Buffalo Stories on La Rivierre Grande

Recently we gathered a small group around my kitchen table—a few people interested in what we can do with all our buffalo information. Informally we call ourselves Brainstormers.

We had just finished a successful tour of our historic buffalo sites here at home that we had arranged with the BSC Bison Symposium.

When Bismarck State College decided to put on a Bison Symposium led by their retiring director Dr. Larry Skogen, we got involved. In fact we may have helped inspire the whole thing.

After all, Larry grew up in Hettinger, where his parents ran a hardware store. He knew something of our buffalo history.

By this time we had uncovered several even more interesting facts about buffalo living on these lands. It wasn’t just the 3 last great buffalo hunts that happened here. There were more stories. One by one, they began revealing themselves.

Marvelous stories. Word of mouth heroics, problems and successes. Survival stories.

It was like peeling an onion, one more layer beneath another as layers unfolded, one by one.

Shadehill Buffalo Jump

For instance: The excavation of our buffalo jump at Shadehill revealed how primitive hunters likely used it as long as 7,000 years ago. Wow!

Dakota people don’t boast and brag much. So we dared not claim Shadehill had been a buffalo Jump. Even though we believed that’s what the layers of buffalo bones on the face of the cliff meant.

One layer stretched 12 feet thick all the way across the 100-foot cliff up and down the river! And below that was another 4-foot layer.

Then all of a sudden we noticed that South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks, which manages recreation at Shadehill Lake had put up a new sign—of buffalo jumping off the cliff.

 And we discovered 3 teams of archaeologists had reported their findings here—one each from the University of ND, SD Game, Fish and Parks and the US Forest Service.

 UND even published a book of their findings. Local County Agent Vince Gunn—who has lived his entire life across Shadehill Lake from the jump—lent us his copy.

Our jump was real. There was an archaeology book and official sign verifying it.

Unfortunately, the buffalo bones that once showed in two deep layers on the face of the cliff were gone. The last bones were bulldozed out and hauled west by train to manufacture explosives during World War II—as happened to many other buffalo jumps across the US and Canada.

 But our jump was real.

Duprees Rescued Young Buffalo Calves

But wait! There’s still more.

Not just the last great hunts and near extermination. Our tragic buffalo story did not end there.

Most marvelous of all—was the miracle of how the buffalo evaded extinction.

Fortunately, William Hornaday was wrong—he didn’t write the last chapter on buffalo after all in 1889! LA Huffman didn’t shoot photos of the last buffalo lying dead across the Plains in 1880!

Instead, a few people from across the United States and Canada rescued some young buffalo calves and nourished them into viable herds.

 We were happy to discover one of the 5 rescuing families turned out to be a local Native family. In fact 3 of the 5 rescuing families had Native American roots. They knew how much the buffalo meant to their culture.

 All 5 family groups were western ranchers and had hunted buffalo.

 Just before the end, the Duprees rescued a few newborn calves on the South Grand River. The Dupree brothers and maybe their sisters too—theirs was a large family—had traveled some 50 or 60 miles from their fur-trading homes at the mouth of Cherry Creek on the Cheyenne River—a two-day trip in the spring to the Slim Buttes with team and wagon.

 At home they found cows to mother the young calves. Pete Dupree must have done things right to avoid the typically high death loss of orphan buffalo calves.

 For many other would-be rescuers, the small calves died of starvation before they received the nourishment they needed. Captured buffalo cows and older calves simply stiffened out and died instead of giving in to “being saved.”

 Near the jump I even discovered a possible Box Canyon that a small group of ancient hunters might have used successfully to trap a few buffalo before horses arrived on the Grande.

 We had the right pieces for another book.

A Book to Celebrate Buffalo Saga

My next book would tell the entire story. And it all happened right here in our own community—the Hettinger ND and Lemmon-Bison SD area.

It would celebrate the buffalo and honor the Native Americans who integrated them into their own culture. The thousands of years when Native people of the Plains hunted on foot and hauled all their possessions with them in dog travois.

The exciting arrival of the horse culture that meant Native people could travel faster and hunt more efficiently. How the buffalo were almost exterminated. And how they thrive today.

Pete Dupree’s herd kept growing in the same area they were rescued—on the South Grand.
By the time he died in 1898 his buffalo herd had increased to 83. They were sold to Scotty Philip who also ran livestock on reservation land.

Gradually they were replaced by Native American tribal herds and the private herds we see in this same area today.

Noted leaders including President Theodore Roosevelt developed sanctuaries for Bison to live and passed laws to protect them—and Roosevelt the conservationist earned his place on Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills.

Yet Roosevelt and other easterners could never have done what they did to help buffalo survive without the efforts of calf rescuers in the west.

Let us never forget who saved the buffalo on the ground.

Ordinary, local people. If not for them, we’d have no live buffalo to celebrate today.

I didn’t want people to forget our Buffalo History.

Pioneer knowledge can be forgot so easily. For example, the disappearance of buffalo bones from our Buffalo Jump at Shadehill. Where did they go?

The archeologists who came from the university apparently didn’t extend their research to the know-how of local people who live here. The new SD sign read briefly, “Sadly, the site slid into the reservoir.”

