FOREST AND STREAM 
845 
The Red Man Showed Himself a Game Conservator, and His Game Protection Was Based on Economic Reasons. 
What We May Learn From the Indian 
He Protected the Game on Which he Depended and Practiced Methods of Economy in Hunting that 
American Sportsmen may well take to Heart 
S PORTSMEN think of the American Indian 
as a great hunter, and indeed he was so. 
For, though many Indians were agricul¬ 
turalists and all to greater or less extent con¬ 
sumed the natural fruits of the earth, yet animal 
life in some form constituted the chief sustenance 
of all. 
The tribes of the forest and of the interior cap¬ 
tured mammals and birds by means of snares and 
of the bow and arrow. Those who dwelt near 
the seashore and along the larger rivers caught 
fish, and the coast tribes also gathered shellfish 
in great quantities. All these things they ate fresh 
as caught, but they also dried them, thus making 
provision for the future at a time when circum¬ 
stances might not admit of their securing this 
food. All this is well known. 
What is not so well known is that the Indian— 
at least in his communal hunting—was extremely 
systematic and carried on these hunts according 
to established law. 
The Indian was intensely patriotic and to him 
the tribal welfare seemed more important than al¬ 
most anything else. He gave much thought to 
the wellbeing of his fellow-tribesmen. Since his 
subsistence and that of his tribe depended on se¬ 
curing the wild animals that we call game, it was 
for the greatest good of the greatest number of 
his people that this game should not be wasted— 
that the supply should be made to go as far as 
possible. The red man showed himself a game 
conservator, and his game protection was based 
on economic reasons—those that should lie at the 
foundation of all game protection. A familiar 
example of his communal hunting methods was 
that practiced in the buffalo hunting on the plains, 
which was in use not so long ago but that many 
men still remember it. 
When the young men sent out as scouts to look 
for game returned to the camp and reported that 
buffalo had been found, the tribe moved toward 
1 . the region where they were. Yet caution was 
needed here, for buffalo were readily frightened 
and caused to stampede, and such a stampede 
i 
By George Bird Grinnell. 
would alarm all the others. The flight of one 
herd would frighten another and as this ran it 
would start others, until all the buffalo in the 
neighborhood were racing away in headlong fear. 
Often they might run so far as to take them 
quite out of reach of those who needed them for 
food. It is evident that the Indians did not wish 
this to happen, and for this reason individual 
hunting by members of the tribe was forbidden. 
When the chase took place all were to be present. 
The conduct of the hunt lay with the chiefs, who 
gave directions as to how it should be made, and 
these orders were carried out by one of the sol¬ 
dier bands—organizations of young warriors—on 
whom among the plains tribes fell the duty of 
policing the camp, preserving order, and seeing 
that the instructions of the chiefs were carried 
out. 
This custom of buffalo hunting was so well 
understood and observed that the laws governing 
the hunt were almost never violated. Very rarely 
it might occur that some young, thoughtless and 
harum-scarum warrior or group of young men 
might for fun run a buffalo or a little group of 
buffalo before the order had been given for the 
hunt. Such infractions of the law were severely 
punished. An occurrence of this kind took place 
many years ago in a camp of the Cheyennes, 
when a young white man who had married into 
the tribe, Tall Bull—afterward chief of the Dog 
Soldiers, and killed at Summit Springs—and one 
other, chased buffalo in violation of orders. All 
three young men were so soundly quirted by the 
soldiers that they never forgot the chastisement. 
The hunt was systematized in order that every 
man in the tribe might have an equal chance with 
every other man to secure the food he needed. 
The hunters gathered at a designated point and 
all started in the chase together. In front of the 
long line of naked men—each provided with his 
swiftest buffalo horse, carrying his strong bow 
and furnished with plenty of arrows—rode the 
line of the soldiers, who constantly checked those 
who were over-eager and tried to push to the 
front, and kept the line in order. Just in front of 
the soldiers rode their chief, and not until he 
gave the word were the hunters at liberty to put 
their horses to their full speed and each one do 
his best. This word was commonly not given 
until the brown herd before them was about to 
turn in headlong flight. I have described the de¬ 
tails of such a hunt in my book on the Pawnee 
Indians. 
The Indian was a savage, and a skillful hunter. 
Knowing how to hunt, and believing that wasteful 
destruction of the animals on which he subsisted 
might in the future bring suffering and want to 
him and his, he protected the beasts on which 
he depended and practiced methods of economy in 
hunting that American sportsmen may well take 
to heart. 
In some other ways the Indian saved the game 
and taught a lesson of thoughtfulness. 
In many parts of the wooded country each fam¬ 
ily of Indians possessed its own territory for 
hunting and for trapping, and other members of 
the tribe did not trespass on this ground. To do 
so would have been a serious violation of tribal 
customs—the taking of food or fur which be¬ 
longed to another person. Such a violation might 
occasionally be punished by death, though it was 
more likely that the injured person would punish 
the one who had robbed him by working magic 
or witchcraft against him, and so bring misfor¬ 
tune upon him. 
Family ownership of such hunting grounds and 
respect for such ownership were not confined to 
any one portion of the country, nor to any one 
tribe, group of tribes, or linguistic family. It 
was and is practiced among the Algonquins— 
Chippewas—among the Athabascans—Chipwe- 
yans—and among the Eskimos. No doubt many 
other tribes had the same custom, which, how¬ 
ever, does not seem to have prevailed among the 
buffalo Indians of the plains. An interesting 
paper, dealing with the family hunting territories 
and social life of the various Algonquin bands of 
the Ottawa Valley, has been written by Dr. F. G. 
