The former range of the buffalo has been worked out with painstaking
care by Dr. Allen, to whom we owe an admirable monograph on this
species. He concludes that the northern limit of this range was north of
the Great Slave Lake, in latitude about 63 deg. N.; while to the south it
extended into Mexico as far as latitude 25 deg. N. To the west it ranged at
least as far as the Blue Mountains of Oregon, while on the east it was
abundant in the western portions of New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia,
North and South Carolinas, and Georgia. In the interior the buffalo were
very abundant, and occupied Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee,
West Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa, parts of Michigan, Wisconsin,
and Minnesota, the whole of the great plains, from southern Texas north
to their northern limit, and much of the Rocky Mountains. In Montana,
Idaho, Wyoming, and most of New Mexico they were abundant, and probably
common over a large part of Utah, and perhaps in northern Nevada. So far
as now known, their western limit was the Blue Mountains of Oregon and
the eastern foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada.
Thus it will be seen that the buffalo once ranged over a large part of
the American continent,--Dr. Allen says one third of it,--but it must
not be imagined that they were always present at the same time in every
part of their range. They were a wandering race, sometimes leaving a
district and being long absent, and again returning and occupying it for
a considerable period. What laws or what impulses governed these
movements we cannot know. Their wandering habits were well understood by
the Indians of the Western plains, who depended upon the buffalo for
food. It was their custom to follow the herds about, and when, as
sometimes occurred, these moved away and could not be found, the Indians
were reduced to great straits for food, and sometimes even starved to
death.
Under natural conditions the buffalo was an animal of rather sluggish
habits, mild, inoffensive, and dull. In its ways of life and
intelligence it closely resembled our domestic cattle. It was slow to
learn by experience, and this lack of intelligence greatly hastened the
destruction of the race. Until the very last years of its existence as a
species, it did not appear to connect the report of firearms with any
idea of danger to itself, and though constantly pursued, did not become
wild. If he used skill and judgment in shooting, a hunter who had "got a
stand" on a small bunch could kill them all before they had moved out of
rifle-shot. It was my fortune, one summer, to hunt for a camp of
soldiers, and more than once I have lain on a hill above a little herd
of buffalo, shot down what young bulls I needed to supply the camp, and
then walked down to the bunch and, by waving my hat and shouting, driven
off the survivors, so that I could prepare the meat for transportation
to camp. This slowness to take the alarm, or indeed to realize the
presence of danger, was characteristic of the buffalo almost up to the
very last. A time did come when they were alarmed readily enough, but
this was not until all the large herds had been broken up and
scattered, and the miserable survivors had been so chased and harried
that at last they learned to start and run even at their own shadows.
Another peculiarity of the buffalo was its habit, when stampeded, of
dashing blindly forward against, over, or through anything that might be
in the way. When running, a herd of buffalo followed its leaders, and
yet these leaders lost the power of stopping, or even of turning aside,
because they were constantly crowded upon and pushed forward by those
behind. This explains why herds would dash into mire or quicksands, as
they often did, and thus perish by the thousand. Those in front could
not stop, while those behind could not see the danger toward which they
were rushing. So, too, they ran into rivers, or into traps made for them
by the Indians, or against railroad cars, or even dashed into the rivers
and swam blindly against the sides of steamboats. If an obstacle lay
squarely across their path, they tried to go through it, but if it lay
at an angle to their course, they would turn a little to follow it, as
will be shown further on.
The buffalo calf is born from April to June, and at first is an awkward
little creature, looking much like a domestic calf, but with a shorter
neck. The hump at first is scarcely noticeable, but develops rapidly.
They are odd-looking and very playful little animals. They are easily
caught and tamed when quite young, but when a few months old they become
as shy as the old buffalo, and are much more swift of foot.
Although apparently very sluggish, buffalo are really extremely active,
and are able to go at headlong speed over a country where no man would
dare to ride a horse. When alarmed they will throw themselves down the
almost vertical side of a canyon and climb the opposite wall with
cat-like agility. Sometimes they will descend cut banks by jumping from
shelf to shelf of rock like the mountain sheep. To get at water when
thirsty, they will climb down bluffs that seem altogether impracticable
for such great animals. Many years ago, while descending the Missouri
River in a flatboat with two companions, I landed in a wide bottom to
kill a mountain sheep. As we were bringing the meat to the boat, we saw
on the opposite side of the river, about half-way down the bluffs, which
were here about fifteen hundred feet high, a large buffalo bull. The
bluffs were almost vertical, and this old fellow was having some
difficulty in making his way down to the water. He went slowly and
carefully, at times having pretty good going, and at others slipping and
sliding for thirty or forty feet, sending the clay and stones rolling
ahead of him in great quantities. We watched him for a little while, and
then it occurred to some malicious spirit among us that it would be fun
to see whether the bull could go up where he had come down. A shot was
fired so as to strike near him,--for no one wanted to hurt the old
fellow,--and as soon as the report reached his ears, he turned about and
began to scramble up the bluffs. His first rush carried him, perhaps, a
hundred feet vertically, and then he stopped and looked around. He
seemed not to have the slightest difficulty in climbing up, nor did he
use any caution, or appear to pick his way at all. A second shot caused
another rush up the steep ascent, but this time he went only half as
far as before, and again stopped. Three or four other shots drove him by
shorter and shorter rushes up the bluffs, until at length he would go no
further, and subsequent shots only caused him to shake his head angrily.