However, an early settler Don Merriman who lived there, now long-gone, told me what really happened to the bones. During the early 1940s and the beginning of World War II, he was there when his neighbor who owned that land, bulldozed the bones out of the cliff and hauled wagon loads to the train station.

From there they were shipped to factories on the West Coast, the phosphorus extracted for the manufacture of explosives.

La Rivierre Grande

Between the North and South forks of the Grand River, a big chunk of North and South Dakota gets watered.

In researching the river’s history, John, one of our Brainstormers, found early French fur traders spelled it with a final “e.” In fact in their journals he says they put the river first: “La rivierre Grande.”

This may have been even before our lands were owned by the United States—with the Louisiana Purchase from the French in 1803.

The name Grande intrigued our Brainstormers. As we talked about what we have, we discovered the magic of our history, especially on the Grand River, or La rivierre Grande as we started calling it.

We realized this river has always been a place where live Buffalo graze along its banks.

In fact, there’s never been a time when buffalo did not thrive in La rivierre Grande area.

It is one of the few places in North America—maybe the only place—where someone saved calves on their homeland and kept them there. Most others caught their calves while hunting elsewhere.

A Book to Celebrate Buffalo Saga

My next book would tell the entire story. And it all happened right here in our own community—the Hettinger ND and Lemmon-Bison SD area 

It would celebrate the buffalo and honor the Native Americans who integrated them into their own culture. The thousands of years when Native people of the Plains hunted on foot and hauled all their possessions with them in dog travois.

The exciting arrival of the horse culture that meant Native people could travel faster and hunt more efficiently. How the buffalo were almost exterminated. And how they thrive today.

But one day my former editor and co-worker Kendra Rosencrans, home from Seattle on vacation, looked at the contents of my planned book and burst my bubble.

“People don’t read books anymore!” she said.

Ouch! Can that be true?

Well, I took her advice and finished the Self-Guided Tour first, “Buffalo Trails in the Dakota Buttes.” An action book with 8 historic sites in our area and 2 more sites to visit— tribal herds and the Buffalo Museum in Jamestown, ND. The full buffalo story!

The next year we published “Buffalo Heartbeats Across the Plains.” More stories. It won three National Awards, including a Spur Award.

BSC Bison Symposium

Bismarck State College took on the June Bison Symposium with enthusiasm. What other University institution has dared to put on a 3-day event that includes all we put into this one?

Academic research. Native American voices telling how their culture is intimately bound up with the buffalo. History tours of where it all happened. A close encounter with live buffalo on the move. And a lot of great bison food for everyone, including a final Bison Stroganoff dinner.

The second day the symposium visitors came on our tour to the Hettinger-Lemmon area. About 80 people rode the 2 travel buses that day to our special Historic Buffalo sites.

Riding along on the buses from Bismarck were Lakota storytellers Kevin Locke and Dakota Goodhouse. Our Native American friends know every prominent butte for miles around. This is Lakota country and it seems they can tell a story about each butte and landmark we see. We loved hearing those stories in their own voices.

People on the tour said they enjoyed everything—the stories, and driving among 400 live buffalo while the manager, Jim Strand circled his herd with the feed wagon.

The buffalo came running, grunting and snorting and surrounded us—safe inside the buses.

“When will you do this again?” the visitors wanted to know. “What’s next?”

Ours was a compelling story. And I didn’t want people to forget our Buffalo History.

But Wow! We were pretty exhausted—what did we need to do now?

Brainstorming around the Kitchen Table

By this time the Brainstormers were meeting every two weeks or so around my kitchen table.

We had lots of good ideas—so many they seemed overwhelming. Build a Buffalo Center. Bring live buffalo into a nearby pasture. Sponsor tours. Pull together public events. Encourage more Bison research.  involve children and young adults. Add teaching curricula that incudes Native American voices telling their stories.

We’d need a lot of help—volunteers to do all that work. Where will we start? Who will help?

Yes, we have great volunteers. But can we expect them to support one more time-consuming project?

Ours is a small town. One of our concerns, seems like Hettinger gets a bit smaller every year!

Everything that’s innovative here runs on volunteer help. Fire trucks, ambulances, Hospice, Health aids, Clothes Closet, Church officials and all kinds of support groups.

And what if we build a Center, spend all that money—and nobody comes?

But what if we don’t? Will we eventually lose our history again?

Build a Better Website

We have buffalo stories worth telling. But we’re already stretched too thin. What we’d love is tourists coming here—appreciating the wonderful places and stories we have.

But how can we make it happen? As our Brainstorming group discussed it, our mayor Jim–a very perceptive young man—said:

“Wait! We need to have a good Website. That’s how people get their information today.”

He quickly convinced us. A website is the first thing we need, he told us. But it has to be good!

So Val—a former County Extension Leader and Consumer Science teacher—and I sat down together for an afternoon, again at my kitchen table—and listed all the things we wanted on our website.

We zeroed in on the best website we could find for ideas and found some amazing government sites. Sophisticated. Lots of great photos—surprisingly with only small amounts of text! Clean and enticing.

