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.