Plainly he had climbed until his wind had given out, and now he would
stand and fight. Our fun was over, and looking back as we floated down
the river, our last glimpse was of the old bull, still standing on his
shelf, waiting with lowered head for the unknown enemy that he supposed
was about to attack him.
It is not only under the stress of circumstances that the bison climbs.
The mountain buffalo is almost as active as the mountain sheep, and was
often found in places that tested the nerve and activity of a man to
reach; and even the buffalo of the plains had a fondness for high
places, and used to climb up on to broken buttes or high rocky points.
In recent years I have often noticed the same habit among range cattle
and horses.
The buffalo were fond of rolling in the dirt, and to this habit,
practised when the ground was wet, are due the buffalo wallows which so
frequently occur in the old ranges, and which often contain water after
all other moisture, except that of the streams, is dried up. These
wallows were formed by the rolling of a succession of buffalo in the
same moist place, and were frequently quite deep. They have often been
described. Less well known was the habit of scratching themselves
against trees and rocks. Sometimes a solitary erratic boulder, five or
six feet high, may be seen on the bare prairie, the ground immediately
around it being worn down two or three feet below the level of the
surrounding earth. This is where the buffalo have walked about the
stone, rubbing against it, and, where they trod, loosening the soil,
which has been blown away by the wind, so that in course of time a deep
trench was worn about the rock. Often single trees along streams were
worn quite smooth by the shoulders and sides of the buffalo.
When the first telegraph line was built across the continent, the poles
used were light and small, for transportation over the plains was slow
and expensive, and it was not thought necessary to raise the wires high
above the ground. These poles were much resorted to by the buffalo to
scratch against, and before long a great many of them were pushed over.
A story, now of considerable antiquity, is told of an ingenious employee
of the telegraph company, who devised a plan for preventing the buffalo
from disturbing the poles. This he expected to accomplish by driving
into them spikes which should prick the animals when they rubbed against
them. The result somewhat astonished the inventor, for it was discovered
that where formerly one buffalo rubbed against the smooth telegraph
poles, ten now struggled and fought for the chance to scratch themselves
against the spiked poles, the iron furnishing just the irritation which
their tough hides needed.
It was in spring, when its coat was being shed, that the buffalo,
odd-looking enough at any time, presented its most grotesque appearance.
The matted hair and wool of the shoulders and sides began to peel off in
great sheets, and these sheets, clinging to the skin and flapping in the
wind, gave it the appearance of being clad in rags.
The buffalo was a timid creature, but brought to bay would fight with
ferocity. There were few sights more terrifying to the novice than the
spectacle of an old bull at bay: his mighty bulk, a quivering mass of
active, enraged muscle; the shining horns; the little, spiky tail; and
the eyes half hidden beneath the shaggy frontlet, yet gleaming with
rage, combined to render him an awe-inspiring object. Nevertheless,
owing to their greater speed and activity, the cows were much more to be
feared than the bulls.
It was once thought that the buffalo performed annually extensive
migrations, and it was even said that those which spent the summer on
the banks of the Saskatchewan wintered in Texas. There is no reason for
believing this to have been true. Undoubtedly there were slight general
movements north and south, and east and west, at certain seasons of the
year; but many of the accounts of these movements are entirely
misleading, because greatly exaggerated. In one portion of the northern
country I know that there was a decided east and west seasonal
migration, the herds tending in spring away from the mountains, while
in the autumn they worked back again, seeking shelter in the rough,
broken country of the foot-hills from the cold west winds of the winter.
The buffalo is easily tamed when caught as a calf, and in all its ways
of life resembles the domestic cattle. It at once learns to respect a
fence, and, even if at large, manifests no disposition to wander.
