III

Although the meat of the buffalo was the Indians' chief article of food, this was by no means the only bond between the red man and the aboriginal herds of the plains. Besides the almost innumerable utilitarian purposes for which the different parts of the animals were used, there was scarcely a phase of life or a ceremony in which they did not figure. In the dance, a rite of the first importance, in the practice of the Wah-Kon, or medicine, in the legends of the creation and the after-death, the buffalo had his place. Such lore might make a quaint and curious volume, but we shall consider only the more striking uses and traditions of the bison in their relation to the life of the early West.

The buffalo was, in truth, the great political factor among the tribes; nearly all of the bitter warfare between nation and nation was for no other purpose than to maintain or gain the right to hunt in favourable fields. Thus the Judith Basin, the region of the Musselshell and many other haunts of the herds, became also battle fields of bloodshed and death. Not only did the bison cause hostilities among the nations, but they were likewise the reason of internal strife. It is said that the Assiniboines, or Sioux of the Mountains, separated from the main body of the tribe on account of a dispute between the wives of two rival chiefs, each of whom persisted in having for her portion the entire heart of a fine bison slain in the chase. This was the beginning of a feud which split the nation into independent, antagonistic tribes.

The utmost economy was generally observed by the early Indians in the use of the buffalo. Each part of the animal served some particular purpose. The tongue, the hump and the marrow bones of the thighs were considered the greatest delicacies. The animals killed for meat were almost always cows, for the flesh of buffalo bulls could be eaten only during the months of May and June.

Among the Omawhaws of nearly two centuries ago, all the meat save the hump and chosen parts reserved for immediate use, was cut into "large, thin slices" and either dried by the heat of the sun or "jerked over a slow fire on a low scaffold." After being thoroughly cured it was compressed into "quadrangular packages" of a convenient size to carry on a pack saddle. The small intestines were carefully cleaned and turned inside out to preserve the outer coating of fat, then dried and woven into a kind of mat. These mats were packed into parcels of the same shape and size as the meat. Even the muscular coating of the stomach was preserved. The large intestines were stuffed with flesh and used without delay. The vertebrae were pulverized with a stone axe after which the crushed bone was boiled. The very rich grease that arose to the surface was skimmed and preserved in bladders for future use. The stomach and bladder were filled with this and other sorts of fat, or converted into water bottles. All of the cured meat was cached, in French-Canadian phrase, until hunger drove the Indians to draw upon these stores.

The pemmican of song and history was a kind of hash made by toasting buffalo meat, then pulverizing it to a fine consistency with a stone hammer. Mr. James Mooney in the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, describes the process as follows; "In the old times a hole was dug in the ground and a buffalo hide was staked over so as to form a skin dish, into which the meat was thrown to be pounded. The hide was that from the neck of the buffalo, the toughest part of the skin, the same used for shields, and the only part which would stand the wear and tear of the hammers. In the meantime the marrow bones are split up and boiled in water until all the grease and oil comes to the top, when it is skimmed off and poured over the pounded beef. As soon as the mixture cools, it is sewed up into skin bags (not the ordinary painted parfléche cases) and laid away until needed. It was sometimes buried or otherwise cached. Pemmican thus prepared will keep indefinitely. When prepared for immediate use, it is usually sweetened with sugar, mesquite pods, or some wild fruit mixed and beaten up with it in the pounding. It is extremely nourishing, and has a very agreeable taste to one accustomed to it. On the march it was to the prairie Indian what parched corn was to the hunter of the timber tribes, and has been found so valuable as a condensed nutriment that it is extensively used by arctic travellers and explorers. A similar preparation is used upon the pampas of South America and in the desert region of South Africa, while the canned beef of commerce is an adaptation from the Indian idea. The name comes from the Cree language, and indicates something mixed with grease or fat. (Lacombe.)"

Among the Sioux at Pine Ridge and Rosebud, in the ceremony of the Ghost Dance, pemmican was celebrated in the sacred songs. Mr. Mooney gives the translation of one of them:

"Give me my knife,

Give me my knife,

I shall hang up the meat to dry—Ye'ye'!

Says grandmother—Yo'yo'!

When it is dry I shall make pemmican,

Says grandmother—Yo'yo'!

Says grandmother—Yo'yo'!"

