A Monarch of the Plains—The Hunchback Cows of Cibola—A Boon to the Frontiersman—Wide Range of the Bison—Marrow Bones for the Epicure—Washington Irving a Buffalo Hunter—The Rushing Run of the Bison Herd—The Sacred White Buffalo Cow Skin—A Calf with a Bull Head—Wolves and White Bears.

Another denizen of the wilderness that performed an important part in its preparation for occupation by the white race was the buffalo or Bison Americanus, a monarch of the plains, huge and fierce in appearance; a monarch with the mien of a lion and the resistance of a sheep; an animal quite the opposite of the interesting beaver in almost every particular but numbers. In this respect, however, it vied with its smaller associate, roaming by millions and millions up and down across the limitless prairie-ocean, apparently as inexhaustible as the vagrant breezes blowing one day here and one day there. But the breezes still waft above the billowy surface, while the bison has vanished like a dream. The farm, the ranch, the town, and the railway now claim his vast grazing grounds. Were it not for a few specimens preserved in private herds and zoÖlogical gardens, this strange creature would be as unfamiliar to us in the life as are the Dinosaurs of the Jurassic plains.

They were the "hunchback cows" which Alvar NuÑez Cabeza de Vaca first accurately described to the European world, although it is said that Montezuma had one captive in his collection of animals at the time Cortez pillaged the Aztec capital. They were later called "cattle or cows of Cibola" (and Sibolo)[4] by the Spaniards, perhaps because the inhabitants of the first group of native villages of New Mexico encountered by Coronado were supplied with buffalo robes and were in the habit of going to hunt the animals on the plains of the river Pecos, where at that time they were abundant. The name passed into common use and to-day, although there is the correct word BisÓnte, the American bison is generally known in Spanish as Cibolo. In his celebrated traverse of the Texas and Kansas prairies in 1540 Coronado saw immense herds that roamed there. The buffalo range was great, especially in a north and south direction, its southernmost limit having been in north-eastern Mexico a little below the lower end of Texas, while its northernmost was the upper shores of Great Slave Lake. It seems, however, that it did not cover this range in latitude at one time, so that in Coronado's day the northern limit was doubtless considerably below Great Slave Lake. The buffalo was not migratory in the sense that herds from the extreme north traversed the entire range and occupied a place on the southern edge, but it was migratory as a whole, swinging back and forth from north to south and south to north like a huge pendulum, the various sub-herds always retaining practically the same relative position to the complete mass. It appears also that in this annual oscillation with the seasons it gradually retired from the extreme southern limit and encroached beyond its northern limit, till the position at the north mentioned was arrived at. This is indicated by the statement of an Amerind of the Athabasca country, who in explaining his age to Mackenzie, said that "he remembered the opposite hills and plains now interspersed with groves of poplars, when they were covered with moss, and without any animal inhabitant but the reindeer. By degrees, he said, the face of the country changed to its present appearance, when the elk came from the east and was followed by the buffalo; the reindeer then retired to ... a considerable distance."[5] It is therefore quite probable that, had not the European arrived to interfere, the buffalo eventually would have gone farther north and would have spread over Alaska. It was perfectly at home in the cold northland so long as the summers permitted grass and herbage to mature. The Saskatchewan country was full of them all winter, though they were forced to paw away the snow to reach the grass. The range east and west was also extensive, though this was not the direction of its annual movement. Its eastern limit was the extent of the Mississippi valley north of the Tennessee; and possibly as far as Lake Champlain. While seemingly not as numerous in this eastern part of its range as farther west, yet there were large numbers, and the hunters of the early days of European settlement often killed them. Albert Gallatin states that while in western Virginia in 1784 he subsisted chiefly on buffalo meat. The city of Buffalo takes its name from this animal, which formerly fed on its site. That they were abundant in this eastern region long before Gallatin's time is established by the large quantities of their bones found around the salt licks of the Ohio valley. At Big Bone Lick, Kentucky, these accumulations are so great as to indicate, beyond question, a very remote date for the beginning of the range of the buffalo in this region. Beneath them the bones of the mastodon are discovered.[6]

It is strange that no bison remains have thus far been found in the ancient mounds of the Mississippi valley; nor are there any images of them on Moundbuilder pipes. It is also strange that, despite the abundance of buffalo throughout the greater part of the West, pictures of it made by the natives should be so rare. The Sioux lived with and on the bison, yet they seldom drew it, while their robes are covered with drawings of horses and other animals.