Three years ago there were in this country about two hundred and fifty
domesticated buffalo, in the possession of about a dozen individuals. Of
these the most important herd was that of Hon. C. J. Jones, of Garden
City, Kansas, which, besides about fifty animals captured and reared by
himself, included also the Bedson herd of over eighty, purchased in
Manitoba. The Jones herd at one time consisted of about one hundred and
fifty head. Next came that of Charles Allard and Michel Pablo, of the
Flathead Agency in Montana, which in 1888 numbered thirty-five, and has
now increased to about ninety. Mr. Jones's herd has been broken up, and
he now retains only about forty-five head, of which fifteen are breeding
cows. He tells me that within the past year or two he has sold over
sixty pure buffalo, and that nearly as many more have died through
injuries received in transporting them by rail.
Mr. Jones is the only individual who, of recent years, has made any
systematic effort to cross the buffalo with our own domestic cattle. As
far back as the beginning of the present century, this was successfully
done in the West and Northwest; and in Audubon and Bachman's "Quadrupeds
of America" may be found an extremely interesting account, written by
Robert Wickliffe, of Lexington, Kentucky, giving the results of a series
of careful and successful experiments which he carried on for more than
thirty years. These experiments showed that the cross for certain
purposes was a very valuable one, but no systematic efforts to establish
and perpetuate a breed of buffalo cattle were afterward made until
within the past ten years. Mr. Jones has bred buffalo bulls to Galloway,
Polled Angus, and ordinary range cows, and has succeeded in obtaining
calves from all. Such half-breeds are of very large size, extremely
hardy, and, as a farmer would say, "easy keepers." They are fertile
among themselves or with either parent. A half-breed cow of Mr. Jones's
that I examined was fully as large as an ordinary work-ox, and in
spring, while nursing a calf, was fat on grass. She lacked the buffalo
hump, but her hide would have made a good robe. The great size and
tremendous frame of these crossbred cattle should make them very
valuable for beef, while their hardiness would exempt them from the
dangers of winter,--so often fatal to domestic range cattle,--and they
produce a robe which is quite as valuable as that of the buffalo, and
more beautiful because more even all over. If continued, these attempts
at cross-breeding may do much to improve our Western range cattle.
Mr. Jones has sold a number of buffalo to persons in Europe, where there
is a considerable demand for them. It is to be hoped that no more of
these domesticated buffalo will be allowed to leave the country where
they were born. Indeed, it would seem quite within the lines of the work
now being carried on by the Agricultural Department, for the government
to purchase all the domesticated American buffalo that can be had, and
to start, in some one of the Western States, an experimental farm for
buffalo breeding and buffalo crossing. With a herd of fifty pure-bred
buffalo cows and a sufficient number of bulls, a series of experiments
could be carried on which might be of great value to the cattle-growers
of our western country. The stock of pure buffalo could be kept up and
increased; surplus bulls, pure and half bred, could be sold to farmers;
and, in time, the new race of buffalo cattle might become so firmly
established that it would endure.
To undertake this with any prospect of success, such a farm would have
to be managed by a man of intelligence and of wide experience in this
particular field; otherwise all the money invested would be wasted. Mr.
Jones is perhaps the only man living who knows enough of this subject to
carry on an experimental farm with success.
Although only one species of buffalo is known to science, old
mountaineers and Indians tell of four kinds. These are, besides the
ordinary animal of the plains, the "mountain buffalo," sometimes called
"bison," which is found in the timbered Rocky Mountains; the "wood
buffalo" of the Northwest, which inhabits the timbered country to the
west and north of Athabasca Lake; and the "beaver buffalo." The last
named has been vaguely described to me by northern Indians as small and
having a very curly coat. I know of only one printed account of it, and
this says that it had "short, sharp horns which were small at the root
and curiously turned up and bent backward, not unlike a ram's, but quite
unlike the bend of the horn in the common buffalo." It is possible that
this description may refer to the musk-ox, and not to a buffalo. The
"mountain" and "wood" buffalo seem to be very much alike in habit and
appearance. They are larger, darker, and heavier than the animal of the
plains, but there is no reason for thinking them specifically distinct
from it. Such differences as exist are due to conditions of environment.
The color of the buffalo in its new coat is a dark liver-brown. This
soon changes, however, and the hides, which are at their best in
November and early December, begin to grow paler toward spring; and when
the coat is shed, the hair and wool from young animals is almost a dark
smoky-gray. The calf when just born is of a bright yellow color, almost
a pale red on the line of the back. As it grows older it becomes darker,
and by late autumn is almost as dark as the adults. Variations from the
normal color are very rare, but pied, spotted, and roan animals are
sometimes killed. Blue or mouse-colored buffalo were occasionally seen,
and a bull of this color was observed in the National Park last January.
