Br LI,. 30] 



BUENA VISTA BUFFALO 



169 



ham CO. , s. e. Ariz. It is probably the ruin 

 which gave the name Pueblo Viejo ( q. v. ) 

 to this jjart of Gila valley. — Fewkes in 

 22d Rep. B. A. E., 172, 1904. 

 Pueblo Viejo. — Bandelier quoted in Arch. Inst. 

 Rep., V, 44, 1SS4. 



Buena Vista. A pueblo of the Nevome 

 on the Rio Yaqui, about lat. 28°, in So- 

 nora, Mexico. — Orozco v Berra, Geog., 

 351, 1864. 



Buesanet. Mentioned in connection 

 with Choinoc (Choinok) as a rancheria 

 N. of Kern r., Cal., in 1775-76. It evi- 

 dently belonged to the Mariposan family 

 and lav in the vicinity of Visalia, Tulare 

 CO. See Garces, Diary, 289, 1900. 



Buffalo. Remains of the early species 

 of the bison are found from Alaska to 

 Georgia, but the range of the present type 

 {Bison anierlccnms) was chiefly between 

 the Rocky and Allegheny mts. While 

 traces of the buffalo have been found as 

 far E. as Cavetown, ]Md., and there is doc- 

 umentary evi- 

 dence that the 

 animal ranged 

 almost if not 

 quite to the 

 Georgia coast, 

 the lack of re- 

 mains in the 

 shell-heaps of 

 the Atlantic 

 shore seems to 

 indicate its ab- 

 sence gener- 

 ally from that 

 region, a 1 - 

 though it was 

 not unknown 

 to some of the 

 tribes living 

 on the rivers. 

 The first au- 

 thentic knowledge of the bison or buf- 

 falo by a European was that gained 

 about 1530 by Alvar Nunez Cabeza de 

 Vaca, who described the animal living 

 in freedom on the plains of Texas. At 

 that time the herds ranged from below 

 the Rio Grande in IMexico n. w. through 

 what is now e. New Mexico, Utah, Ore- 

 gon, Washington, and British Columbia; 

 thence crossing the mountains to Great 

 Slave lake they roamed the valleys 

 of Saskatchewan and Red rs. , keeping 

 to the w. of L. Winnipeg and L. Superior 

 and s. of L. Michigan and L. Erie to the 

 vicinity of Niagara; there turning south- 

 ward to w. Pennsylvania anci cross- 

 ing the Alleghenies they spread over the 

 w. portion of Maryland, Virginia, North 

 Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and 

 N. Mississippi and Louisiana. All the 

 tribes within this range depended largely 

 on the buffalo f(jr food and clothing, and 

 this dependence, with the influence of 



THE BUFFALO OF GOMARA, 155<l 



the habits of the animal, profoundly af- 

 fected tribal customs and religious rites. 

 This is moreclearly seen in the tribes w. of 

 the 31ississippi, where the people were in 

 constant contact with the buffalo during 

 the summer and winter migrations of the 

 great northern and southern herds. These 

 great herds were composed of inniimera- 

 ble smaller ones of a few thousand each, 

 for the buffalo was never solitary except 

 by accident. This haljit affected the 

 manner of hunting and led to tlie organ- 

 ization of hunting parties under a leader 

 and to the establishment of rules to insure 

 an equal chance to every member of the 

 party. 



Early writers say that among the tribes 

 E. of the Missouri the hunting party, 

 dividing into four parts, closed the se- 

 lected herd in a square, then, firing the 

 prairie grass, pressed in upon the herd, 

 which, being hedged liy flame, was 

 slaughtered. The accuracy of this state- 

 ment is ques- 

 tioned by Indi- 

 ans, for, they 

 say, the only 

 time the grass 

 would burn 

 well was in the 

 autumn, and at 

 that time the 

 animal was 

 hunted for the 

 l>elt as much 

 as for food, and 

 lire wouhl in- 

 jure t h e f u r. 

 Fire was some- 

 times used in 

 the autumn to 

 drive the deer 

 fromtheprairie 

 into the woods. 

 In the N. pens were built of tree 

 trunks lashed together and braced on the 

 outside, into which the herds were driven 

 and there killed. Sometimes, as on the 

 upper Mississippi, a hunter disguised in a 

 buffalo skin acted as a decoy, leading the 

 herd to a precipice where many were 

 killed by the headlong plunge. Upon 

 the plains of Kansas and Nebraska the 

 hunters formed a circle around the herd 

 and then, rushing in, shot the animals 

 with arrows. 



The annual summer hunting party gen- 

 erally consisted of the entire tribe. As the 

 main supply of meat and pelts was to be 

 obtained, religious rites were observed 

 throughout the time. "Still hunting" 

 was forbidden under penalty of flogging, 

 and if a man slipped away to hunt for 

 himself, thereby scattering a herd and 

 causing loss to the tribe, he was punished, 

 sometimes even to death. These severe 

 regulations were in force during the tribal 