On the west the limit of the range, at least north of about latitude 41°, up to the end of the first decade of the nineteenth century seems to have been the Rocky Mountains. Lewis and Clark, on their great journey of 1804-06, make no mention of the buffalo on the Pacific side of the mountains, hence it is probable that few had crossed there at that time. This would imply that it was the advance of civilisation which impelled the buffalo in numbers finally to seek passes over the Backbone and spread across the upper valley of Green River, of Bear River, and of the Columbia. The possibility always remains that there may have been other causes at work, perhaps climatic, to induce or assist this movement, and it is also possible that the animal may have crossed earlier, and have temporarily refrained from migrating in that direction, perchance on account of extra deep snow or some such natural interference, although the usual snow did not prevent their crossing in dead of winter. Escalante's party in 1776 found abundant signs of buffalo on White River, near the Green, and killed one there. They named a canyon Arroyo del Cibolo because of the many buffalo trails in it.

But the modern Pai Utes apparently had no knowledge of this animal, so that if it ever was found in any numbers in southern Utah, the period of occupation must have been remote. Dr. Coues believed that it ranged at one time in Arizona, though he could not recall the ground for this belief, simply remembering that it appeared to him sufficient at the time. The only indication that I know of, of the former presence of the buffalo in southern Utah is a rock picture found on the walls of Kanab Canyon (see page 37), some eight miles north of latitude 37° and about two west of longitude 112° 30´. This drawing would suggest that some natives captured a buffalo not far from the spot, though it might have been the record of a hunt at some other point. Buffalo would not have been likely to cross the vast depths of the Grand Canyon to the southward, hence they could have arrived at this place easily only by way of the Sevier River, the Escalante Desert, or by turning the western end of the Grand Canyon. At Gunnison on Sevier River a buffalo skull was found in a canyon ten feet below the surface. It is more probable that they would come from the north, yet if they did not cross the mountains there till 1810, a new difficulty is met with, for the present Pai Utes seem not to have made any rock pictures. These were done by the pottery-making, house-building Amerinds, who, as far as can be determined, had vanished from the region long before 1810.

I do not remember any reference to buffalo on Espejo's trip to ZuÑi and west in 1583, nor on the journey Juan de OÑate made across Arizona and back in 1604-05; it is likely that if this animal ranged there it was before the time of Coronado. The south-western limit at that period appears to have been the first mountain range west of the Rio Pecos. North of latitude 57° they never crossed the Rocky Mountains. In 1820, according to Long, they had not yet entirely crossed in the central portion, that is to Green River and the Columbia, yet in 1824 they were ranging the Green, Columbia, and Bear River valleys in vast numbers. Up to 1823 they existed in great herds in the new State of Missouri, and their crossing to the Pacific slope thus appears about coincident with their retiring from this eastern ground. In their western range they extended as far as the Blue Mountains of Oregon, and even to the foot of the Sierra Nevada in the region farther south. Fossil remains have been found, according to Coues, within the limits of its range, east of the Rocky Mountains. There were two kinds of buffalo in the opinion of the frontiersmen, the wood buffalo and the prairie type. Apparently there was not sufficient differentiation in these to warrant the separation. They were practically the same, the variation being merely one of habitat, and individual change, like the occasional development of an extra rib. The buffalo inhabiting the woods usually grew to a larger size than that of the plains, but this was probably the result of a less active life and more abundant food. All buffalo at maturity were large animals, the male weighing 1000 to 1500 pounds or more, and the female from 800 to 1200. In size the adult male measured about 9 feet from muzzle to root of tail, and 13 feet 6 inches to end of tail including the hairs, which were about 15 inches long. In similar measurement the adult female was about 6 feet 6 inches to root of tail and 9 feet to the extreme end, the hairs being about 10 inches long. The male at the highest part was 5½ to 6 feet and the female about 5 feet; at the hips both sexes were around 4½ feet. The horns of the male were short and very thick at the base, with a quick taper to a sharp point. Those of the female were smaller at the base, but about the same in length and curve as those of the male. In winter the colour of the woolly hair was a blackish brown, but it became lighter in summer and so varied somewhat with season and locality. The hair was moulted in early spring except that on the shoulders, which with age became tawny—a yellowish brown.

