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. 



182 



