American Big-Game Hunting 
most favorable circumstances, with these 
primitive implements, they could not kill food 
in quantities sufficient to supply their needs. 
There must be some means of taking the 
buffalo in considerable numbers. Such whole- 
sale capture was accomplished by means of 
traps or surrounds, which all depended for 
success on one characteristic of the animal, 
its curiosity. 
The Blackfeet, Plains Crees, Gros Ventres 
of the Prairie, Sarcees, some bands of the 
Dakotas, Snakes, Crows, and some others, 
drove the herds of buffalo into pens from 
above, or over high cliffs, where the fall 
killed or crippled a large majority of the 
herd. The Cheyennes and Arapahoes drove 
them into pens on level ground; the Black- 
feet, Aricaras, Mandans, Gros Ventres of the 
Village, Pawnees, Omahas, Otoes, and others, 
surrounded the herds in great circles on the 
prairie, and then, frightening them so that 
they started running, kept them from break- 
ing through the line of men, and made them 
race round and round in a circle, until they 
were so exhausted that they could not run 
away, and were easily killed. 
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