White buffalo--though often referred to as mythical--sometimes occurred.
These varied from gray to cream-white. The rare and valuable "silk" or
"beaver" robe owes its name to its dark color and its peculiar sheen or
gloss. White or spotted robes were highly valued by the Indians. Among
the Blackfeet they were presented to the Sun as votive offerings. Other
tribes kept them in their sacred bundles.
Apart from man, the buffalo had but few natural enemies. Of these the
most destructive were the wolves, which killed a great many of them.
These, however, were principally old, straggling bulls, for the calves
were protected by their mothers, and the females and young stock were so
vigorous and so gregarious that they had but little to fear from this
danger. It is probable that, notwithstanding the destruction which they
wrought, the wolves performed an important service for the buffalo race,
keeping it vigorous and healthy by killing weak, disabled, and
superannuated animals, which could no longer serve any useful purpose in
the herd, and yet consumed the grass which would support a healthy
breeding animal. It is certainly true that sick buffalo, or those out of
condition, were rarely seen.
The grizzly bear fed to some extent on the carcasses of buffalo drowned
in the rivers or caught in the quicksands, and occasionally they caught
living buffalo and killed them. A Blackfoot Indian told me of an attempt
of this kind which he witnessed. He was lying hidden by a buffalo trail
in the Bad Lands, near a little creek, waiting for a small bunch to come
down to water, so that he might kill one. The buffalo came on in single
file as usual, the leading animal being a young heifer. When they had
nearly reached the water, and were passing under a vertical clay wall,
a grizzly bear, lying hid on a shelf of this wall, reached down, and
with both paws caught the heifer about the neck and threw himself upon
her. The others at once ran off, and a short struggle ensued, the bear
trying to kill the heifer, and she to escape. Almost at once, however,
the Indian saw a splendid young bull come rushing down the trail toward
the scene of conflict, and charge the bear, knocking him down. A fierce
combat ensued. The bull would charge the bear, and when he struck him
fairly would knock him off his feet, often inflicting severe wounds with
his sharp horns. The bear struck at the bull, and tried to catch him by
the head or shoulders, and to hold him, but this he could not do. After
fifteen or twenty minutes of fierce and active fighting, the bear had
received all the punishment he cared for, and tried to escape, but the
bull would not let him go, and kept up the attack until he had killed
his adversary. Even after the bear was dead the bull would gore the
carcass and sometimes lift it clear of the ground on his horns. He
seemed insane with rage, and, notwithstanding the fact that most of the
skin was torn from his head and shoulders, appeared to be looking about
for something else to fight. The Indian was very much afraid lest the
bull should discover and kill him, and was greatly relieved when he
finally left the bear and went off to join his band. This Blackfoot had
never heard of Uncle Remus's tales, but he imitated Brer Rabbit--laid
low and said nothing.
To the Indians the buffalo was the staff of life. It was their food,
clothing, dwellings, tools. The needs of a savage people are not many,
perhaps, but whatever the Indians of the plains had, that the buffalo
gave them. It is not strange, then, that this animal was reverenced by
most plains tribes, nor that it entered largely into their sacred
ceremonies, and was in a sense worshiped by them. The Pawnees, in
explaining their religious customs, say, "Through the corn and the
buffalo we worship the Father." The Blackfeet ask, "What one of all the
animals is most sacred?" and the reply given is, "The buffalo."
The robe was the Indian's winter covering and his bed, while the skin,
freed from the hair and dressed, constituted his summer sheet or
blanket. The dressed hide was used for moccasins, leggings, shirts, and
women's dresses. Dressed cow-skins formed the lodges, the warmest and
most comfortable portable shelters ever devised. Braided strands of
rawhide furnished them with ropes and lines, and these were made also
from the twisted hair. The green hide was sometimes used as a kettle, in
which to boil meat, or, stretched over a frame of boughs, gave them
coracles, or boats, for crossing rivers. The tough, thick hide of the
bull's neck, allowed to shrink smooth, made a shield which would turn a
lance-thrust, an arrow, or even the ball from an old-fashioned
smooth-bore gun. From the rawhide, the hair having been shaved off, were
made parfleches--envelop-like cases which served for trunks or
boxes--useful to contain small articles. The cannon-bones and ribs were
used to make implements for dressing hides; the shoulder-blades lashed
to sticks made hoes and axes, and the ribs runners for small sledges
drawn by dogs. The hoofs were boiled to make a glue for fastening the
feathers and heads on their arrows, the hair used to stuff cushions, and
later saddles, strands of the long black beard to ornament articles of
wearing-apparel and implements of war, such as shields and quivers. The
sinews lying along the back gave them thread and bowstrings, and backed
their bows. The horns furnished spoons and ladles, and ornamented their
war-bonnets. Water-buckets were made from the lining of the paunch. The
skin of the hind leg cut off above the pastern, and again a short
distance above the hock, was once used for a moccasin or boot.
