268 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Sept. 39, 1802< 



^mije §dg md ^nti. 



Tlie Book of the Game Laws has all fish and gamelaws 

 of United States and Canada. Price 50 cents. 



THE INDIANS' BUFFALO PISKUN. 



In the September number of Seribner's Magazine Mr. 

 George Bird Grinnell, of the Forest and Stream, writes 

 of the American buffalo and of the buffalo days. The 

 paper is historical, descriptive and reminiscent, and gives 

 an admirable res?me of our present knowledge of what 

 must be ranked as the most important game animal in- 

 digenous to this continent. Mr. Grinnell has drawn his 

 material from an unusually rich personal experience on 

 the hunting grounds of the West when the buffalo was 

 still abundant and from a wide acquaintance with the 

 primitive hunters who will ever be associated with the 

 bison. The admirable illustrations which accompany the 



else to fight. The Indian was very much afraid lest the 

 bull should discover and kill him, and was greatly re- 

 lieved when he finally left the bear and went off to join 

 his band. This Blackfoot had never heard of Uncle 

 Remus's tales, but he imitated Br'er Rabbit— laid low and 

 said nothing. 



To the Indians the buffalo was the staff of life. It was 

 their food, clothing, dwellings, tools. The needs of a 

 savage people are not many, perhaps, but whatever the 

 Indians of the plains had, that the buffalo gave them. It 

 is not strange, then, that this animal was reverenced by 

 most plains tribes, nor that it entered largely into their 

 sacred cermonies and was in a sense worshipped by them. 

 The Pawnees say, "Through the corn and the buffalo we 

 worship the Father." The Blackfeet ask. What one of all 

 the animals is most sacred?" and the reply given is "The 

 buffalo." 



The robe was the Indian's winter covering and his bed, 

 while the skin, freed from the hair and dressed, consti- 

 tuted his summer sheet or blanket. The dressed hide was 

 used for moccasine;, leggins, shirts and women's dresses. 

 Dressed cow-skins formed their lodges, the warmest and 



ening them so that they started running, kept them from 

 breaking through the line of men, and made them race 

 round and round in a circle, until they were so ex- 

 hausted that they could not run away, and were easily 

 killed. 



These primitive modes of slaughter have been described 

 by earlier writers, and frequently quoted in recent years; 

 yet, in all that has been written on this subject I fail to 

 find a single account which gives at all a true notion of 

 the methods employed, or the means by which the buf- 

 falo were brought into the inclosures. Eye witnesses 

 have been careless observers, and have taken many things 

 for granted. My understanding of this matter is derived 

 from men who from childhood have been familiar with 

 these things, and from them, during years of close asso- 

 ciation, I have again and again heard the story of these 

 old hunting methods. 



The Blackfoot trap was called the pisJcim. It was an 

 inclosure, one side of which was formed by the vertical 

 wall of a cut bank, the other being built of rocks, logs, 

 poles and brush six or eight feet high. It was not neces- 

 sary that these walls should be very strong, but they had 



article are by Mr. Ernest E. Thompson : one of them is 

 here reproduced by courtesy of the Messrs. Scribner. Mr. 

 Grinnell gives the following account of the Indians' hut- 

 tedoplsM.n hunting: 



Apart from man, the buffalo had but few natural 

 enemies. Of these the most destructive were the wolves, 

 which killed a great many of them. These, however, 

 were principally old, straggling bulls, for the calves were 

 protected by their mothers, and the females and young 

 stock were so vigorous and so gregarious that they had 

 but little to fear from this danger. It is probable that, 

 notwithstanding the destruction which they wrought, the 

 wolves performed an important service for the buffalo 

 race, keeping it vigorous and healthy by killing weak, dis- 

 abled, and superannuated animals, which could no longer 

 serve any useful purpose in the herd, and yet consumed 

 the grass which would support a healthy breeding animal, 

 It is certainly true that sick buffalo or those out of condi- 

 tion were rarely seen. 



The grizzly bear fed to some extent on the carcasses of 

 buffalo drowned in the rivers or caught in the quicksands, 

 and occasionally they caught living buffalo and killed 

 them. A Blackfoot Indian told me of an attempt of this 

 kind which he witnessed. He was lying hidden by a 

 buffalo trail in the Bad Lands, near a little creek, waiting 

 for a small bunch to come down to water so that he might 

 kill one. The buffalo came on in single file, as usual, the 

 leading animal being a young heifer. When they had 

 nearly reached the water, and were passing under a verti- 

 cal clay wall, a grizzly bear lying hid on a shelf of this 

 wall reached down and with both paws caught the heifer 

 about the neck and threw himself upon her. The others 

 at once ran off. and a short struggle ensued, the bear try- 

 ing to kill the heifer and she to escape. Almost at once, 

 however, the Indian saw a splendid young bull come 

 rushing down the trail toward the scene of conflict and 

 charge the bear, knocking him down. A fierce combat 

 ensued. The bull would charge the bear, and when he 

 struck him fairly would knock him oft' his feet, often in- 

 flicting severe wounds with his sharp horns. The bear 

 struck at the bull and tried to catch him by the head or 

 shoulders and to hold him, but this he could not do. 

 After fifteen or twenty minutes of fierce and active fight- 

 ing the bear had received all the punishment he cared for 

 and tried to escaj)e, but the bull would not let him go and 

 kept up the attack until he had killed his adversary. 

 Even after the bear was dead the hull would gore the car- 

 v.ms and sometimes lift it clear of the ground on his horns. 