Francie M Berg

Author of the Buffalo Tales &Trails blog

My interest in buffalo began when I rode the buttes and badlands of our ranch east of Miles City, MT as a kid.

 One time my younger sister Anne and I found a buffalo skull.

The snow melted early that spring, sending rushing waters to flush out dry creek beds.

Riding the higher reaches of our range we were looking for a lost heifer.

In a glint of bright sunlight we saw something peeking out from under a sagebrush that had been partly torn loose from a sandy bank.

 “What’s that?” Anne circled her horse across the gravel creek bed.

 “Looks like a bone—a horn.”

Sliding off our horses we scrambled up the bank for a closer look.

 Yes! Not just a horn—but a horn solidly attached to the rest of the head. As we freed it from the scraggly sagebrush tangle, out came a nearly perfect skull with stout curved horns—gleaming white in the sun. We hefted the weight of it, bigger and bulkier than any skull we had ever seen.

A relic of long ago—a buffalo skull. The black horn caps had loosened and washed away in the 70-some years since wild buffalo had roamed these ranges.

In the 1940s it had been only 70 years since the huge herds of buffalo grazed those ranges.

We’d seen the famous photos of dead buffalo, slaughtered across this very range by hide hunters, as photographed by L.A. Huffman. He set up his studio in our town, Miles City, just in time to record that final kill.

Safe on Great Sioux Reservation, 1880

The southern herd was already gone.

Buffalo didn’t migrate north in the fall. But by all accounts, these last buffalo did. This last desperate herd of around a hundred thousand buffalo weren’t seeking warmer climate that fall, but safety.

Blazing guns right behind, they trekked up from Wyoming and hit the little cow town of Miles City on the run.

When they hit the Yellowstone River, half the big herd plunged in, swam across and travelled north—right into the fierce guns of hundreds of white and Native hide hunters. They didn’t survive long. Within months all were gone.

Some wild instinct led the other half—the last big herd of many millions—more directly northeast—on our side of the Yellowstone, the south side.

Apparently, they turned east where the Powder River and O’Fallon Creek flowed into the Yellowstone River, then followed those plateaus and valleys into Dakota Territory.

There they found safety for a time in the pine hills of the Slim Buttes. And just beyond that, onto the Great Sioux Indian Reservation.

This was about 150 miles east of Miles City on the border of what became North and South Dakota, where these last 50,000 from the great northern herd made their last stand.

That big old sagebrush stood along their trail. We’d ridden past it dozens of times. Anne and I wrapped the skull in a jacket and tied it behind my saddle.

At home we cleared a place in Mom’s flower garden near our front door, next to her yellow rosebush.

Many times our family and visitors speculated and argued over how that old bull had lived and died.

Searching Local History

Years later when our family moved to Hettinger ND the summer of 1966, my husband Bert as the new veterinarian was eager to help local ranchers care for their cattle, horses, sheep, sheep dogs. And, yes, a few herds of buffalo.

We didn’t know we were coming to the place where those very buffalo from Miles City had made their last stand in 1880.

We built our home at the edge of town with barn, corrals and 40 acres of pasture. We also didn’t know that my grandparents—the Tom Barretts had staked out their first homestead claim on Lodgepole Creek where it flowed into the South Grand River. They lived in a dugout in the side of a hill.

As newcomers to Hettinger we heard a few rumblings from old-timers. “The last big buffalo hunts were here,” they told us.

“What? What do you mean?” we asked. “The last hunts where? In North America? Or in North Dakota?”

“I don’t know—that’s what they say,” came the inevitable answer.

I wanted to know more. What did that mean? I started a search. I wanted to read it in a book.

Sure enough, several books held promise—claiming special knowledge of the very last hunts. But their “last hunt” always turned out to be the worst scenario—big guns, big slaughter, rotting carcasses left all across the Plains—in Kansas or somewhere else even farther south.

Everyone knew that shameful history, the scar on our national wildlife story. Depressing.

Three Last Hunts

Then one day, browsing our local library, I came across a little-known book of memoirs, My Friend the Indian, by James McLaughlin, Indian Agent at Ft. Yates.

Flipping pages, back to front, I found myself reading an amazing tale in a chapter called “The Great Buffalo Hunt.”

Suddenly there it was—all laid out, step by step—the Hiddenwood hunt in complete and fascinating detail by a man who was here and on that hunt.

McLaughlin described the Native march out of Fort Yates, all resplendent in their best hunting attire.  

Six hundred mounted riders wove in and out among those walking and riding in buckboard wagons, their prancing horses painted in traditional ways, as they struck out for the ancient buffalo ranges 100 miles away—to Hiddenwood Cliff right in our Hettinger community.

McLaughlin hunted here, with 2,000 Native Americans, right outside our living room window, riding up Hiddenwood Creek, which runs through our town.

Later another jewel appeared in a dusty collection. The memoirs of a Congregational Missionary Thomas Riggs, stationed at Oahe offered another Buffalo Hunt section.

Again, an amazing story, told by an articulate and sympathetic man who was there—with a small band of traditional Lakota hunters on a long, cold winter hunting adventure in the pine hills of the Slim Buttes.

