The uses which are made of the various parts of the Bison are numerous. The hide, which is thick and rather porous, is converted by the Indians into mocassins for the winter; they also make their shields of it. When dressed with the hair on, it is made into clothing by the natives, and most excellent blankets by the European settlers; so valuable, indeed, is it esteemed, that three or four pounds sterling a piece are not unfrequently given for good ones in Canada, where they are used as travelling cloaks. The fleece, which sometimes weighs eight pounds, is spun and wove into cloth. Stockings, gloves, garters, &c., are likewise knit with it, appearing and lasting as well as those made of the best sheep's wool. In England it has been made into remarkably fine cloth.
"There are," says Catlin, "by a fair calculation, more than 300,000 Indians who are now subsisting on the flesh of the buffaloes, and by these animals supplied with, all the luxuries of life which they desire, as they know of none others. The great variety of uses to which they convert the body and other parts of that animal, are almost incredible to the person who has not actually dwelt amongst these people, and closely studied their modes and customs. Every part of their flesh is converted into food, in one shape or other, and on it they entirely subsist. The skins of the animals are worn by the Indians instead of blankets; their skins, when tanned, are used as coverings for their lodges and for their beds; undressed, they are used for constructing canoes, for saddles, for bridles, l'arrêts, lasos, and thongs. The horns are shaped into ladles and spoons; the brains are used for dressing the skins; their bones are used for saddle-trees, for war-clubs, and scrapers for graining the robes; and others are broken up for the marrow fat which is contained in them. The sinews are used for strings and backs to their bows, for thread to string their beads and sew their dresses. The feet of the animals are boiled, with their hoofs, for the glue they contain, for fastening their arrow points, and many other uses. The hair from the head and shoulders, which is long, is twisted and braided into halters, and the tail is used for a fly-brush."
Again (vol. ii, p. 138), he says, "I have introduced the skin canoes of the Mandans (of the Upper Missouri), which are made almost round like a tub, by straining a buffalo's skin over a frame of wicker-work, made of willow or other boughs. The woman, in paddling these awkward tubs, stands in the bow, and makes the stroke with the paddle, by reaching it forward in the water, and drawing it to her, by which means she pulls the canoe along with considerable speed. These very curious and rudely-constructed canoes are made in the form of the Welsh coracle; and, if I mistake not, propelled in the same manner, which is a very curious circumstance; inasmuch as they are found in the heart of the great wilderness of America, where all the surrounding tribes construct their canoes in decidedly different forms, and of different materials."
Skin Canoes of the Mandan Indians.
It is generally agreed by travellers, that the flesh of the Bison is little inferior to the beef of our domestic oxen. The tongue is considered a delicacy, and the hump is much esteemed. A kind of potted-beef, called pemmican, is made of the flesh of the Bison, in the following manner:—The flesh is spread on a skin, dried in the sun, and pounded with stones; then all the hair is carefully sifted out of it, and melted fat kneeded into it. This, when properly made and kept dry, will keep good for twelve months. The tallow of the Bison forms an important article of commerce; one fat bull yielding sometimes as much as 150 pounds weight.
Mr. Turner, a gentleman long resident in America, is of opinion, that the Bison is superior even to our domestic cattle for the purposes of husbandry, and has expressed a wish to see this animal domesticated on the English farms. He informs us, that a farmer on the great Kenhawa broke a young Bison to the plough; and having yoked it with a steer, taken from his tame cattle, it performed its work to admiration. But there is another property in which the Bison far surpasses the Ox, and this is his strength. "Judging from the extraordinary size of his bones, and the depth and formation of the chest, (continues this gentleman,) I should not think it unreasonable to assign nearly a double portion of strength to this powerful inhabitant of the forest. Reclaim him, and you gain a capital quadruped, both for the draught and for the plough; his activity peculiarly fits him for the latter, in preference to the ox."
As there are no Game Laws in America, (except in a very few confined instances on the Atlantic border,) the consequence is that the Bison is fast disappearing before the approach of the white settlers. At the commencement of the eighteenth century these wild cattle were found in large numbers all throughout the valley of the Ohio, of the Mississippi, in Western New York, in Virginia, &c. In the beginning of the present century they were still existing in the extreme western or southwestern part of the State of New York. As late as 1812 they were natives of Ohio, and numerous in that State. And now they are not to be seen in their native state in any part of the United States, east of the Mississippi River; nor are they now to be found in any considerable numbers west of that great river, until you have travelled some eighty or a hundred miles into the interior of the country.
There were no Bisons west of the Rocky Mountains, when Lewis and Clarke travelled there in 1805. On their return from the Columbia, or Oregon River, in July of that year, the first Bison they saw was on the day after they commenced their descent of the Rocky Mountains towards the east. On the second day after that, they saw immense herds of them on the banks of the Medicine River. One collection of these animals which they subsequently saw, on the borders of the Missouri River, they estimated as being at least 20,000 in number.
In 1823 it was discovered that the Bisons had crossed the Rocky Mountains, and some were to be seen in the vallies to the west of that range.