Fly-brushes were made from the skin of the tail dried on sticks.
Knife-sheaths, quivers, bow-cases, gun-covers, saddle-cloths, and a
hundred other useful and necessary articles, all were furnished by the
buffalo.
The Indians killed some smaller game, as elk, deer, and antelope, but
for food their dependence was on the buffalo. But before the coming of
the whites their knives and arrowheads were merely sharpened stones,
weapons which would be inefficient against such great, thick-skinned
beasts. Even under the most favorable circumstances, with these
primitive implements, they could not kill food in quantities sufficient
to supply their needs. There must be some means of taking the buffalo in
considerable numbers. Such wholesale capture was accomplished by means
of traps or surrounds, which all depended for success on one
characteristic of the animal, its curiosity.
The Blackfeet, Plains Crees, Gros Ventres of the Prairie, Sarcees, some
bands of the Dakotas, Snakes, Crows, and some others, drove the herds of
buffalo into pens from above, or over high cliffs, where the fall killed
or crippled a large majority of the herd. The Cheyennes and Arapahoes
drove them into pens on level ground; the Blackfeet, Aricaras, Mandans,
Gros Ventres of the Village, Pawnees, Omahas, Otoes, and others,
surrounded the herds in great circles on the prairie, and then,
frightening them so that they started running, kept them from breaking
through the line of men, and made them race round and round in a circle,
until they were so exhausted that they could not run away, and were
easily killed.
These primitive modes of slaughter have been described by earlier
writers, and frequently quoted in recent years; yet, in all that has
been written on this subject, I fail to find a single account which
gives at all a true notion of the methods employed, or the means by
which the buffalo were brought into the inclosures. Eye-witnesses have
been careless observers, and have taken many things for granted. My
understanding of this matter is derived from men who from childhood have
been familiar with these things, and from them, during years of close
association, I have again and again heard the story of these old hunting
methods.
The Blackfoot trap was called the _piskun_. It was an inclosure, one
side of which was formed by the vertical wall of a cut bank, the others
being built of rocks, logs, poles, and brush six or eight feet high. It
was not necessary that these walls should be very strong, but they had
to be tight, so that the buffalo could not see through them. From a
point on the cut bank above this inclosure, in two diverging lines
stretching far out into the prairie, piles of rock were heaped up at
short intervals, or bushes were stuck in the ground, forming the wings
of a V-shaped chute, which would guide any animals running down the
chute to its angle above the piskun. When a herd of buffalo were feeding
near at hand, the people prepared for the hunt, in which almost the
whole camp took part. It is commonly stated that the buffalo were driven
into the piskun by mounted men, but this was not the case. They were not
driven, but led, and they were led by an appeal to their curiosity. The
man who brought them was usually the possessor of a "buffalo rock," a
talisman which was believed to give him greater power to call the
buffalo than was had by others. The previous night was spent by this man
in praying for success in the enterprise of the morrow. The help of the
Sun, _Napi_, and all Above People was asked for, and sweet-grass was
burned to them. Early in the morning, without eating or drinking, the
man started away from the camp and went up on the prairie. Before he
left the lodge, he told his wives that they must not go out, or even
look out, of the lodge during his absence. They should stay there, and
pray to the Sun for his success, and burn sweet-grass until he returned.
When he left the camp and went up on to the prairie toward the buffalo,
all the people followed him, and distributed themselves along the wings
of the chute, hiding behind the piles of rock or brush. The caller
sometimes wore a robe and a bull's-head bonnet, or at times was naked.
When he had approached close to the buffalo, he endeavored to attract
their attention by moving about, wheeling round and round, and
alternately appearing and disappearing. The feeding buffalo soon began
to raise their heads and stare at him, and presently the nearest ones
would walk toward him to discover what this strange creature might be,
and the others would follow. As they began to approach, the man withdrew
toward the entrance of the chute. If the buffalo began to trot, he
increased his speed, and before very long he had the herd well within
the wings. As soon as they had passed the first piles of rock, behind
which some of the people were concealed, the Indians sprang into view,
and by yelling and waving robes frightened the hind-most of the
buffalo, which then began to run down the chute. As they passed along,
more and more people showed themselves and added to their terror, and in
a very short time the herd was in a headlong stampede, guided toward the
angle above the piskun by the piles of rock on either side.
[Illustration: Blackfoot Indian Pis'kun.