*****

Though at first the main object for which the buffalo was hunted was the flesh, next in importance and afterwards foremost, was the hide made into the buffalo robe of commerce. Since these robes played such an important part in the early traffic and were partly responsible for the annihilation of the bison, it is worth while to consider how they were procured and treated. The skins to be dressed were taken in the early Spring while the fur was long, thick and luxuriant. Those obtained in the Autumn called "Summer skins" were used only in the making of lodges, clothing, and for other domestic purposes. To the squaws was assigned the preparation of the hides as well as the cutting and curing of the meat. Immediately after the hunt while in the "green" state the skins were stretched and dried. After this, they were taken to the village and subjected to a process of curing which was carried on during the leisure of the women. The hide was nearly always cut down the center of the back so that it could be more easily manipulated. The two parts were then spread upon the ground and scraped with a tool like an adze until every particle of flesh was removed. In this way all unnecessary thickness was obviated and the hide was made light and pliable. When the skin had been reduced to the proper thinness a dressing made of the liver and brains of the animal were spread over it. This mixture was allowed to dry and the same process was repeated save that in the second instance while the hide was wet it was stretched in a frame, carefully scraped with pumice stone, sharp-edged rocks or a kind of hoe, until it was dry. To make it as flexible as possible, it was then drawn back and forth over twisted sinew. The parts were sewed together with sinew and the buffalo robe was ready for the trader's hands.

As early as 1819 these robes were in great demand and one trader reported that in a single year he shipped fifteen thousand to St. Louis.

In the everyday life of the Indians the products of the buffalo yielded nearly every comfort and necessity. The hides were used not only for robes and portable lodges which furnished shelter on the march, but they were made into battle shields; upon their tanned surface the primitive artist traced his painted record of the chase, the fray, or the mystic medicine. They were laid upon the earth for the young braves to play their endless games of chance upon, and the wounded were taken from the field on stretchers of buffalo hides swung between a pair of ponies. From them two kinds of boats were made. One, described by James in his account of the journey of his party in 1819-20 is as follows:

"Our heavy baggage was ferried across in a portable canoe, consisting of a single bison hide, which we carried constantly with us. Its construction was extremely simple; the margin of the hide being pierced with several small holes, admits a cord, by which it is drawn into the form of a shallow basin. This is placed upon the water, and is kept sufficiently distended by the baggage which it receives; it is then towed or pushed across. A canoe of this kind will carry from four to five hundred pounds."

The second variety, known as a "bull-boat," was made of willows woven into a round basket and lined with buffalo hide.

The grease of these beasts was used to anoint the Indians' bodies and to season the maize or corn.

From the horns were made spoons, sometimes holding half a pint, and often ornamented upon the handles with curious carving.

The shoulder blade fastened to a stick served for a hoe or a plow.

From the hide of unborn buffalo calves bags were made to contain the war-paint of braves.

It would be at once possible and profitable to continue enumerating the practical uses of the buffalo, but far more interesting than these facts were the ceremonies, superstitions and traditions in which they were bound up.

Perhaps, first among the rites in sacred significance and solemn dignity was the smoking of the calumet. This was supposed to be not only an expression of peace among men and nations, but a propitiatory offering to the Manitous, or guardian spirits, and to the Master of Life.

According to Colonel Mallory in the Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, the Sioux believed that this supreme emblem of good will was brought to them by a white buffalo cow, in the old days when the different bands of the nation were torn with internal strife. During this period of hostility a beautiful white buffalo cow appeared, bearing a pipe and four grains of corn, each of a different colour. From the milk which dripped from her body, sprang the living corn, so from the beginning the grain and the buffalo meat were decreed to be the food of the Indians. She gave to the rival factions, the pipe which was the sacred calumet, instructing them that it was the symbol of peace among men and he who smoked it with his fellows, by that act sealed the bond of brotherhood. After staying for awhile among the grateful people, and teaching them to call her "Grandmother," which is a term of affectionate reverence among the Indians, she led them to plentiful herds of her own kind and vanished into the spiritland whence she came.

The odour of the buffalo was believed to be agreeable to the Great Spirit so that the tobacco or kinnikinick of the calumet was flavoured with animal's excrement in order that the aroma wafted upward might be most pleasing. This custom of flavouring the pipe with the scent of the buffalo was carefully observed by the Pawnee Loups of the olden time, a tribe which claimed descent from the ancient Mexicans, in the awful ceremonies preceding a human sacrifice to Venus, the "Great Star." Upon this austere occasion four great buffalo skulls were placed within the lodge where the celebration was held and they were offered the sacred nawishkaro or calumet. The bodies of their chiefs or those who died gloriously in war were robed in buffalo skins, furnished with food and weapons, and placed sitting upright, in a little lodge near a route of travel or a camp in order that the passers by might see that they had met their death with honour. The Pawnees also used bison skulls as signals, and we find in James' Travels this interesting account:

"At a little distance in front of the entrance of this breastwork, was a semi-circular row of sixteen bison skulls, with their noses pointing down the river. Near the center of the circle which this row would describe if continued, was another skull marked with a number of red lines.

