Butchering was done swiftly. The hide was removed and the carcass dressed. The meat was cut into large pieces and then wrapped in the hides to make two bundles. The bundles were laid across the pack horses’ backs in such a way that they balanced each other.
The greatest difficulty was in preparing the head. First the tongue was removed. Every Crow knew that the tongue was one of the best parts of the buffalo. Next the head was cut from the carcass and beaten against a rock until the bone shattered. Then the brain was removed. Crow squaws would need the brain to rub on the underside of the hide. Without it, the hide could not be properly tanned.
Bent Arrow and his uncle were the first to have their buffaloes butchered and the meat loaded on pack horses.
“We’ll take the hide from the buffalo you killed,” Flying Arrow said. “Since killing that buffalo saved the life of a Crow, the hide should be good medicine for you.”
Bent Arrow nodded. Every Crow carried a small pouch in which he had his medicine. The medicine wasn’t carried as something to cure sickness; it was to help guard the warrior from danger. Not all warriors had the same things in their medicine bags. Usually a warrior learned in a dream what he should put in his medicine bag to protect him. In Flying Arrow’s medicine bag there were the claw of a bear, a piece of the fur of a wolf, and a hawk’s feather. In a dream a bear had told Flying Arrow to get a hawk’s feather to carry with a bear’s claw and a piece of wolf fur. It must have been powerful medicine. Since he had had it, Flying Arrow had made many successful raids. Bent Arrow hoped his would prove as powerful.
When Flying Arrow saw the buffalo that Bent Arrow had killed, he seemed pleased.
“Besides the skin, we shall take the buffalo’s heart,” he told Bent Arrow. “It was a brave buffalo. By eating its heart, you will become braver.”
It was a triumphant band of hunters that rode back into camp as the sun was sinking in the western sky. Here was a great supply of meat to be added to the tribe’s winter store. In a few days the hunting party could start back toward the big winter camp of all the Crow tribes.
As soon as the pack horses were unloaded and put back into the corral, Flying Arrow cooked fresh buffalo steaks.
“You must take a gift to Clawing Bear,” he told Bent Arrow. “The medicine man will want to know about your hunting. It may be that he will have found another message in the dream you had last night.”