Riggs described the trip—religious traditions held along the way. Thanks and prayers to Mother Earth and to the Buffalo themselves for their generosity in caring for their human relatives.

Both these hunts were traditional, conducted with religious fervor and ancient ceremony. Both fit perfectly into William Hornaday’s well-documented history of 1889, The Extermination of the American Bison.  

After the wild herds were gone the Smithsonian Museum sent Hornaday—their leading taxidermist—out west to report how this buffalo destruction could have possibly happened and to bring back some museum-worthy carcasses if possible.

In researching his book, Hornaday really thought he was writing about the final hours of what he called “this magnificent animal.” Determined to get it right, he spared no effort in contacting every possible source of buffalo knowledge, from Army officers at far-flung western forts to fur traders, railroaders, hide hunters and cowboys.

Hornaday learned that the end came right here, but offered few details. Except he wrote that Sitting Bull was right here at the end and his band killed the last 1,200 buffalo. He even had the exact dates—October 12 and 13, 1883.

These last buffalo hunt details were virtually unknown in 1995. Just word of mouth stories from pioneers who settled here on what had been once designated Indian reservation lands by treaty.

Someone needed to get all this together on paper. But it seemed no one was interested. This history would soon be forgotten. If I didn’t write it, who would?

From these three sources came our small book, in which I brought together for the first time the full story of the last stand of the American buffalo and their last dramatic moments The Last Great Buffalo Hunts: Traditional Hunts in 1880 to 1883 by Teton Lakota People.

Our Dakota Buttes Visitors Council of which I had been a charter member since arriving in Hettinger agreed to pay for printing and distribution.

We started taking local people on bus tours of our three Historic Last Great Traditional Native Hunts. For the first time ever people learned the full story of the last stand of the American buffalo and these last dramatic moments.

It was a heroic legacy told by Native Americans and early settlers. Until then, somehow this final triumph of the buffalo saga fell through the cracks in our national and state histories.

End of story.

But wait! There’s more.

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NEXT

Francie M Berg

Author of the Buffalo Tales &Trails blog

 “The hunters gathered at Pembina where the 55 hunters assembled a train of 213 carts, 300 horses and 100 oxen. Their families, 309 people in all, went along, too.

“Carts carried a thousand pounds of gear including firewood, lodge poles for their tipis, drying frames and hide stretchers, as well as food. They were heading into the ‘boundless prairies’ of Dakota where they would have to bring everything they needed, including firewood.

“Their route took them south of the Turtle Mountains towards Devils Lake, the Sheyenne River, and west toward Dogden Butte (Maison du Chien).

“Scouts traveled ahead on horseback looking for good places to hunt and camp. The scouts rejoined the main group in the evening, bringing information on bison herds ahead.”

Soon, two young men returned to camp with fresh bison meat. Father Belcourt was offered the tongue, a delicacy, rather than the meat of the bulls which was more abundant, but likely to cause “mal de boeuf,” or indigestion.

When they spotted a herd of bulls, Belcourt and a group of hunters approached to within 500 yards. They slowed their horses to a quiet walk so they could get near the animals without scaring them.

The bulls noticed the hunters and began to threaten them, stamping and tossing the earth with their horns. Other bulls watched the hunters and bellowed.

When they were close enough, a hunter gave the signal to ride their horses rapidly toward the herd. The bulls took off running “with surprising speed.”

Using guns, the hunters fired into the herd, killing some animals and wounding others. A half-hour later, the hunt on this herd was over. But a cloud of dust on the horizon signaled the presence of bison cows, and the hunters took off after them.”

Women then skinned the carcass and removed the meat, fat, bones and organs that were useful to them. The meat was dried for long-term storage. The fat was mixed with powdered dried meat and dried berries to make pemmican.

In that year of 1845, when Father Belcourt attended the hunt, Metis hunters brought home the meat and by-products of 1,776 bison cows.

The hunters were excited and their well-trained horses wanted to charge into the cow herd, but approaching the cows was the most dangerous part of the hunt.

The hunters had to ride through the bulls that were bunched near the cows. If a bull gored a hunter’s horse and knocked the rider to the ground, the hunter would be killed by the bull’s horns or feet.

The hunters carried muzzle-loading guns. They approached a herd with one shot prepared and carried 4 other balls of lead shot in their mouths.

They re-loaded their guns while riding their horses at great speed. They dropped the gunpowder into the muzzle and then spit a ball down the muzzle. A good hunter could load and shoot five times in the time it took to ride 100 yards.

On the first day, the hunters in Belcourt’s group killed 169 cows. In four days hunt, they killed and butchered 628 bison. By the end of the hunt, 1,776 cows had been killed.

Men and women worked together to butcher the carcass. After removing the hide, they took the hump (part of the back bone just below the neck) which was considered to have the best meat.

They also took the meat from the ribs and back bones, hips and shoulders. They removed the fat, the paunch or rumen (stomach), the kidneys, the bladder and the tongue.

The women cut the meat into strips about a quarter of an inch thick. These strips were hung on the drying frames for two or three days.

By then, the meat was so dry it could be rolled up and packed into large bundles.