 He seemed insane with rage, and, notwithstanding the 

 fact that most of the skin was torn from his head and 

 shoulders, he appeared to be looking about for something 



most cotufortable portable shelters ever devised. Braided 

 strands of raw hide furnished them with ropes and lines, 

 and these were made also from the twisted hair. The green 

 hide was sometimes used as a kettle, in which to boil 

 meat, or, stretched over a frame of boughs, gave them 

 coracles, or boats, for crossing rivers. The tough, thick 

 hide of the bull's neck, allowed to shrink smooth, made 

 a shield which would turn a lance thrust, an arrow, or 

 even the ball from an old-fashioned smooth-bore gun. 

 From the raw hide, the hair having been shaved off, were 

 made ijarfleches— envelope-like cases which served for 

 trunks or boxes— useful to contain small articles. The 

 cannon bones and ribs were used to make implements for 

 dressing hides: the shoulder-blades lashed to sticks made 

 hoes and axes, and the ribs runners for small sledges 

 drawn by dogs. The hoofs were boiled to make glue for 

 fastening the feathers and heads on their arrows, the hair 

 used to stuff cushions, and later saddles, strands of the 

 long black beard to ornament articles of wearing apparel 

 and implements of war, such as shields and quivers. The 

 sinews lying along the back gave them thread and bow- 

 strings, and backed their bows. The horns furnished 

 spoons and ladles, and ornamented their war bonnets. 

 Water buckets were made from the lining of the paunch. 

 The skin of the hind leg cut off above the pastern, and 

 again a short distance above the hock, was once used for a 

 moccasin or boot. Fly brushes were made from the skin 

 of the tail dried on sticks. Knife-sheaths, quivers, bow- 

 cases, gun-covers, saddle-cloths, and a hundred other use- 

 ful and necessary articles were all furnished by the buffalo. 



The Indians kiUed some smaller game, as elk. deer and 

 antelope, but for food their dependence was on the buf- 

 falo. But before the coming of the whites their knives 

 and arrowheads were merely sharpened stones, weapons 

 which would be inefficient against such great thick- 

 skinned beasts. Even under the most favorable circum- 

 stances, with these primitive implements, they could not 

 kill food in quantities sufficient to supply their needs. 

 There must be some means of taking the buffalo in con- 

 siderable numbers. Such wholesale capture was accom- 

 plished by traps or surrounds, which all depended for 

 success on one characteristic of the animal, its curiosity. 



The Blackfeet, Plains Crees, Gros Ventres of the Prai- 

 rie, Sarcees, some bands of the Dakotas, Snakes, Crows, 

 and some others, drove the herds of buffalo into pens 

 from above, or over high cliffs, where the fall killed or 

 crippled a large majority of the herd. The Cheyennes 

 and Arapahoes drove them into pens on level ground: the 

 Blackfeet, Aricaras, Mandans, Gros Ventres of the Vil- 

 lage, Pawnees, Omahas, Otoes, and others, surrounded 

 the herds in great circles on the prairie, and then fright- 



to be tight, so tha.t the buffalo could not see through 

 them. From a point on the cut bank above this inclosure, 

 in two diverging lines stretching far out into the prairie, 

 piles of rock were heaped up at short intervals, or bushes 

 were stuck in the ground, forming the wings of a 

 V-shaped chute, which would guide any animals 

 running down the chute to its angle above the 

 ■piskun. When a herd of buffalo were feeding 

 near at hand, the people prepared for the hunt, in 

 which almost the whole camp took part. It is commonly 

 stated that the buffalo were driven into the pishim by 

 mounted men, bub this is not the case. They were not 

 driven but If d, and they were led by an appeal to their 

 curiosity. The man who brought them was usually the 

 possessor of a "buffalo rock," a talisman which was be- 

 lieved to give him greater power to (call the buffalo than 

 was had by others. The previous night was spent by 

 this man in praying for success in the enterprise of the 

 morrow. The help of the Sun, Ndpi, and all Above 

 People was asked for, and sweet grass was burned to 

 them. Early in the morning, without eating or drink- 

 ing, the man started away from the camj) and went up 

 on the prairie. Before he left the lodge he told his wives 

 that they must not go out, or even look out, of the lodge 

 during his absence. They should stay there, and pray to 

 the Sun for his siiccess, and burn sweet grass until he re- 

 turned. When he left the cami? and went up on the 

 prairie toward the buffalo, all the people followed him, 

 and distributed themselves along the wings of the chute, 

 hiding behind the piles of rock or brush. The caller 

 sometimes wore a robe and a bull's head bonnet, or at 

 times was naked. When he had approached close to the 

 buffalo, he endeavored to attract their attention by mov- 

 ing about, wheeling round and round, and alternately 

 appearing and disappearing. The feeding buffalo soon 

 began to raise their heads and stare at him, and presently 

 the nearest ones would walk toward him to discover 

 what this strange creature might be, and the others would 

 follow. As they began to approach the man withdrew 

 toward the entrance of the chute. If the buffalo began 

 to trot, he increased his speed, and before very long he 

 had the herd well within the wings. As soon as they had 

 passed the first piles of rock, behind which some of the 

 people were concealed, the Indians sprang into view, and 

 by yelling and waving robes frightened the hindmost of 

 the buffalo, which then began to run down the chute. 

 As they passed along more and more ipeople showed 

 themselves and added to their terror, and in a very short 

 time the herd was in a headlong stampede, guided toward 

 the angle above the lyishfm by the piles of rock on either 

 side. 



