THE AMERICAN BISONS. 195 



to be made into pimikchigan, or pemican, are exposed to an ardent heat, and 

 thus become brittle, and easily reducible to small particles by the use of a 

 flail ; the buffalo-hide answering the purpose of a threshing-floor. The fat, or 

 tallow, being cut up and melted in large kettles of sheetriron, is poured upon 

 this pounded meat, and the whole mass is worked together with shovels, until 

 it is well amalgamated, when it is pressed, still warm, into bags made of buf- 

 falo-skin, which are strongly sewed up, and the mixture gradually cools and 

 becomes almost as hard as a rock. If the fat used in the process is taken 

 from the parts containing the udder, the meat is called fine pemican. In some 

 cases dried fruits, such as the prairie-pear and cherry, are intermixed, which 

 make what is called seed pemican. The lovers of good eating judge the first 

 described to be very palatable; the second, better; the third, excellent. A 

 taurean of pemican weighs from one hundred to one hundred and ten 

 pounds. Some idea may be formed of the immense destruction of buffalo 

 by these people when it is stated that a whole cow yields one half a bag of 

 pemican, and three fourths of a bundle of dried meat ; so that the most eco- 

 nomical calculate that from eight to ten cows are required for the load of a 

 single vehicle."* The same account says that "the men break the bones; 

 which are boiled in water to extract the marrow to be used for frying and 

 for other culinary purposes. The oil is then poured into the bladder of the 

 animal, which contains, when filled, about twelve pounds ; being the yield of 

 the marrow-bones of two buffaloes." t Ross states that " a bull in good con- 

 dition will yield forty-five pounds of clean rendered tallow," and that cows 

 when in good order yield on an average about thirty-five pounds. % 



Prior to the time of railroad communication with the Plains, however, 

 the most important commercial product of the buffalo was its robes. For 

 many years, as is evident from the statistics already given, not less than one 

 hundred thousand robes were annually purchased of the Indians, a consider- 

 able portion of which found their way to European markets. In recent 

 years there has been a marked decline in the production of robes, owing in 

 part to the rapid extirpation of the buffalo, but more especially to the great 

 depopulation, through wars and contagious diseases, of the Indian tribes of 

 the Plains, by whom most of the robes have hitherto been prepared. A few 

 are still gathered in the United States by the Indian traders, and of late 



* Schoolcraft's History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes, Part IV, p. 1 07. 



t Ibid., p. 107. 



\ Red River Settlement, p. 2C2. 