Some of the less desirable pieces of dried meat were laid on a tanned hide and pounded into a powder. The meat powder was mixed with fat and poured into a rawhide bag called a taureaux (a French word for “bulls”). The mixture was called pemmican.

The Métis often added dried fruit into the mix. The resulting food was rich in nutrition and would keep almost indefinitely.

By the middle of October, the hunters were ready to pack for the return home.

The hunt resulted in 228 taureaux, 1,213 bales of dried meat, 166 sacks of fat (weighing 200 pounds each), and 556 bladders of marrow (12 pounds each).

Belcourt estimated the bison products to be worth £1700 ($218,179 today). The people had enough meat and pemmican for their winter food supply.

Father Belcourt concluded his letter with a commentary on the discipline of the hunt.

If a hunter started out alone, he might kill three cows and scare away the rest of the herd. He noted that in recent years, Métis hunts had lacked organization and leadership.

An organized, well-disciplined group of hunters could take 300 cows. Belcourt believed that religious leadership led to harmony and productivity on a bison hunt.

The Métis hunted bison in much the same way that their Chippewa relatives did, though they apparently lacked the tightly controlled organization that was necessary for a successful hunt.

Father Belcourt encouraged other priests to hunt with Métis of their parishes because, he believed, a priest could encourage the hunters to work well together.

Father Belcourt recorded an important part of Métis culture, and he also recorded the ways in which European American culture was bringing change to the people of the northern Great Plains.

Explorers and the Fur Trade

Fur traders entered the region that became North Dakota around 1800.

A few independent traders may have entered the region earlier, but Alexander Henry of Canada on the lower Red River (1799) and American Robert Dickson on Lake Traverse (1800) were the first to build trading posts that drew on the rich fur resources of eastern North Dakota.

The Hudson’s Bay Company and the North West Company competed with each other by building posts very close to one another.

They also tried to take business away from each other by offering better deals to their Indian trade partners.

Both companies engaged in over-trapping beavers to drive the other company out of the region. They succeeded in nearly destroying the beaver population of the region and in degrading the cultures of many Indian tribes.

Many smaller companies entered the fur trade, but most were eager to sell their business to a larger company after a year or two of tough competition.

In 1821, the beaver trade came to an end when European fashions in hats changed from felt made from beaver fur to silk.

The fur trade was both very good and very bad for American Indians who participated in the trade. The fur trade gave Indians steady and reliable access to manufactured goods, but the trade also forced them into dependency on European Americans and created an epidemic of alcoholism.

There is no doubt that knives with steel blades, iron cooking kettles, guns, hoes with metal blades and other manufactured goods made life a lot easier for Indians. Though the trade items saved time for Indian women, much of that time was now given to cleaning and stretching beaver pelts or bison hides. There was a shift in the household economies of Indian families that, at first, seemed to produce greater security and efficiency.

American Indians often re-made trade goods into something they found useful.

For instance, manufactured pipe stems made of bone were intended to be used with corncob pipes. However, the Poncas used the pipe stems as beads.

The style spread to the tribes of the northern Great Plains and they became very popular for use in elaborately decorated breastplates. The pipe stems came to be known as hair-pipe beads.

Colorful glass beads were a common item in the fur trade. Native women used beads to achieve a high level of artistic expression.

Beautiful designs stitched in colored beads graced their clothing, their moccasins, and ceremonial goods such as pipe stems, blankets and saddle bags.

Women still decorated objects with porcupine quills, now colored with dyes they received in trade, but increasingly more items were decorated with intricate beadwork designs.

Though traders might have thought that glass beads were a cheap item to exchange for beaver pelts, women applied their special design skills in beadwork.

Some women were able to trade their beading skills with other members of their tribe for food, horses or other things they needed.

Indian women were important agents in the fur trade. Men usually trapped beavers, but women scraped the flesh off the fresh hide, stretched it, and properly prepared the pelts for trade.

They often made the decisions about which company they would trade with. They also demanded the best rate of exchange.

They sometimes lost control of the trade when a trader, such as Alexander Henry, forced the trade to go in his direction.

During one visit to the Mandan villages, Henry fought with the women who owed their furs to the XY Company in payment for their debts. Henry finally won, but he had to force the women to give up the furs.

The women then had to acquire more furs (and work harder) to pay their debt to the XY traders.

Some Indian women chose to marry European American traders in the fashion of the country.

This generally means that these marriages were not recognized by law or religion. While many marriages brought loving couples together for the rest of their lives, other marriages were short-lived.

The children of mixed marriages in the Red River region formed a new culture called Métis. The mixed-blood children of marriages in other tribes usually grew up with their mother’s people.

Traders, especially those working for the North West Company, often used liquor to persuade Indians to trade. Sometimes, liquor was used to cheat Indians out of their furs. Liquor diminished the capacity of American Indians to make good business decisions.

Indians and trappers who drank too much got into fights; sometimes the violence led to murder. Though U.S. law (and the Hudson’s Bay Company) prohibited the transport of intoxicating liquors into Indian country, it was difficult to enforce this law.

If an Army officer found liquor on a fur trade boat, he would destroy all of the kegs, but there were not enough officers to patrol river traffic.

Many relationships between traders and their Indian partners were friendly and respectful.

