If there were not men enough to surround a herd can you think of
anything the Cave-men might do to drive them where they wanted them
to go?
How do we get animals into traps?
Why do you think people first began to make fences and walls?
How do you think they used them?
Why do we have fences? What do we use them for?
_How Things were Made to Do the Work of Men_
When the clans returned to their own hunting grounds, they could not
surround the large herds. There were not enough men in one cave to
hunt in this way. Sometimes they partly surrounded a herd and drove
the animals over a cliff, but unless the herd was near the cliff,
there were not enough men to drive them.
And so the men tried to coax the animals to the edge of the cliff.
Sometimes they did it by imitating the cries the animals made.
Sometimes they did it by dressing so as to look like the animals
themselves. But even then they often failed to get the animals into
their trap.
It was when Fleetfoot saw a bison frightened by a feather that he
thought of making things do the work of live men.
The greater part of the day the bison fed some distance from the
cliff. Fleetfoot wanted to find a way of driving them up to the very
edge. The bison drive which he invented was the way he succeeded in
doing it.
It was shaped like a letter #V# with the point cut off. The sides were
piles of brush, or stones, or vines stretched from tree to tree. At
the edge of the cliff where they started, the sides were only a short
distance apart. But the farther out they extended, the farther they
were apart.
Men, women, and children joined in making the bison drive. They piled
stones and heaped up brush, and they hunted for long vines. Then they
hunted for feathers and bits of fur, which they tied along the lines.
Flaker performed the magical ceremony before the hunt began. Fleetfoot
dressed in a bison's skin so as to coax the herd along. Women and
children hid behind piles of stone and brush. And the men formed
themselves in line far out from the cliffs in the rear of the herd.
Everybody kept still until Fleetfoot's signal sounded. Then the men
sprang up and with loud shouts they ran after the herd. The bison saw
Fleetfoot in disguise; and, thinking he was one of the herd, they
followed where he led.
When the bison came near a pile of stones a woman or child frightened
them. When they came near the fence of vines they were frightened away
by the feathers and fur. And so the herd kept on toward the steep
cliff.
And with loud shouts and drumbeats, with the clatter of weapons and
hard hoofs, the bellowing herd galloped madly on toward the steep
cliff. Then Fleetfoot, throwing off his disguise, slipped under one of
the lines; but the frantic herd rushed headlong to the brink of the
precipice. Then, seeing the danger, the foremost ones attempted to
escape. But the maddened herd pressed blindly on and pushed them over
the cliff.
After such a hunt as this, there was food enough for many days. Very
likely the women dried meat during this time.
#THINGS TO DO#
_Model in your sand-box a good place for the bison drive. Make the
drive and show what happened from first to last._
_Draw one of these pictures:_--
_Bison feeding some distance from the cliff._
_Building a bison drive._
_Fleetfoot leading the herd._
_The bison at the edge of the cliff._
_Drying meat._