"Our interpreter informed us that this arrangement of skulls and other marks here discovered, were designed to communicate the following information, namely, that the camp had been occupied by a war party of the Pawnee Loup Indians, who had lately come from an excursion against the Cumancias, Tetans or some of the Western tribes. The number of red lines traced on the painted skull indicated the number of the party to have been thirty-six; the position in which the skulls were placed, that they were on their return to their own country. Two small rods stuck in the ground, with a few hairs tied in two parcels to the end of each signified that four scalps had been taken."

There are many other similar instances recorded by different adventurers who braved the early West, yet this was but one of numerous uses of buffalo skulls and heads. Among the Aricaras upon each lodge was a trophy of the war path or the chase composed of strangely painted buffalo heads topped with all kinds of weapons.

There was a curious belief among the Minitarees that the bones of the buffalo killed in the chase became rehabilitated with flesh and lived again, to be hunted the following year. In support of this superstition they had a legend that once upon a time on a great hunt a boy of the tribe was lost. His people gave him up for dead but the succeeding season a huge bison was slain and when the body was opened the boy stepped out alive and well. He related to his dumbfounded companions, how the year before, he had become separated from them as he pursued a splendid bull. He felled his game with an arrow, but so far had he gone that it was too late to overtake and rejoin the tribe before nightfall. Therefore, he cut into the bison's body, removed a portion of the intestines and feeling the keen frost of evening upon his unsheltered body, sought warmth within the carcass. But, lo! when the boy awakened the buffalo was whole again and he was a prisoner within his whilom prey!

The Gros Ventres, in the day of Lewis and Clark, thought that if the head of the slain buffalo were treated well, the living herd would come in plentiful numbers to yield an abundance of meat.

Of the many bands into which the Omawhaw nation was divided there were two, the Ta-pa-eta-je and the Ta-sin-da, bison tail, which had the buffalo for their medicine. The first of these were sworn to abstain from touching buffalo heads, and the second were forbidden the flesh of the calves until the young animals were more than one year old. If these vows were broken by a member of the band and the sacred pledge so violated, a judgment such as blindness, white hair or disease was believed to be sent upon the offender. Even should one innocently transgress the law, a visitation of sickness was accounted his condign portion and not only he but his family were included in the wrath and punishment of the outraged Manitous.

The Crow Indians, Up-sa-ro-ka, or Absaroka, used the buffalo as a part of their great medicine. An early traveller, Dougherty, describes an extraordinary "arrangement of the magi." In his own words, "the upper portion of a cottonwood tree was emplanted with its base in the earth, and around it was a sweat house, the upper part of the top of the tree arising through the roof. A gray bison skin, extended with oziers on the inside so as to exhibit a natural appearance, was suspended above the house, and on the branches were attached several pairs of children's moccasins and leggings, and from one limb of the tree, a very large fan made of war-eagles' feathers was dependent."

This leads to an interesting superstition of the Indians, which was that any variation in the usual colour of the buffalo was caused by the special interference of the Master of Life, and a beast so distinguished from his kind was venerated religiously, much as the ancient Egyptians worshipped the sacred bull. Once a "grayish-white" bison was seen and upon another occasion a calf with white forefeet and a white frontal mark. An early traveller once saw in an Indian lodge, the head of a buffalo perfectly preserved, which was marked by a white star. The man to whom it belonged treasured it as his medicine, nor would he part with it at any price.

"'The herds come every season,' he said, 'into the vicinity to seek their white-faced companion!'"

Maximilian, in his Travels in North America, gives an interesting description of the martial and sacred significance of the robes of white buffalo cows among the Mandans and Minitarees. He says that the brave who has never possessed this emblem is without honour, and the merest youth who has obtained it ranks above the most venerable patriarch who has never owned the precious hide. Indeed, "of all the distinctions of any man the white buffalo hide" was supreme. As the white buffalo were extremely rare it was seldom a hunter killed one for himself. The robes were brought by other tribes, often from far distant parts of the country, to the Mandans who traded from ten to fifteen horses for a perfect specimen. It was necessary for the hide to be that of a young cow not more than two years old, and it had to be cured "with the horns, nose, hoofs and tail" complete, In Maximilian's words: "The Mandans have peculiar ceremonies at the dedication of the hide. As soon as they have obtained it they engage an eminent medicine man, who must throw it over him; he then walks around the village in the apparent direction of the sun's course, and sings a medicine song. When the owner, after collecting articles of value for three or four years, desires to offer his treasure to the lord of life, or to the first man, he rolls it up, after adding some wormwood or a head of maize, and the skin then remains suspended on a high pole till it rots away. At the time of my visit there was such an offering at Mih-Tutta-Hang-Kush, near the stages for the dead without the village. Sometimes, when the ceremony of dedication is finished, the hide is cut into small strips, and the members of the family wear parts of it tied over the head, or across the forehead, when they are in full dress. If a Mandan kills a young white buffalo cow it is accounted to him as more than an exploit, or having killed an enemy. He does not cut up the animal himself, but employs another man, to whom he gives a horse for his trouble. He alone who has killed such an animal is allowed to wear a narrow strip of the skin in his ears. The whole robe is not ornamented, being esteemed superior to any other dress, however fine. The traders have, sometimes, sold such hides to the Indians, who gave them as many as sixty other robes in exchange. Buffalo skins with white spots are likewise highly valued by the Mandans; but there is a race of these animals with very soft, silky hair, which has a beautiful gold lustre when in the sunshine; these are, likewise, highly prized."