Indian tribes and fur companies enjoyed mutual benefits from the fur trade. Indians obtained manufactured goods such as guns, knives, cloth and beads that made their lives easier. The traders got furs, food and a way of life many of them enjoyed. 

However, competition among the tribes and among the fur companies created more conflict than peace. In addition, the fur trade led to the destruction of individuals and tribes even after the fur business ended.

Fur traders gathered information about Indian country that drew farmers, miners and railroads to the northern Plains.

The people who followed the fur traders were usually most interested in taking land from Indians. The Native Americans’ ability to resist was diminished by alcohol, disease and dependency on trade goods, as well as broken treaties with the US government.

The fur trade was a business that made profits for the owners and many of the traders. But it was also a cultural meeting ground where all of the participants were on equal footing. Everyone had something of value to trade.

However, in the long run, the fur trade was also destructive for the American Indian tribes of this region.

Many people forgot traditional skills for making things such as knives or hoes that they could now purchase with furs. Traders brought deadly diseases to Indian communities.

Violent conflict often broke out between tribes that participated in the fur trade. There was some good in the fur trade, but more often, the effects of the fur trade were not positive for American Indians.

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NEXT: WHAT’S AHEAD FOR THE BUFFALO?

Francie M Berg

Author of the Buffalo Tales &Trails blog

Bison supplied immense quantities of meat for the tribes that hunted on the Great Plains.

Some of these tribes, including the Lakotas, Dakotas, Yanktonais, Chippewas, Mandans, Hidatsas and Arikaras, lived on the Great Plains.

Other tribes lived to the east in the woodlands of Minnesota or west in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and traveled into the Plains every summer to hunt bison.

So important was this animal to the well-being of American Indian tribes that they organized themselves every summer to travel as far as necessary to find bison, kill sufficient numbers for winter food supply and carry the meat back home again.

These hunts required careful and exact organization. The tribe’s well-being depended entirely on a successful hunt.

Bison was the raw material from which American Indians of the Great Plains made their living.

Bison provided meat, bones to be made into tools, hides for clothing, housing, bedding and containers.

Hunting required great skill and courage, but it also took skill to tan the hides, shape the tools and preserve the meat.

Both nomadic tribes such as the Lakotas and the sedentary tribes such as the Mandans hunted bison. All tribal peoples also hunted deer, antelope and elk. They also fished and trapped birds, but no other animal provided the food security that bison did.

In addition, all the tribes used bison hides, hooves, heads, horns, tails, bones and many internal organs to make the necessities for a comfortable life.

Parts of the bison were used to make toys for children, such as ribs for sledding.

During most of the year, any family or village that needed meat could go out to hunt bison, deer, elk or antelope.

However, the big summer and early fall hunts were conducted for the entire tribe. The summer hunt was organized by tribal leaders whose decision had to be obeyed by all members of the tribe.

Anyone who approached the bison herd without permission would be severely punished. Usually, one of the young men’s societies was given the authority to maintain order among the tribe so no one scared off the bison herd.

Hunts were often preceded by religious ceremonies such as the Sun Dance. During these ceremonies, the people made spiritual sacrifices to ensure a successful hunt.

For many of the tribes of the northern Great Plains, bison held a special spiritual significance.

The summer hunt was a good time for children to learn the important tasks of an adult. Girls learned to prepare food, mend clothing and pack for hunting camp. Boys learned to hunt and to obey the hunt leaders.

Many rules, skills and ceremonies were passed down from parent to child during the summer communal bison hunt.

My First Buffalo Hunt, by Wolf Chief

Wolf Chief was born into a Hidatsa family around 1850. As a young boy, he accompanied his father and other hunters on the summer hunt, though it was not yet time for him to participate in the hunt.

This was his first lesson in the work of adult men of his tribe.

More than 60 years later, Wolf Chief told the story of his first hunt to Gilbert Wilson, an anthropologist who recorded many stories of the old ways of the Hidatsa. The story has been edited slightly.

When I was about 12 years of age, all the people of our village went on the west side of the Missouri] River toward what is now the town of Dickinson, for we had heard that buffalo herds were there. We crossed the river in bull boats . . . .

My father, Son of a Star, was chosen leader of the hunt and Belly-up was his crier. We made our first camp just outside the timber of the Missouri.

The next morning our people struck tents . . . . The young men went along the side of the road on horseback. In old times when we made a march like this, a large number of the people walked . . . .

The season of our march was in the first part of July. Before we had left Like-a-Fish-Hook village, all the families had hoed their gardens free of weeds so that we could leave them in safety, knowing that our crops would be in good condition when we returned.

We made six or seven camps before we found any buffaloes. As we came near to Cannonball River, my father sent two young men ahead to see if they could find any buffaloes. They returned saying, “There is a big bunch of buffaloes over there.” 

They made their report on returning that evening. Everybody got ready for the hunt the next morning.

We arose early in the morning and my father saddled two horses while I also saddled one, for I was going with the hunting party.

I had a white man’s saddle, small for a boy, which I had gotten from the Crow Indians. Both my father’s horses had elk horn saddles.

