BUSHNELL] VILLAGES WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI 5 
of hunters, or even the entire village, to follow the vast herds, to 
surround and kill as many as they desired, and to carry away great 
quantities of meat to be “jerked,” or dried, for future use. So inti- 
mately connected were the buffalo with the life of the tribes of the 
plains and the circumjacent country that frequent allusions will be 
made to the former when describing the camps and villages of the 
latter. 
The various ways of hunting the buffalo and other wild beasts of the 
plains and mountainous country, as practiced by the different tribes, 
have been described by many writers. The several methods of hunt- 
ing the buffalo were often forced through natural conditions, but 
nothing could have exceeded the excitement produced during the 
chase by well-mounted Indian hunters. This was the usual custom 
of the tribes of the plains after horses had become plentiful and the 
buffalo continued numerous. The paintings reproduced in plates 2 
and 3 vividly portray this phase of the hunt. In the north the 
hunters were compelled during the long winters to attack the herds 
on the frozen, snow-covered prairies, and plate 4 shows a party of 
hunters, wearing snowshoes, mingled with the buffalo. This sketch, 
made about the year 1825, bears the leeend: “Indian Hunters pur- 
suing the Buffalo early in the spring when the snow is sufficiently 
frozen to bear the men but the Animal breaks through and cannot 
run.” This graphic sketch may represent a party of Cree or Assini- 
boin hunters, probably the latter, and it will be noticed that they are 
using bows and arrows, not firearms, although other drawings by the 
same artist representing a summer hunt shows them having guns. 
Another custom in the North was that of constructing inclosures 
of logs and branches of trees, leaving one opening through which 
the buffalo were driven, and when thus secured were killed. Such 
an inclosure, or pound, is shown in plate 5, a. This is a reproduction 
of the original painting made by Paul Kane, September, 1845. In 
describing it he wrote: “These pounds can only be made in the 
vicinity of forests, as they are composed of logs piled up roughly, 
five feet high, and enclose about two acres. At one side an entrance 
is left, about ten feet wide, and from each side of this, to the distance 
of half a mile, a row of posts or short stumps, called dead men, are 
planted, at the distance of twenty feet each, gradually widening out 
into the plain from the entrance. When we arrived at the pound we 
found a party there anxiously awaiting the arrival of the buffaloes, 
which their companions were driving in. This is accomplished as 
follows:—A man, mounted on a fleet horse, usually rides forward 
till he sees a band of buffaloes. This may be sixteen or eighteen miles 
distant from the ground, but of course the nearer to it the better. 
The hunter immediately strikes a light with a flint and steel, and 
fea 
