THE AMERICAN BISONS. 195 
to be made into pimikehigan, or pemican, are exposed to an ardent heat, and 
thus become brittle, and easily reducible to small particles by the use of a 
flail; the buffalo-hide answering the purpose of a threshing-floor. The fat, or 
tallow, being cut up and melted in large kettles of sheet-iron, is poured upon 
this pounded meat, and the whole mass is worked together with shovels, until 
it is well amalgamated, when it is pressed, still warm, into bags made of buf- 
falo-skin, which are strongly sewed up, and the mixture gradually cools and 
becomes almost as hard as a rock. If the fat used in the process is taken 
- from the parts containing the udder, the meat is called fine pemican.. In some 
cases dried fruits, such as the prairie-pear and cherry, are intermixed, which 
make what is called seed pemican. The lovers of good eating judge the first 
described to be very palatable; the second, better; the third, excellent. A 
taurean of pemican weighs from one hundred to one hundred and ten 
pounds. Some idea may be formed of the immense destruction of buffalo 
by these people when it is stated that a whole cow yields one half a bag of 
pemican, and three fourths of a bundle of dried meat; so that the most. eco- 
nomical calculate that from eight to ten cows are required for the load of a 
single vehicle.” * The same account says that “the men break the bones; 
which are boiled in water to extract the marrow to be used for frying and 
for other culinary purposes. The oil is then poured into the bladder of the 
animal, which contains, when filled, about twelve pounds ; being the yield of 
the marrow-bones of two buffaloes.” + Ross states that “a bull in good con- 
dition will yield forty-five pounds of clean rendered tallow,” and that cows 
when in good order yield on an average about thirty-five pounds. 
Prior to the time of railroad communication with the Plains, however, 
the most important commercial product of the buffalo was its robes. For 
many years, as is evident from the statistics already given, not less than one 
hundred thousand robes were annually purchased of the Indians, a consider- 
able portion of which found their way to European markets. In recent 
years there has been a marked decline in the production of robes, owing in 
part to the rapid extirpation of the buffalo, but more especially to the great 
depopulation, through wars and contagious diseases, of the Indian tribes of 
the Plains, by whom most of the robes have hitherto been prepared. A few 
are still gathered in the United States by the Indian traders, and of late 
* Schooleraft’s History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes, Part IV, p. 107. 
t Ibid., p. 107. 
t Red River Settlement, p. 262. 
