Buffalo take care of each other, says Mike Faith, who was Standing Rock’s Buffalo Manager for some 20 years. He’s now Tribal Chairman.

Faith says buffalo watch each other for warning signs of danger or stress.

When it comes time for a cow to give birth she finds a secluded place such as a ravine with trees. There she has time for herself, to be alone when the calf is born.

When alone, she is able to bond with her newborn, nourish it, and defend that calf until its strong enough to join the herd.

But she’s not quite alone. The mother has several female friends who hang around—not so close as to interfere, says Faith—but near enough to watch for predators and possible interruptions.

“If a new mother gets up and moves away before she’s ready, she might not bond with her calf.

“If she gets spooked, she might abandon her newborn and not come back. The calf might die of starvation.”

Faith recalls that one morning he saw three cows acting in a peculiar way.

They were grazing on the plateau above a cut bank. One at a time, each buffalo cow walked over to the edge of the cut bank, looked down at the flat below for awhile and then returned to her grazing.

They stayed nearby, and occasionally each one went back and looked over the bank again.

As he sat in his pickup and watched, Faith couldn’t see what the cows were concerned about, but didn’t want to disturb them.

So he drove around where he could see the grassy area below the bank.

There he saw two coyotes circling a young, sleeping calf at some distance.

As he drove closer, the coyotes saw him and started to run.

They disappeared over the hill, but Faith said he had no doubt if the coyotes had come too close to the sleeping calf, the cows would have charged down the trail and chased them away.

The buffalo mother’s two friends were helping her keep watch and protect the sleeping calf.

As told by Mike Faith, Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman, Ft. Yates, ND.)

Francie M Berg

Author of the Buffalo Tales &Trails blog

The last wild buffalo had disappeared, along with their meat and hides. Their whitened bones had been picked up, hauled to the nearest railroad and sold for fertilizer.

But after all that, there was still one last gift of the buffalo sprinkled across the western plains—dried buffalo chips.

Native Americans had always burned buffalo chips where trees were scarce. These large, chips or “buffalo pies,” when dried burned quickly to start a fire. They produced hot fires to warm the tepee or to roast a meal.

White travelers and settlers quickly learned from Native Americans the value of these dried manure piles for a quick, hot fire with little smoke. The chips were conveniently-sized, about a foot in diameter and two or three inches thick.

However, some eastern-bred women had a hard time accepting the idea of cooking a meal with buffalo chips, either in an open fireplace or their new kitchen stove.

Worse, their husbands often expected them to go out and collect the dried manure patties from the prairies, carry them home, and store them in a box by the stove.

Even though the dried chips no longer smelled like manure, many women thought it was simply outrageous that their husbands wanted them to cook family meals this way.

One Dakota cowboy told the story of a homestead woman he met one morning out on the prairie.

The woman, in her long calico dress, was collecting buffalo chips.

The cowboy took a break from his long ride to stop and chat with her a bit.

The woman was holding two sticks far out in front of her. With the sticks she gingerly picked up a fat, dry buffalo chip—her nose twisted in disgust—and dropped it into her wooden wheelbarrow.

“Howdy, Ma’am.” The cowboy tipped his hat and rolled a cigarette. “Getting’ some firewood this morning, I see?” he asked in a friendly way.

She wrinkled her nose. “It’s disgraceful!” she scoffed. “Look, there’s not even wood fothe fire! And I left our beautiful home in Ohio for this! I even grew yellow roses by the front door.”

The cowboy smiled, “It’s not so bad, Ma’am. You’ll get used to it.”

He reached down, picked up a dry chip and dropped it into her wheelbarrow.

She did not smile. “Never! My husband! He was so determined to come out west. ‘Land of opportunity,’ he said. “Hmmph!”

He stayed awhile to be sociable, helping her and trying to cheer her up.

But she scowled bitterly, as together they loaded buffalo chips until the wheelbarrow was nearly too heavy to push.

Leading his horse, the cowboy pushed the wheelbarrow to the nearby tar paper shack, where her husband was working on a fence.

Without a word of thanks, she sniffed and went into the house, while the men exchanged greetings.

“Newcomer,” he chuckled to himself as he rode on.

A year later that cowboy happened to ride the same range and saw the homesteader woman.

Again, she was out on the prairie picking up buffalo chips.

But this time she worked quickly without her wheelbarrow.

Instead, she carried a load of buffalo chips in her apron, and handled them with expertise.

Gripping her scooped apron with one hand, she loaded on chips with the other, tucking a last chip under her chin.

She smiled and nodded as he rode up. “Good morning!”

He grinned. “How’s everything going, Mrs. Johnson?”

