328 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLCKiY [Bull. 137 



This animal is hunted in winter, and at a distance from lower Louisiana 

 and tlie river St. Louis [Mississippi], and besides it is fond of the tall grass 

 found only on the high plains. A person must approach and shoot it on 

 the lee side, aiming at the shoulder so as to knock it down at the first shot, 

 for if it is merely wounded it runs upon the man. In this hunt the natives 

 usually kill only the cows, having found that the flesh of the males smells bad, 

 an inconvenience which they could easily spare themselves if they cut off the 

 back sides as soon as the animal is dead as is done to stags and boars. That 

 would not be the only advantage they would derive from it, because the species 

 would not diminish, much tallow would be obtained, and the skins would be 

 better and larger. (Le Page du Pratz, 1758, vol. 2, pp. 67-68; Swanton, 1911, 

 p. 71.) 



The quotations from Ogelthorpe, Adair, and Timberlake show that 

 bison continued to roam well toward the Gulf until the middle of 

 the eighteenth century. Claiborne (1880) attributes their disap- 

 pearance from the region east of the Mississippi to a drought. There 

 was anciently a bison clan among the Creeks and probably a body of 

 lore connected with these animals, but by the time this tribe en- 

 countered them again after their removal west of the Mississippi, 

 most of this had been forgotten. They then hunted them on foot, 

 creeping up carefully and striving to shoot them in a vital spot said 

 to be just below the hump, but they were scarce and hard to get. 



Bison hunting was of great and, as the tribes were shoved farther 

 westward, of increasing importance to the Caddo Indians, whose 

 economy was markedly affected by it. (See Swanton, 1942, pp. 

 136-137.) 



THE HUNTING OF OTHER ANIMALS 



Elk are known to have come down as far as the mountain sec- 

 tions of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio, the last wild elk 

 reported in West Virginia having been seen in Pocahontas County 

 in 1845. There seems to be no reason why they should not have 

 extended southward over the Cherokee country. Timberlake makes 

 no mention of them, but James Smith killed one somewhere near the 

 lower Tennessee in 1766, and S. C. Williams, in commenting on this, 

 states that "the names given to rivers and creeks also demonstrate 

 their existence in early times" in that region (Williams, 1928, p. 206). 

 On his way to Baltimore from Nashville in 1785, Lewis Brantz 

 crossed a region known as "The Barrens," saw an elk, and "found 

 large numbers of their horns" (Williams, 1928, p. 286). Therefore 

 Lawson is probably right when he speaks of elk abounding in the 

 Tutelo country northwest of Salisbury, N. C, along with bison, deer, 

 bear, etc. (Timberlake, Williams ed., 1927, p. 85). Adair (1775, 

 p. 446) notes the fact that elk flesh had an affinity to venison, from 

 which it appears that he had eaten it. Beverley (1705, bk. 2, p. 39) 

 also makes mention of elk among those animals killed in the surround. 

 Evidently it was no great item in the Southeastern diet in historic 