In the rear of his saddle he tied short ropes in a twist, like a figure eight. This was to be used to bind the meat on the saddle when we came home from the hunt.

The party was made up of about 40 men, each leading an extra horse and 8 boys of from 12 to 15 years of age, each riding a single horse only, not leading one. A boy of 16 or 17 was thought old enough to be a hunter.

The 40 men were young men, or men in their prime, that is, of hunting age.

With us boys, who did not expect to take part in the actual hunt, went 3 old men, one of them carrying a bow and arrows. I do not think he really expected to use them but carried them more for the sake of old-time customs.

The 3 old men and we smaller boys, were not expected to take part in the actual chase of the buffaloes.

The leader of the hunt had been appointed the night before. He was Belly-up, or E-da´-ka-tas. Our name for a leader of the hunt was Matse´-aku´-ee, or, keeper of the men.

The name for my father’s office, leader of the tribe on the march, we called Madi-aku´-ee or tribe-traveling keeper.

Belly-up went on ahead and all the rest of us followed. We went out about five miles. Then we sent out two men on ahead . . . to spy out the herds.

We went at a smart trot. Pretty soon we saw our two scouts returning. They reported to Belly-up that they had located the herds.

They returned at a gallop, so we knew before they had reported, that they had news to tell. Belly-up now pressed forward faster and we all followed at a gallop.

All the men had quirts, as had Belly-up himself and I remember how the quirts would come down, “Slap, slap,” on the horses’ flanks and the hoofs go “Beat, beat” on the stones.

About a half mile from the buffaloes we stopped on the hither side of a hill which hid the buffaloes from view. The men took the saddles off the horses they were riding and put bridles in their mouths made of raw hide ropes, then remounted.

Belly-up went off a little way, took out a piece of red calico, tore off a strip and tore it into three or four pieces. These pieces he put on the ground as he faced in the direction of the buffaloes.

He spoke something, evidently a prayer. I could not tell what he said, but I knew that the red cloth was a sacrifice to the buffaloes.

Everybody now got ready and the men mounted their horses and stood in a long line facing the buffaloes, with Belly-up on the extreme right.

Of course, I mean only the hunters. The line now started forward at a sharp gallop, with all the heads and necks of the horses even, in a long line.

A soldier Indian, a man named Tsa-was, rode in front, and if any man got too far forward in the line, Tsa-was, or “Bears Chief,” would strike the horse in the face.

We boys had to follow behind with the 3 old men. These were old men of about 60, or more. One of them, as I have said, had his bow and arrows along, but all the young men in the hunters’ line had rifles. We were all on the leeward side of the buffaloes.

As we came over the brow of the hill we sighted them about four hundred yards away. Belly-up gave the signal, “Ku kats! Now’s the time!” 

Down came all the quirts on the flanks of the horses, making the ponies leap forward like big cats. Everyone now wanted to be first to get to the herd and kill the fattest buffalo.

I was somewhat scared, for the horses were at break-neck speed and my pony took the bit in his mouth and went over the rough, stony ground at a speed that I feared would break his neck and mine too.

“Bang!” went a rifle. A fat cow tumbled over.

“Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!” The herd swerved around and started up wind as buffaloes almost invariably did when they were alarmed.

The herd went tearing off. Only a fast horse could overtake buffaloes and indeed, a fleeing buffalo could outrun many speedy horses.

We killed only cows. The flesh of the bulls was tough and that of calves, when it was dried, became soft and was easily broken into pieces. For this reason, we did not often kill calves, although we sometimes did for the skins.

My father had killed three fat cows in the hunt, for he was along with the party. He butchered the cows and brought his spare horse (which he had left behind the hill, hobbled) and loaded it with meat.

He put a little of the meat also on the horse that he rode, but none on the pony I rode.

As he was cutting up the carcass, I saw him throw away what I thought was a good piece of meat.

I hated to see that piece of meat wasted and when I thought he was not looking, I picked it up and threw it back on the pile.

When we got home, I overheard my father say to my mother, “Our boy is not a wasteful boy—he wants to save what he has. He threw back on the pile of meat, some tough leg meat that I had thrown away. He did not want to see it wasted.”

He returned back to the camp from the place of the hunt much more slowly than we had gone thither. Sometimes we went at a trot, very often at a walk.

Almost every part of the buffalo was used in the old times. The choice cuts, with the shoulders and hams, we carried home, but the spines, neck, and heavier pieces we left behind on the prairie, covered over with hides.

The next day we came back to the place of the hunt for the meat we had left behind. We found it safe and carted it back to camp.

We spent two days drying the meat and making bone-grease. We did not dry the meat in smoke but on stages in the open air.

The tribes used different techniques in hunting. Some drove bison herds over a cliff or into a small canyon. Others surrounded the herd and then approached for the killing.

As soon as the bison were killed, women removed the hides and began to cut the meat into pieces. Usually some of the meat was consumed immediately as the tribe or band celebrated a successful hunt, but hundreds of thousands of pounds of meat were dried for winter use.

Women sliced the meat into thin strips and hung it on poles in the sun near a small fire to dry. Dried meat did not spoil.

Many of the tribes dried the meat at the hunting camp before returning to their villages. While the meat was drying, the hides were stretched out on the ground and staked down.