“Just fine!”

He laughed, knowing she had found her way as a frontier woman.

In another community, the new teacher requested some kindling to start the fire, when her school board parent brought his little daughter to school.

Looking embarrassed, he said he’d already delivered the kindling against the woodshed.

After the man left, the teacher went back to the woodshed and looked, but saw no wood.

Puzzled, she walked once more around the woodshed.

“What is that pile of dried manure?” she wondered.

The light dawned. Gingerly she took a dried buffalo chip from the mystery pile, put it in her stove and found it burned well.

She had her fire starter, only it just didn’t happen to be wood.

Francie M Berg

Author of the Buffalo Tales &Trails blog

Traditionally Native grandparents taught children that, “The buffalo are our brothers.”

In turn, children learned to respect the buffalo, and remember to thank them for their many gifts.

Stories were often told to strengthen the bond between buffalo and humans.

Some traditions suggest that buffalo could shift back and forth into human form, and that humans, too, could sometimes shift and become buffalo.

One day a young hunter went out alone to get meat for his people.

He was a good hunter who followed the sacred traditions, always shared meat with older people and thanked the buffalo for their gifts.

As he walked by a small stream, he saw a buffalo cow coming toward him.

He pulled an arrow from his quiver, getting ready to shoot her, when she suddenly turned into a beautiful young woman. He dropped his arrow as she came closer.

“I come from the buffalo people,” she said. “My father sent me here because of your good feelings toward all buffalo. He knows you are a good, kind man, and I was sent here to be your wife.

“We are meant to set an example for both the stand-upright people and the walk-on-all-fours people, and teach them how to live together in peace and harmony.”

Her hair smelled of sage and prairie flowers. He immediately fell in love with her, and took her home to his village.

They married and had a son named Calfboy. For a time they lived happily together in the Indian village.

But the Native women did not like the buffalo woman much.

Her hair fell in wild tangles. They said she smelled strange and didn’t understand their ways.

One day when her husband was gone hunting, they scolded her and told her to go back home.

She picked up Calfboy and ran away.

When the brave young hunter returned and found they had gone, he was frantic. He went in search, following their moccasin trail all day.

That evening he found them eating by a camp fire.

His wife told the hunter, “You must go back. I need to go home to live with my people. But they will kill you if you follow.”

“I’m not afraid to die,” he said. “I love you both and I am going with you.”

He lay down to sleep with them. But in the morning when he awoke they were gone.

Again, he followed their moccasin tracks all day. When he lost the trail, the grasshoppers told him which way to go, and he found his wife and child at evening camp.

His wife again told him, “You can’t follow me. If you do my people will be so angry about what happened, they will kill you.”

“I don’t care. I love you and I’m going to go where you go,” he said.

For three days the same thing happened. He woke up alone.

Then on the fourth morning the tracks leading away were not moccasin prints. Instead they were tracks of a buffalo and a small calf.

The father followed them and from the top of a ridge he saw a huge herd of grazing buffalo.

Calfboy came galloping up on all fours, crying, “Papa! Go back! They’re going to kill you.”

The brave hunter said, “No, son. I came to stay. I belong here with you and your mother.”

“Then you’ll have to be brave. If you show any fear my grandfather will kill you. He’s chief of all the buffalo. He’s going to test you. You’ll have to find me and Mama, in all this big herd of buffalo.

“You’ll know me because I’ll twitch my left ear like a fly is bothering me. You’ll know Mama because I’ll put a cocklebur on her back. Be careful, Papa.”

Just then a huge old buffalo charged at him, but he stood his ground and showed no fear.

The buffalo gathered around him in a circle. The little calves in the middle, then the yearlings, the youngest cows, and all the way out to the oldest bulls, according to age.

He survived every test they gave him that day.

Finally the old buffalo said, “If you’re such a good man, if you’re so smart, show me who your son is.”

The hunter walked around the big herd and at last saw a young buffalo with a twitch in his left ear.

“This is my son,” he said, surprising all the buffalo.

“That’s wonderful” they said. “He must be really smart.”

“Okay,” challenged the grandfather. “You think you’re so smart, stand-up-right person. Now find my daughter for me.”

Again the father walked around and around and finally spotted the cocklebur. “This is my wife,” he said, stroking her hair.

A tear fell from her eye.

The old buffalo said, “Because this man loves my daughter and my grandson so much that he’s willing to die for them, he can stay.”

“We will show you how we walk-on-all-fours people can live together with you stand- upright people in peace and harmony.”

They covered him with a buffalo hide and rolled him over and over, squeezing out his breath and rubbing off the human smell on the sagebrush.

