Hunting the buffalo must have been a feat of endurance, agility, and strength; the buffalo, despite its lumbering appearance, is in fact built for speed, and can run up to 37 mph, is able to leap vertically to a height of 6 feet, and is infamously bad-tempered. Prior to the coming of the horse, buffalo were “captured” by being herded into narrow “chutes” made of brushwood and rocks; they were then stampeded over clifftops in areas called “buffalo jumps.” It would take large groups of people to herd the animals, often over several miles, until the stampede was big enough and fast enough to run head-first over the precipice. Such a method of killing meant that there was usually a massive surplus of meat, materials, bones, etc.
Another method would see the hunters form a large circle around a herd and, at the last minute, rush in and slay the animals with their spears and arrows. Arrows were marked to show which hunters had shot home, and the animal would be divided up accordingly, the hide reserved for the man who was deemed to have caused the fatal shot. Later, guns were used. When horses became available for hunting, there tended to be less waste than with the stampede method.
The buffalo was also hunted ceremonially, with strict observances, during the months of June to August. Buffalo were never hunted by a lone hunter, but always in a party.
The Native Americans believed that the buffalo had divine status, and describe the coming of the animal in the legend of the White Buffalo Calf Woman. They believed that the gods had created the animal as a special gift to them, and the head and horns were used in rituals and ceremonies. The buffalo, it was believed, had taught the first shaman or medicine man his skills in herbalism.
To understand exactly what status the buffalo held in tribal society is also to understand the effect that its wanton slaying by the white settlers had on the Native American psyche. During the 19th century, the white Europeans hunted the animal almost to extinction; the tongue of the buffalo, for example, was considered a rare delicacy, so the animal would be slaughtered, its tongue cut out and the rest of the carcass left behind. The animal was also hunted for its skin alone, the skinned animal left to rot on the ground. We can only imagine the outrage that the Native Americans would have felt when they saw their sacred animal being treated in this way. The U.S. Army and Government gave its blessing to the wide-scale slaughter of the herds; it would not be disingenuous to suggest that this was in part intended to weaken the Native peoples. If there were no buffalo, then they had to move or face the risk of starvation and death. The coming of the railroad, too, meant that vast herds of animals had to be cleared from the land, since they would sometimes stray onto the tracks, damaging trains that could not stop in time. And an extended period of drought between 1845 and 1860 further decimated the buffalo population.
Professional market hunters—including Buffalo Bill Cody—could slaughter hundreds of animals in one session; such hunting enterprises were a major operation and employed large teams of people, including cooks, butchers, skinners, gunsmen, and even men whose task it was to retrieve the bullets from the carcasses of the dead buffalo. From 1873 to 1883 it’s estimated that there could have been over 1,000 such commercial buffalo-hunting operations, with the capability to slaughter up to 100,000 creatures per day depending on the time of year. Skulls of slain buffalo, documented in photographs taken at the time, show a horrendous sight: those skulls were piled in huge mounds that would stand higher than a modern three-story house.
Once it became apparent that the buffalo could not sustain the barrage of slaughter at such an epic scale, there were murmurs of proposals to preserve them. Buffalo Bill Cody’s was among these voices. However, the objective to rid the Plains of the Indians took top priority: this aim was underlined by President Ulysses S. Grant, who in 1874 vetoed a Federal bill that would have protected the animal. A year later General Philip Sheridan pleaded the case for the continued slaughter of the buffalo, so as to deprive the indigenous peoples of America of one of their major resources. Nine years later, the buffalo was almost extinct. The animal that was most fundamentally important to the Native American way of life had gone, taking that way of life with it. Things would never be the same again.
BUFFALO BILL
“Every Indian outbreak that I have ever known has resulted from broken promises and broken treaties by the Government.”
1846–1917
William Frederick Cody was born in Iowa and lived with his family, who were of Quaker stock, in Canada for many years before they moved to Kansas.
His distinctive nickname—which became synonymous with the idea of the Wild West—was actually won by him in a shooting match with another Bill, Bill Comstock. Both were buffalo hunters and killers. Cody won the name after shooting 69 buffalo, 19 more than Comstock, in a timed shoot-out.
Cody had secured a contract to supply buffalo meat to the men working on the Kansas Pacific Railroad. Evidently a prolific hunter, Cody killed over 4,000 buffalo in an 18-month period between 1867 and late 1868, and no doubt was among those who made a significant contribution to the almost-extinct status that the species subsequently suffered. In later life, understanding what was happening, Cody would campaign for a restricted hunting season.
Bill had a wide-ranging resumé. During his life, he claimed, he had been a soldier, a scout, a Pony Express rider, a trapper, a stagecoach driver, a wagon master, and the manager of a hotel. He was also a distinguished Freemason. He won the Medal of Honor, awarded for gallantry in action.
However, it was his Wild West shows that really made him famous, not only in the U.S. but throughout Europe.
“Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show” was conceived after Cody had spent ten years as an actor in a traveling show entitled “Scouts of the Plains,” in which episodes from the lives of the settlers and the Natives were portrayed. Founded in 1883, Cody’s show changed its title ten years later to “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World.” From all accounts, this must have been a spectacularly staged event, a circuslike entertainment that included among its participants members of the U.S. Military, many, many horses, displays of sharp-shooting using real guns, and also real live Native Americans, dressed in full attire. Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were among those who took part.
The show traveled all over the U.S. and overseas in Europe (where it toured eight times), including Great Britain. The show played to Queen Victoria in 1887, the year of her Jubilee marking 50 years on the throne. In 1890 Buffalo Bill had an audience with Pope Leo XIII.
Buffalo Bill, who had been a scout, had a huge amount of respect for the Native Americans and their plight. He believed that his show paid the Native American participants a good wage. When the show traveled, the Native American contingent would pitch their camps along the route and at each stopping-place where the show was going to be held. This not only added to the spectacle but showed the audiences a little of the Native American way of life.
Buffalo Bill died peacefully in 1917 of kidney failure, surrounded by his family and friends.
BUFFALO, WHITE
The rare instance of an albino buffalo was seen as a favorable sign from the