204 



THE AMEEICAIsr EISOA^S. 



This being the season for ,i>:ather- 



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aiTOW^ or drives his lance to their hearts, 

 ing the robes^ it is also a period of great slaughter. The skins being stripped 

 oflF, the carcasses are generally left to the wolves, the Indians laying in dur- 

 ing the fall a supply of dried meat for the winter. Catlin has also given an 

 illustration of Indians disguised in wolf-skins creeping upon a herd that is 

 unsuspectingly grazing on the level prairie^ where they are shot down before 

 they are aware of their danger by their disguised enemies.* 



Lewis and Clarke describe a very novel method of destroying the buffa- 

 loes formerly practised by the Minnetarees of the Upper Missouri. This 

 mode of hunting was to select one of the most active and fleet young men, 

 who, disguised wdth a buffalo-skin fastened about his body, with the horns 

 and ears so secured as to deceive the buffalo, placed himself at a convenient 

 distance between the herd of buffalo and some of the i-iver precipices, wdiich 

 sometimes extend for miles. His companions in the mean time get in the 



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rear and along the flanks of the herd, and, showing themselves at a given sig- 

 nal, advance upon the herd. The herd thus alarmed runs from the hunters 

 toward the disguised Indian, whom they follow at full speed toward the river. 

 The Indian who thus acts as a decoy, when the precipice is reached, suddenly 

 secures himself in some crevice of the cliff which he had previously selected, 



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leaving the herd on the brink. It is then impossible for the foremost of the 

 herd to retreat or to turn aside, being pressed on by those behind, who see 

 no danger except from the pursuing Indians. They are thus tumbled head- 



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long over the cliff, strewing the shore with their dead bodies. The Indians 



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then select as much meat as they wash, the rest being abandoned to the 



w^olves. A httle above the mouth of the Judi 



River, on the Missouri, 



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Lewis and Clarke passed a precipice, about one hundred and twenty feet n 

 height, at the base of which ]ay scattered the fragments of at least one hun- 

 dred carcasses of buffldocs, although many had already been carried away 

 by the water.f 



Lewis and Clarke also describe the Indian method of hunting the buffalo 

 on the ice, as witnessed by them March 29, 1805, at their wintering-post on 

 the Missouri River, about thirty miles above the present site of Fort Abraham 

 Lincoln, Dakota Territory. Every spring, say these authors, as the river is 

 breaking up, the plains are set on fire by the Indians. The buffaloes are 



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thus tempted to cross the river in search of the fresh green grass that springs 



* North American Indians, Vol. II, pp. 249-257. 

 t Lewis and Clarke's Expedition, Vol. I, p. 235,. 



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