Some early European explorers referred to this waterway as the Panimaha River, since this was before some of the Skidi migrated south.

In the fall of 1724, in a village of the Kansa people, the Panismahas joined a peace council with Frenchmen, Otoes, Osages, Iowa, Missouri and Illini.

The Skidi are notable for their performance of a type of human sacrifice, known as the Morning Star ceremony, recorded for the last time in 1838.

[5] The Panishmaha, a group within the Skidi band, moved from what is now Nebraska to the Texas-Arkansas border regions where they lived with the Taovayas.

It appears that this group was also the Pannis designated in a village along the Sulphur Creek in northeast Texas in a 19th-century Spanish map.