About the walls of the piskun, now full of buffalo, were distributed the
women and children of the camp, who, leaning over the inclosure, waving
their arms and calling out, did all they could to frighten the penned-in
animals, and to keep them from pushing against the walls or trying to
jump or climb over them. As a rule the buffalo raced round within the
inclosure, and the men shot them down as they passed, until all were
killed. After this the people all entered the piskun and cut up the
dead, transporting the meat to camp. The skulls, bones, and less
perishable offal were removed from the inclosure, and the wolves,
coyotes, foxes, and badgers devoured what was left.
It occasionally happened that something occurred to turn the buffalo, so
that they passed through the guiding arms and escaped. Usually they
went on straight to the angle and jumped over the cliff into the
inclosure below. In winter, when snow was on the ground, their straight
course was made additionally certain by placing on, or just above, the
snow a line of buffalo-chips leading from the angle of the V, midway
between its arms, out on to the prairie. These dark objects, only twenty
or thirty feet apart, were easily seen against the white snow, and the
buffalo always followed them, no doubt thinking this a trail where
another herd had passed.
By the _Siksikau_ tribe of the Blackfoot nation and the Plains Crees,
the piskun was built in a somewhat different way, but the methods
employed were similar. With these people, who inhabited a flat country,
the inclosure was built of logs and near a timbered stream. Its circular
wall was complete; that is, there was no opening or gateway in it, but
at one point this wall, elsewhere eight feet high, was cut away so that
its height was only four feet. From this point a bridge or causeway of
logs, covered with dirt, sloped by a gradual descent down to the level
of the prairie. This bridge was fenced on either side with logs, and the
arms of the V came together at the point where the bridge reached the
ground. The buffalo were driven down the chute as before, ran up on this
bridge, and were forced to leap into the pen. As soon as all had
entered, Indians who had been concealed near by ran up and put poles
across the opening through which the buffalo had passed, and over these
poles hung robes so as entirely to conceal the outer world. Then the
butchering of the animals took place.
Further to the south, out on the prairie, where timber and rocks and
brush were not obtainable for making traps like these, simpler but less
effective methods were adopted. The people would go out on the prairie
and conceal themselves in a great circle, open on one side. Then some
man would approach the buffalo, and decoy them into the circle. Men
would now show themselves at different points and start the buffalo
running in a circle, yelling and waving robes to keep them from
approaching or trying to break through the ring of men. This had to be
done with great judgment, however; for often if the herd got started in
one direction it was impossible to turn it, and it would rush through
the ring and none would be secured. Sometimes, if a herd was found in a
favorable position, and there was no wind, a large camp of people would
set up their lodges all about the buffalo, in which case the chances of
success in the surround were greatly increased.
The tribes which used the piskun also practised driving the buffalo over
high, rough cliffs, where the fall crippled or killed most of the
animals which went over. In such situations, no inclosure was built at
the foot of the precipice.
In the later days of the piskun in the north, the man who brought the
buffalo often went to them on horseback, riding a white horse. He would
ride backward and forward before them, zigzagging this way and that, and
after a little they would follow him. He never attempted to drive, but
always led them. The driving began only after the herd had passed the
outer rock piles, and the people had begun to rise up and frighten
them.
This method of securing meat has been practised in Montana within thirty
years, and even more recently among the Plains Crees of the north. I
have seen the remains of old piskuns, and the guiding wings of the
chute, and have talked with many men who have taken part in such
killings.
All this had to do, of course, with the primitive methods of buffalo
killing. As soon as horses became abundant, and sheet-iron arrow-heads
and, later, guns were secured by the Indians, these old practices began
to give way to the more exciting pursuit of running buffalo and of
surrounding them on horseback. Of this modern method, as practised
twenty years ago, and exclusively with the bow and arrow, I have already
written at some length in another place.
To the white travelers on the plains in early days the buffalo furnished
support and sustenance. Their abundance made fresh meat easily
obtainable, and the early travelers usually carried with them bundles of
dried meat, or sacks of pemmican, food made from the flesh of the
buffalo, that contained a great deal of nutriment in very small bulk.
Robes were used for bedding, and in winter buffalo moccasins were worn
for warmth, the hair side within. Coats of buffalo-skin are the warmest
covering known, the only garment which will present an effective barrier
to the bitter blasts that sweep over the plains of the Northwest.
Perhaps as useful to early travelers as any product of the buffalo, was
the "buffalo chip," or dried dung. This, being composed of comminuted
woody fiber of the grass, made an excellent fuel, and in many parts of
the treeless plains was the only substance which could be used to cook
with.