Women then scraped the hides clean of all flesh and began the process of preserving the hide. Hides might be tanned for robes. Other hides might be left untanned and used as rawhide.

Hunters broke open the bones to remove the marrow which was eaten fresh or used in soups. Marrow is high in calories and protein, so it was a highly valued food. The bones were saved to be made into sharp, strong tools.

Following the summer hunt, the people returned home with many tons of dried bison meat. If they were able to protect their supply of meat from raiders or military attack, they would eat well until the following spring.

This document is presented with permission of the Minnesota Historical Society and American Museum of Natural History. From Gilbert Wilson’s Reports, 1913, part 1, pgs 125-141.

Lakota Bison Hunt

The Lakotas lived in the woodlands east of the Great Plains where they lived as both hunters and farmers until around 1707.

The winter count of Battiste Good tells us that by 1707, the Lakotas had both horses and guns. They acquired guns and horses through trade networks that linked Indians to European Americans.

By the middle of the 18^th century, the Lakotas were primarily bison hunters. They hunted for food and hides.

The surplus in hides was traded to other tribes or to Anglo-Americans for other things they needed. Women prepared the hides for trade by stretching and tanning the hides.

They also decorated the hides in order to get the best advantage in trade. In the late summer or early fall, Lakotas traveled to the Mandan villages to trade bison hides for corn which they needed for a good diet.

As the time for the communal hunt approached, the Lakotas began making plans. The hunt could not take place until a spiritual leader had a vision.

The vision might tell the people that the time to hunt was right, or it might tell them to wait a while. Either way, the people listened carefully to the advice and followed it.

After the proper spiritual ceremonies had been completed, the council met to discuss the hunt. The council members smoked a pipe in the appropriate ceremonial manner and carefully discussed the hunt.

They decided when and where the hunt would take place. The discussion might have lasted a few hours or several days. The council ended with a great feast prepared by the women of the village.

Before the hunt began, the council chose four young men to organize and maintain order in the hunt. These men were called akicitas (ah kee CHEE tahs) or marshals. Each of the marshals wore a special shirt and carried a feathered banner to signify his role. The akicitas controlled the camp and had the authority to punish anyone who disobeyed.

Before the hunt, women prepared to move the camp. They made repairs to the tipis, harnesses and clothing.

The men prepared their bows and arrows and bison hunting horses for the hunt. They also played a game called hehaka (heh HAH kah) which was a game of speed and accuracy that involved catching a hoop with a stick.

The entire village traveled between 10 and 25 miles each day. Even very small children, elderly people and those who were sick went with the village on the hunt. They stopped where there was enough water and wood for a good camp.

The people traveled close together and kept watch for enemies. The season for the Lakotas’ hunt was the time when all tribes were out to hunt bison.

When the camp arrived at a place near the herd, the people, even children and dogs, had to be very quiet so the bison herd would not be frightened.

When the scouts discovered a herd, they returned to signal the hunters. Different signals meant different size herds. If the scout waved his robe, then spread it on the ground, it meant that he had seen a herd (Battiste Good Winter Count).

First, the Lakotas made an offering to the spirit of the bison. The camp herald went through camp calling everyone to make ready for the hunt.

At first light, the marshals led the hunters silently toward the herd and arranged them so each had a fair chance.

At the signal, the hunters galloped toward the herd, keeping low on their horses. The bison, not seeing humans, did not run until the hunters released their arrows.

The hunters tried to wound or kill as many as possible. They shot an arrow into the bison’s side or chest. An animal that was wounded, but not killed might turn and charge the hunter’s horse.

The hunter quickly left the first bison he shot and rode after another. They continued until the horses were exhausted or all the bison they wanted were killed.

If there was a white bison in the herd they made a special effort to kill it. White bison were rare and considered wakan (wah KAHN) or sacred.

A white bison robe made an extraordinary gift or offering. One of the bison carcasses, perhaps a white one, was sacrificed for a good hunt. The hide was removed from the carcass, but the remainder of the animal was left in the field as a sacrifice of thanks.

Each hunter identified the animals he had killed with some mark or piece of clothing. Soon the women arrived with horses and travois for carrying the hides, meat and other parts back to camp.

The hunters took a fresh liver, dipped it in gall (a bitter fluid from the gall bladder) and ate it. Lakota hunters believed that this food, eaten raw, gave them strength and courage. Roasted meat was served to the rest of the village.

Women now dried the meat, stored the fat and made wasna (WAHZ nah). They staked out the hides. The men rested.

After all the meat was dried and preserved, the tribe decided if they had enough for the winter or if they needed to conduct another hunt. If they did not need to hunt anymore, the marshals gave up their control of the camp and life returned to normal.

Bison provided everything necessary for a good life on the Great Plains. The Lakotas chose to live as nomads, hunting and trading, which provided them with a good living and a strong spiritual foundation.

However, this life also required that they be constantly prepared for an attack or war with enemies.

ND Studies 8^th grade

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NEXT: PART 4 ME’TIS: The Métis Bison Hunt, with Father Belcourt

Francie M Berg

Author of the Buffalo Tales &Trails blog