I forgot to mention horses. Yeah, the Pawnees probably had them by this time, but they weren't too common that far north at that time. Furthermore, the Pawnees were an agricultural tribe who spent part of the year in permanent villages, so they never had as many horses as the nomadic tribes. Even after they got more horses, the Pawnees still made long distant raids on foot, all the way down to New Mexico at times, so fighting on foot wasn't particularly unusual for them.
It should be pointed out that even among the more equstrian tribes there are still plenty of accounts of fighting on foot. Forget all the supposed "ceremonial" nature of Plains warfare and counting coup, war was deadly serious business- especially at this time frame on the Plains- where people had lances and arrows driven through their bodies, were shot in the face with guns at point blank range, had their skulls smashed with war clubs or rocks, and where heads were cut off and left in brass trade buckets fror their families to find when they came home. The name of the game was killing as many of your enemies as you could at the least risk to yourself, and if that meant fighting on foot, you fought on foot. Remember, the Pawnees were fighting to protect their village and their families who were just a few miles away from an invading army. Villasur was camped on a river bank, so it could be the terrain just didn't suit fighting on horseback, even if the Pawnees did have plenty of horses at that time.
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