He tried to stand upright, but could not.

Finally, he went down on all fours, and could not rise on his feet.

That day the buffalo became fast friends with humans. Because the brave young hunter loved his wife and child so much, the buffalo agreed he could stay.

They also agreed to give humans their meat, their hides and many gifts, so the stand-upright people and their children would never be hungry again.

The Native people thanked the buffalo for their generosity and made a solemn promise to treat them always with respect and gratitude.

Francie M Berg

Author of the Buffalo Tales &Trails blog

Bears Arm, a second chief of the Hidatsa, told how he got caught on foot in the middle of a stampeding buffalo herd.

It was during the glorious days of “running buffalo.” Those days arrived with horses on the northern plains, sometime after 1700 and ended with the last of the wild buffalo in 1883.

The first horses arrived in Puerto Rico, North America, with Columbus and the Conquistadors on his second voyage in 1493.

The conquerors from Europe did not want the Natives to learn to ride. They succeeded for awhile.

But during the next years, through escape, raids and trading, horses worked their way north.

By the early 1700s the Commanche and Apache owned sizeable horse herds.

As they traded with northern tribes, a new horse culture grew up across the west that extended from Texas far north into the northern plains and prairies of Canada.

American Indians on the Plains became excellent riders—perhaps the best horsemen the world has ever known. Many men owned large horse herds.

From childhood, Native boys and girls lived on horseback. They grew up with horses, raced each other on horses, and helped train horses.

On coldest nights, they helped their fathers bring a favorite horse into the tepee when blizzards raged.

Once the Native Americans had horses, hunting became far easier and more exciting.

A good horse could run as fast as the buffalo—although they could not run at top speed for 10 miles, as the buffalo could.

But Native hunters had their tricks to turn a running herd, such as by killing the leaders.

Still, hunting accidents often happened and they could be deadly.

A good buffalo horse was well trained.

He could single out the exact buffalo he knew his rider wanted, cut in close and stay there—while dodging the huge hairy head with its viciously slashing horns, responding instantly to the rider’s knee pressure or a shift in weight, and avoiding badger holes.

At the same time his master was leaning over—with the utmost freedom to use both arms and hands in firing one deadly arrow after the other from his bow into the buffalo’s fatal spot.

The Hidatsas lived along the Missouri River at a place called Fish Hook Village, named for a sharp turn in the river.

One day, from across the river, near what is now Washburn, North Dakota, the scouts signaled. A great buffalo herd was grazing not far off.

The hunters made plans to run them, and performed the traditional ceremonies. Then they set off across the river.

Bears Arms wanted a large buffalo hide, so he decided to kill the largest bull he could find.

Most of the other hunters wanted tender and tasty meat for their families. So they were looking for younger cows and young bulls.

“I was not hungry just them. I did not want to kill cows.” Said Bears Arms.

“Riding along, I saw a splendid big fellow.

“I rode along his side—on the right side. You should always kill buffalo bulls from that side. You can shoot arrows better.”

He picked out the fatal spot. Low behind the front leg to reach the heart or lungs.

“I made the hit I wanted. But the arrow did not reach his heart.

“The buffalo made a very quick turn.

“He caught my horse and threw him into the air.

Bears Arms leaped free of the injured horse.

“While he was tearing his guts out, I got away afoot.

Bears Arms was right in the middle of the running animals. He had to keep running or get run over.

He looked for help, but was separated from the other hunters. They shouted and tried to get through the stampeding herd, but could not come to his rescue.

No one could see well in the swirling dust and dirt.

“The buffalo were scared and running fast. The dust was thick. The roar of their feet was terrible.

“No one could reach me now.

“I grabbed a cow by the hair of her neck and ran along by her side.

“She was afraid of me.”

The cow kept trying to get away toward the outside of the main herd.

Protected by the bulk of her body against him, and still holding on to her long hair, Bears Arms worked his way clear of the stampeding hooves behind. He held his knife ready in case she turned on him.

“I got away then,” he said.

“I did not kill her because she had been good to me.”

The old bull stopped too, at the edge of the herd, stumbling and bleeding.

“He did not run far. He was shot in the lungs and was bleeding bad from his nose and his mouth now.

“He stood apart alone and died standing up.

“I lost my horse. But got the biggest hide there!”

It was a good day for the hunters, and Bears Arms began skinning his big bull.

(Story recorded by Colonel A.B Welch among oral histories given by older men of the Mandan, Arikara and Hidatsa along the Missouri River in Dakota Territory during the late 1800s.

Francie M Berg

Author of the Buffalo Tales &Trails blog