The earliest published drawing of the American bison is supposed to be that which appeared in 1558 in Thevet's book,[7] sixteen years after the return to Mexico of Coronado, but it would seem that some illustration of an animal that was considered so remarkable must have been printed before that. Since then it has been drawn and painted unnumbered times. It figured largely, as a matter of course, in Catlin's celebrated illustrations of aboriginal life in the Far West, and forms the subject for about the best picture Albert Bierstadt ever painted, Buffalo Hunting on Laramie Plains.[8]

But it was not as material for picture making that the bison became of greatest value, it was as a meat supply to the trapper, the trader, and the traveller generally upon the bosom of that wide expanse of rolling prairie that so resembled the great salt ocean itself. As Butler[9] describes it,

No wonder the moment buffalo were first sighted by the anxious caravan, a joyful cry went up, equivalent, as Irving says, to the cry of, "A sail, a sail!" at sea. All was commotion on the instant, and everybody prepared for the hunt. Thenceforward, as long as buffalo were near, hunger held no terrors on that boundless plain that now our limited express so contemptuously spurns beneath its throbbing steel, as the ennuied lady sits wearisome at the window gazing with disdain on those blood-bathed reaches of country, so full of thrilling story and history, a bill of fare in her hand that would have driven the old voyageur to distraction.

Yet buffalo meat could not have been less delicious to the appetite of the plains traveller. It not only furnished food for the moment, but dried, or dried and pounded and mixed with the rendered tallow, sometimes including berries, it made pemmican,[10] which could be kept a long time, and which formed the basis of the supplies for long expeditions and for winter consumption. The meat from old bulls was often tough, but that from a fat cow was always delicious, and the marrow!—well, that was a dish fit to set before a king. The Hon. Grantley F. Berkley[11] of England was not exactly a king, unless we elevate him as far above the Americans as he thought himself to be, but he appreciated marrow in 1859 when he honoured the great plains by his presence.

Another part that was particularly delicious was the hump or rather the hump-ribs; and so too was the tongue. Still another tidbit was the meat along either side of the loin, so that altogether living was high on the rolling prairie as long as buffalo held out. Frequently the traveller became so pampered by these luxuries that he spurned all but the daintiest parts and thought nothing of killing a cow simply for the marrow or for the tongue.

The poor beast deserved better treatment than it got; indeed, the only treatment was a dose of lead on sight, even when no meat was needed. The Amerinds often killed the bison recklessly before the arrival of the European, yet the herds would have resisted all such inroads. But when the white man came he quickly gave the native points in the game of useless destruction. The buffalo range immediately was transformed into a vast slaughter-house, and the carcasses were left to rot and dry under the western sun. And the more civilised the hunter—that is, the more unaccustomed to the frontier—the greater the waste of bison life at his hands. More than sixteen thousand were shot for sport alone, on the plains of Kansas and Colorado, in 1871. The sportsmen killed all sizes and ages, pell-mell, just to kill and to ride away at headlong speed like escaped madmen, never stopping a moment even for the tongues. Everywhere the carcasses of wantonly slain buffalo in disgusting masses of putrefaction were lying over hill and dale.[12] They enjoyed the bison's terror and agony, and with the improved breech-loader death was dealt in a steady stream, easily and at little cost. It was grand sport!

When finally the railways began to push across the plains, passengers would amuse themselves by shooting buffalo from the windows. The animals had a habit of trying to cross the track ahead of the engine, and sometimes would rush beside the train a long distance, for in the early days trains had to run slowly, thus giving passengers the opportunity. If the train did not stop, the herd would perhaps butt up against it, so the engineers learned to stand still, and, with due respect, wait for the bison to pass. When wounded, they became dangerous, especially the vigorous bulls, and the novice then had to look sharp for his own life, like the matador in the bull-ring.

