In Buffalo Days 



These primitive modes of slaughter have 

 been described by earlier writers, and fre- 

 quently quoted in recent years ; yet, in all 

 that has been written on this subject, I fail 

 to find a single account which gives at all 

 a true notion of the methods employed, or 

 the means by which the buffalo were brought 

 into the inclosures. Eye-witnesses have been 

 careless observers, and have taken many 

 things for granted. My understanding of 

 this matter is derived from men who from 

 childhood have been familiar with these 

 things, and from them, during years of close 

 association, I have again and again heard the 

 story of these old hunting methods. 



The Blackfoot trap was called the piskun. 

 It was an inclosure, one side of which was 

 formed by the vertical wall of a cut bank, 

 the others being built of rocks, logs, poles, 

 and brush six or eight feet high. It was not 

 necessary that these walls should be very 

 strong, but they had to be tight, so that the 

 buffalo could not see through them. From 

 a point on the cut bank above this inclosure, 

 in two diverging lines stretching far out into 

 the prairie, piles of rock were heaped up 



183 



