south of the Republican River near its namesake Guide Rock, Nebraska; and Kitzawitzuk, translated "water on a bank", a spring on the bank of the Solomon River near Glen Elder, Kansas, also known to the Pawnee as Pahowa, but generally called today by its Kaw name of Waconda Spring.