The advance of one of the enormous herds was a terrific sight. Great clouds of dust rolled up, there was bellowing and bawling, and the thunder of the thousand hoof-beats on the hard ground. The herd came as one animal, sweeping everything before it as an avalanche descends some precipice in the Alps. "Their lion-like fronts and dangling beards—their open mouths and hanging tongues—as they come puffing like a locomotive engine at every bound do at first make the blood settle a little heavy about the heart." Woe to the caravan or horseman who failed to evade this resistless approach! The forward animals were borne ahead by the pressure from behind, and the mass swept on like some tremendous flood. Should a river or other obstacle come in the way there was no halt. Whole herds were sometimes dashed to death over some precipice, or drowned in a river where quicksand prevented fording or swimming. Four thousand once crossed the Platte when it was a foot or two deep and full of quicksand. The animals in the lead mired, but those behind prevented their return, and rushing on over the ones already entangled in the fatal sands, themselves fell in, till finally the bed of the stream, nearly half a mile wide, was covered with dead and dying buffalo, two thousand, at least, having been killed in the attempt to cross. Gregg[14] asserts that any herd was easily turned aside, but others give a different opinion, and judging from all the data, it seems that Gregg's experience in this particular must have been unusual.

Hunting was done by several methods; first, following along the outskirts of a herd on a trained and fleet horse and "cutting out" an animal to shoot; or, by "still" hunting—that is, creeping up to a herd unobserved and picking animals off while feeding; or by the surround; or the drive. The natives were expert in all methods. In the surround they closed in large numbers on a herd and at a given signal all began to shoot. They used the bow and arrow and the spear, and also firearms when they finally acquired them. They were astonishingly expert with the bow, singling out their animal while riding full speed and sending an arrow entirely through the victim. Sometimes the arrow would also kill a calf or another buffalo before ceasing its flight. The spear was skilfully used, and it is said an Amerind would ride alongside a cow allowing his spear to rest on its back till it became accustomed to it and then he would thrust the weapon into the vitals and deftly withdraw it, all without even slackening his horse's speed, the horse being trained to guide by the movement of his rider. Large numbers were captured by building a sort of corral with wing-like sides of bushes fifty feet apart and a mile or two long, or more, leading to the entrance. The hunters closed in gradually on a herd and drove them into the corral, other men being stationed behind the bushes to frighten the buffalo. Hind describes vividly his visit to one of these scenes[15]:

This seems like great slaughter, and so it was, but compared with the white man out after tongues and hides it was as a raindrop to Shoshone Falls.

Another way was to take advantage of the blind impetuosity of the charge of a herd and lead it over the brink of a precipice. A man holding upon himself a buffalo skin with head and horns, and running before the herd toward the precipice, thus induced the buffalo to follow, as they took him to be one of themselves. At the brink the man secured himself in some safe nook, while the herd, forced by the rush from behind, fell over the cliff and were dashed to death. The hunters then took what they wished and left the rest to the wolves.

The fur companies about 1835, when the beaver began to fail and they found their next mainstay in buffalo robes, annually sent to market about a hundred thousand. Add to this a greater number killed by all parties for various purposes, and it is reasonable to estimate the number yearly destroyed at not less than a quarter of a million. When the value of robes fell off, the buffalo was killed for hides and tallow. Eventually the price of hides fell to no more than one dollar apiece, delivered in Leavenworth. Made into leather, the bison hides could not compare with those of domestic cattle. It was soft and spongy and not adapted for shoe, for sole, or for harness leather. Large quantities were at one time finished by American tanners, but were chiefly used for making horse collars. A good deal was exported to Great Britain. The process of tanning was the same as for ordinary leather. But no method of tanning robes with the hair on could equal that of the natives, and this was admitted by the best American tanners, who turned out few robes for this reason. The Amerind method was first to scrape off the superfluous flesh with a sort of bone adze, the skin being either stretched on a frame or pegged out on the ground. When dry the surface was rubbed and scraped again and then covered with the brains and rolled up flesh side in for three or four days, the brains of the animal being sufficient for its own hide. Then it was soaked in water and softened by working and rubbing, thoroughly smoked over a fire of rotten wood, and finally rubbed down to a finish. A large hide was often split in two for convenience in dressing and then sewed together after completion of the tanning process.

One hardly thinks of Washington Irving as a sportsman and buffalo hunter, yet he was out on the plains in 1832 gaily charging after buffalo with pistols of the old priming-pan pattern, for breech-loaders were not yet in use, and many of the early trappers had only the old flint-lock. It was the breech-loading repeater and canned goods that finished the buffalo.

Borrowing a companion's double-barrelled gun which had one shot remaining in it, Irving took after the fleeing herd and succeeded in bringing one down.