There are numerous myths of a white buffalo cow, who at will, assumed the form of a beautiful maiden.

The Sioux in common with the Aricaras and the Minitarees observed the custom of fasting before going to war or upon the hunt. They had a "medicine lodge," where a buffalo robe was spread and a red painted post was planted. Upon the top of the lodge was tied a buffalo calf skin holding various sacred objects. After preliminary rites they tortured themselves, one favorite method being to make a gash under their shoulder blades, run cords through the wounds and drag two large bison heads to a hill about a mile distant from their village, where they danced until they fell fainting with exhaustion.

Some of the tribes performed the Ta-nuguh-wat-che, or bison dance. The participants were painted black, wore a head dress made of the skin of a buffalo head which was cut after the fashion of a cap. It was adjusted in a manner to resemble a live animal, and extending from this head dress, over the half-naked and blackened bodies of the dancers, depended a long strip of hide from the back of the buffalo which hung down like a tail.

The Omawhaws believed that the Great Wahconda appeared sometimes in the shape of a bison bull and they, like other tribes, cherished legends of a fabulous age when animals spoke together, did battle and possessed intelligence equal to that of men. The following myth of the bison bull, the ant and the tortoise, related by James, is an interesting example of these fables:

Once upon a time an ant, a tortoise and a buffalo bull formed themselves into a war party and determined to attack the village of an enemy in the vicinity. They decided in council that the tortoise being sluggish and slow of movement, should start in advance and the ant and bull should time their departure so as to overtake him on the way. This plan was adopted and the awkward tortoise floundered forth on his hostile mission alone. In due time the bison bull took the ant upon his back, lest on account of his minuteness he be lost, and together they set out for the enemy's country. At length they came to a treacherous bog where they found the poor tortoise struggling vainly to free himself. This caused the ant and the bull much merriment as they crossed safely to solid ground. But the tortoise, scorning to ask the aid of his brothers in war, replied cheerfully to their taunts and insisted that he would meet them at the hostile village.

The ant and the bison advanced with noise and bravado and the watchful enemy perceiving them, issued from their lodges and wounded both, driving them to headlong, inglorious retreat.

Finally the tortoise with sore travail, reached his destination to find his companions flown, and because he could not flee also, he fell into the hands of the foe—a prisoner. These cruel people decided to put him to death at once. They threatened him with slow roasting in red coals of fire, with boiling and many awful tortures, but the astute tortoise expressed his willingness to suffer any of these penalties. Therefore the enemy consulted together again and held over his head the fate of drowning. Against this he protested with such frenzied vehemence that his captors immediately executed the sentence, and bearing him to a deep part of the river which flowed through their country, flung him in. Thus restored to his native element he plunged to the bottom of the stream, then arose to the surface to see his enemies gaping from the bank in expectation of his agony. He grabbed several of them, dragged them down and killed them, and appeared once more triumphantly displaying their scalps to the bewildered multitude of thwarted warriors who were helpless to avenge their brethren. The tortoise, satisfied with his achievement, returned to his home where he found the ant and the bull prone upon the floor of the lodge, wounded, humbled and fordone.

*****

Finally, the Minitarees and other tribes had a curious legend of their origin. They believed that their forefathers once dwelt in dark, subterranean caverns, beyond a great, swift-running river. Two youths disappeared from amongst them and after a short absence returned to proclaim that they had found a land lighted by an orb which warmed the earth to fecundity, where deep waters shimmered crystal white and countless herds of bison covered grass and flower-decked plains. So the youths led the people up out of the primal darkness into the pleasant valleys where they dwelt evermore. And as the bison were celebrated in this child-like tradition of the Beginning, so likewise, did they figure in the primitive conception of the hereafter. That region of Summer where the good Indian should find repose, was pictured as an ideal country, fair with verdure and rich with herds of buffalo which the good spirits would go seeking through the golden vistas of eternity.