m \ i I i;i \i. ( ri/nuK. 23 



enclosure; and i hey avail themselves of this method to kill all the beasts. 

 It is asserted thai there are some villages winch have secured as many 

 as fifteen hundred buffaloes, and others more or fewer, according to the 

 number of men in each and the size of the enclosure which they make 

 in their hunting." 



The natural inference seems to be that the grass 

 firing and impounding methods of taking buffalo were 

 developed before the introduction of the horse and are 

 therefore the most primitive. The individual hunting 

 of buffalo as well as in small parties was, of course, 

 practised. Swift horses were used to bring the rider 

 in range when he shot down the fleeing beasts. Before 

 horses were known the cooperative method must have 

 prevailed. 



Hunting Implements. The implements used for 

 killing buffalo were not readily displaced by guns. 

 Bows and arrows were used long after guns were com- 

 mon. In fact, pioneers maintain that at close range 

 the rapidity and precession of the bow was only to be 

 excelled by the repeating rifle, a weapon developed in 

 the 70's. Even so, the bow was not entirely discarded 

 until the buffalo became extinct. The bows were of 

 two general types: the plain wooden bow, and the 

 sinew-backed, or compound bow. It is generally held 

 that the tribes east of the Mississippi River used the 

 simple wooden bow while those on the Pacific Coast 

 used the sinew-backed type. It is quite natural there- 

 fore, that among the Plains tribes, we should find both 

 types in general use and that the sinew-backed was 

 more common among the Shoshone and other Plateau 

 tribes. 