The scurrying herds sometimes ran close to a caravan and mules, horses, and oxen have been known to run away with them. The buffalo often seemed to consider the domestic animals part of their own herd and the cattle appeared to hold the same opinion of the buffalo. Indeed, there was little difference except in appearance between a herd of domestic cattle and one of buffalo. The mingling was prevented by firing into the buffalo and killing several, which served to turn a small herd, though frequently their headway was so great they could not be swerved and the animals were stampeded with them. Then hours of hard work became necessary to rescue the tame animals, and some never were regained. The season had much to do with the manageability of a herd, as at some periods the bulls were extremely fierce.

In summer the bulls would find wet places in the prairie and soon by ploughing and wallowing would create a considerable puddle, wherein they would lave themselves and finally emerge coated with mud. Others would follow till a great depression was the result. These depressions were called wallows and the plains were covered with them. When filled up eventually by the washings of the rains they induced, by superior fertility, a rank growth which distinguished them for a long distance.

The Osages and other tribes at one time wove blankets of buffalo wool in the same manner that the Navajos to-day weave blankets of sheep's wool. Many tribes lived by and with the buffalo, having no other source of food, shelter, or raiment, and this animal became to them the most important being in creation. It entered into their ceremonials and into almost every act of their daily life. When no buffalo had been secured for a time and the camp was growing hungry, the Buffalo Dance was performed and, as Catlin says, it never failed to bring the buffalo, because it was invariably continued till buffalo came in sight—a happy event signalled by a lookout "throwing" his robe. All then rushed to the hunt. If a white buffalo cow were taken,—and there were occasionally white buffalo,—the skin was preserved as a sacred object by the Dakota tribes. It was sheltered under a special sacred tent and carried about from camp to camp with the greatest reverence.

The buffalo was easily domesticated, but the Amerind never seems to have attempted to tame it, although Gomara states that a certain tribe living in north-western Mexico about latitude 40°—wherever that might have been—had herds of tame bison. In the north-west counties of Virginia early in the nineteenth century a mixed breed was common, and in the first settlement of the North-west there was also crossing with European cattle. The cows of this mixed breed that were considered best for milking were the half bloods down to the quarter or even eighth of buffalo blood. But it may be assumed that had there been any considerable gain by the cross the experiment would have been continued. It seems probable in view of the physique of each animal that the cross had heavier forequarters and lighter hindquarters than either parent, and a lighter milk yield, hence it would not be found advantageous.

The calf, Catlin asserts,[17] could be made to follow a horseman simply by holding the hand over its eyes and breathing into its nostrils a few strong breaths. In this way he collected about a dozen, which were fed at the fort on milk and finally sent down the river to St. Louis as a present to Choteau. All but one died on the journey. The breathing operation was not unattended with danger for the calves were vigorous butters and not lightly to be trifled with. The trapper Pattie, when crossing the prairies, shot a cow and concluded to take the little calf alive to camp. So he laid aside his equipment in order the more easily to catch it, expecting a hot chase. But when he approached the prospective captive it also approached him, and with the speed and vigour of a battering ram. Mr. Pattie found himself stretched on the ground, with the further misfortune of being knocked back again every time he attempted to rise. He began to suspect that his final hour had come, when he succeeded in catching the calf by one of its legs, and killed it with his sheath knife, which was still in his belt.

The pursuit of the buffalo was full of excitement and within reason was a legitimate sport. Catlin exclaims: "I have always counted myself a prudent man, yet I have waked (as it were) out of the delirium of the chase, into which I had fallen as into an agitated sleep, and through which I had passed as through a delightful dream, where to have died would have been but to have remained riding on without a struggle or a pang."

The herds of buffalo were always followed by large numbers of wolves, both the small coyote variety and the huge grey wolf. There were also on the prairies in great numbers what the early frontiersmen called "white bears." These were grizzlies. They were very bold and many a man was sent to the Happy Hunting Grounds by their ferocious power. No animal in the world perhaps, taken all in all, was so dangerous. Besides these there were numerous antelope, elk, deer, sheep, prairie hens, turkeys, quail, rabbits, and other small game, more or less familiar to the reader, and, therefore, not requiring an extended description here. The beaver and the buffalo were the animals of the greatest importance; and the buffalo deserves a place in our national emblem along with the beaver, for the bones of the bison may be said to form one of the corner-stones of the Union.