The dismal story of the extermination of the buffalo for its hides has
been so often told, that I may be spared the sickening details of the
butchery which was carried on from the Mexican to the British boundary
line in the struggle to obtain a few dollars by a most ignoble means. As
soon as railroads penetrated the buffalo country, a market was opened
for the hides. Men too lazy to work were not too lazy to hunt, and a
good hunter could kill in the early days from thirty to seventy-five
buffalo a day, the hides of which were worth from $1.50 to $4 each. This
seemed an easy way to make money, and the market for hides was
unlimited. Up to this time the trade in robes had been mainly confined
to those dressed by the Indians, and these were for the most part taken
from cows. The coming of the railroad made hides of all sorts
marketable, and even those taken from naked old bulls found a sale at
some price. The butchery of buffalo was now something stupendous.
Thousands of hunters followed millions of buffalo and destroyed them
wherever found and at all seasons of the year. They pursued them during
the day, and at night camped at the watering-places, and built lines of
fires along the streams, to drive the buffalo back so that they could
not drink. It took less than six years to destroy all the buffalo in
Kansas, Nebraska, Indian Territory, and northern Texas. The few that
were left of the southern herd retreated to the waterless plains of
Texas, and there for a while had a brief respite. Even here the hunters
followed them, but as the animals were few and the territory in which
they ranged vast, they held out here for some years. It was in this
country, and against the last survivors of this southern herd, that
"Buffalo Jones" made his successful trips to capture calves.
The extirpation of the northern herd was longer delayed. No very
terrible slaughter occurred until the completion of the Northern Pacific
Railroad; then, however, the same scenes of butchery were enacted.
Buffalo were shot down by tens of thousands, their hides stripped off,
and the meat left to the wolves. The result of the crusade was soon
seen, and the last buffalo were killed in the Northwest near the
boundary line in 1883, and that year may be said to have finished up the
species, though some few were killed in 1884 to 1885.
After the slaughter had been begun, but years before it had been
accomplished, the subject was brought to the attention of Congress, and
legislation looking to the preservation of the species was urged upon
that body. Little general interest was taken in the subject, but in
1874, after much discussion, Congress did pass an act providing for the
protection of the buffalo. The bill, however, was never signed by the
President.
During the last days of the buffalo, a remarkable change took place in
its form, and this change is worthy of consideration by naturalists, for
it is an example of specialization--of development in one particular
direction--which was due to a change in the environment of the species,
and is interesting because it was brought about in a very few years, and
indicates how rapidly, under favoring conditions, such specialization
may sometimes take place.
This change was noticed and commented on by hunters who followed the
northern buffalo, as well as by those who assisted in the extermination
of the southern herd. The southern hunters, however, averred that the
"regular" buffalo had disappeared--gone off somewhere--and that their
place had been taken by what they called the southern buffalo, a race
said to have come up from Mexico, and characterized by longer legs and a
longer, lighter body than the buffalo of earlier years, and which was
also peculiar in that the animals never became fat. Intelligent hunters
of the northern herd, however, recognized the true state of the case,
which was that the buffalo, during the last years of their existence,
were so constantly pursued and driven from place to place that they
never had time to lay on fat as in earlier years, and that, as a
consequence of this continual running, the animal's form changed, and
instead of a fat, short-backed, short-legged animal, it became a
long-legged, light-bodied beast, formed for running.
This specialization in the direction of speed at first proceeded very
slowly, but at last, as the dangers to which the animals were subjected
became more and more pressing, it took place rapidly, and as a
consequence the last buffalo killed on the plains were extremely
long-legged and rangy, and were very different in appearance--as they
were in their habits--from the animals of twenty years ago.
Buffalo running was not a sport that required much skill, yet it was not
without its dangers. Occasionally a man was killed by the buffalo, but
deaths from falls and from bursting guns were more common. Many curious
stories of such accidents are told by the few surviving old-timers whose
memory goes back fifty years, to the time when flint-lock guns were in
use. A mere fall from a horse is lightly regarded by the practised
rider; the danger to be feared is that in such a fall the horse may roll
on the man and crush him. Even more serious accidents occurred when a
man fell upon some part of his equipment, which was driven through his
body. Hunters have fallen in such a way that their whip-stocks, arrows,
bows, and even guns, have been driven through their bodies. The old
flint-lock guns, or "fukes," which were loaded on the run, with powder
poured in from the horn by guess, and a ball from the mouth, used
frequently to burst, causing the loss of hands, arms, and even lives.
[Illustration: Through the Mist.