258 The King of the Thundering Herd 



Just to mention one item will serve to 

 show how true this was. Each year all the 

 lodges in the villages were made new. Not 

 only did they procure new lodge poles, but 

 all the skins covering them were thrown 

 away and new ones provided. These were 

 tanned bison-skins taken from the cows. 

 Some of the chiefs' lodges were quite spacious, 

 requiring fifteen or twenty skins to cover 

 them, so this want alone necessitated the 

 killing of many head. 



The piskun varied in different parts of 

 the country, although the general plan was 

 the same. This consisted in getting the 

 buffalo into an enclosure or corral, where 

 they could either be killed with bow and 

 arrow, or perhaps they were rushed over a 

 cliff where they fell in a struggling mass. 



In the latter case a spot was chosen near 

 the buffalo's feeding-ground where there 

 was a deep canyon or coulee. From this 

 precipitate b bank two diverging wings were 



