Hunting of the American bison, also commonly known as the American buffalo, was an activity fundamental to the economy and society of the Plains Indians peoples who inhabited the vast grasslands on the Interior Plains of North America, before the animal's near-extinction in the late 19th century following United States expansion into the West. Bison hunting was an important spiritual practice and source of material for these groups, especially after the European introduction of the horse in the 16th through 19th centuries enabled new hunting techniques. The species' dramatic decline was the result of habitat loss due to the expansion of ranching and farming in western North America, industrial-scale hunting practiced by settler hunters, increasing Indigenous hunting pressure due to settler demand for bison hides and meat, and cases of a deliberate policy by settler governments to destroy the food source of the Indigenous peoples.
Prehistoric and native hunting Long before humans arrived in the Americas, bison hunting had been practiced in Eurasia by archaic humans, like Neanderthals. In North America, bison hunting has been practiced since shortly after the first arrival of humans in the region. At Jake Bluff in northern Oklahoma, Clovis points are associated with numerous butchered bones of the extinct bison species Bison antiquus, which represented a bison herd of at least 22 individuals. At the time of deposition, which dates to around 12,838 calibrated years Before Present (10,888 BC), the site was a steep-sided arroyo (dry watercourse) that formed a dead-end. This suggests that Clovis hunters trapped the bison herd within the arroyo before killing them, showing continuity with the bison hunting tactics of the later Folsom tradition.
Native American plains bison hunting Ecology, spread, interaction with humans The modern American bison is split into two subspecies, the wood bison in the boreal forests of what is now Canada, and the plains bison on the prairies extending from Canada to Mexico. The plains subspecies became the dominant animal of the prairies of North America, where bison were a keystone species, whose grazing and trampling pressure was a force that shaped the ecology of the Great Plains as strongly as periodic prairie fires and which were central to the survival of many Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains. To the corn-growing village people, it was a valued second food source. However, there is now some controversy over their interaction. Charles C. Mann wrote in 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, pages 367 ff, "Hernando De Soto's expedition staggered through the Southeast for four years in the early 16th century and saw hordes of people but apparently didn't see a single bison." Mann discussed the evidence that Native Americans not only created (by selective use of fire) the large grasslands that provided the bison's ideal habitat but also kept the bison population regulated. In this theory, it was only when the original human population was devastated by wave after wave of epidemics (from diseases of Europeans) after the 16th century that the bison herds propagated wildly. In such a view, the seas of bison herds that stretched to the horizon were a symptom of an ecology out of balance, only rendered possible by decades of heavier-than-average rainfall. Other evidence of the arrival circa 1550–1600 in the savannas of the eastern seaboard includes the lack of places that southeast natives named after buffalo. Bison were the most numerous single species of large wild mammal on Earth.Sheppard Software, Bison
Religious rituals Religion plays a big role in Native American bison hunting. Plains tribes generally believe that successful hunts require certain rituals. The Omaha tribe had to approach a herd in four legs. At each stop, the chiefs and the leader of the hunt would sit down and smoke and offer prayers for success.Fletcher, Alice C. and F. La Flesche (1992). The Omaha Tribe. Lincoln and London, p. 281. The Pawnee performed the purifying Big Washing Ceremony before each tribal summer hunt to avoid scaring the bison.Murie, James R. (1981): "Ceremonies of the Pawnee. Part I: The Skiri Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, No. 27, p. 98.
To Plains tribes, the buffalo is one of the most sacred animals, and they feel obligated to treat them with respect. When they are about to kill a buffalo, they will offer it a prayer. Failures in the hunt could have been attributed to poorly performed rituals.
Trapping Before the introduction of horses, bison were herded into large chutes made of rocks and willow branches (drive lines) and trapped in a corral called a buffalo pound, and then slaughtered or stampeded over cliffs, called buffalo jumps. Both pound and jump archaeological sites are found in several places in the U.S. and Canada.
Buffalo jumps In the case of a jump, large groups of people would herd the bison for several miles, forcing them into a stampede that drove the herd over a cliff.
The earliest evidence for buffalo jumps dates to around 1400.
Working on foot, a few groups of Native Americans at times used fires to channel an entire herd of buffalo over a cliff, sometimes killing far more than they could use.
A Crow historian has related some ways to get bison.Medicine Crow, Joseph (1992): From the Heart of the Crow Country. The Crow Indians' Own Stories. New York, pp. 86–99. With the help of songs, hazers, drive lines of stones (cf. desert kites), and a medicine man pointing down the line with a pair of hindquarters in his hands, the Crows drove many bison over a cliff. A successful drive could give 700 animals.Lowie, Robert H. (1983): The Crow Indians. Lincoln and London, p. 73.
Driving herds into enclosures In the dog days, the women of a Blackfoot camp made a curved fence of travois tied together, front end up. Runners drove the game towards the enclosure, where hunters waited with lances, as well as bows and arrows.Ewers, John C. (1988): "A Blood Indian's Conception of Tribal Life in Dog Days". Indian Life On The Upper Missouri. Norman and London, p. 9.
People surrounding herds Henry Kelsey described a hunt on the northern plains in 1691. First, the tribe surrounded a herd. Then they would "gather themselves into a smaller Compass Keeping ye Beast still in ye middle".Kelsey, Henry (1929): The Kelsey Papers. Ottawa, p. 13. The hunters killed as many as they could before the animals broke through the human ring.
Exhausting single bison Russel Means states that bison were killed by using a method that coyotes implemented. Coyotes will sometimes cut one bison off from the herd and chase it in a circle until the animal collapses or gives up due to exhaustion.
Driving bison on ice During winter, Chief One Heart's camp would maneuver the game out on slick ice, where it was easier to kill with hunting weapons.
Driving bison under ice The Hidatsa near the Missouri River confined the buffalo on the weakest ice at the end of winter. When it cracked, the current swept the animals down under thicker ice. The people hauled the drowned animals ashore when they emerged downstream.Wood, Raymond W. and Thomas D. Thiessen (1987): Early Fur Trade On The Northern Plains. Canadian Traders Among the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians, 1738–1818. Norman and London, p. 265. Although not hunted in a strict sense, the nearby Mandan secured bison, and drowned by chance, when the ice broke. A trader observed the young men "in the drift ice leap from piece to piece, often falling between, plunging under, darting up elsewhere and securing themselves upon very slippery flakes" before they brought the carcasses to land.Wood, Raymond W. and Thomas D. Thiessen (1987): Early Fur Trade On The Northern Plains. Canadian Traders Among the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians, 1738–1818. Norman and London, p. 239.
Butchering methods and yield The Olsen–Chubbuck archaeological site in Colorado, where buffalo herds were driven over a cliff, reveals some techniques, which may or may not have been widely used. The method involves skinning down the back to get at the tender meat just beneath the surface, the area known as the "hatched area". After the removal of the hatched area, the front legs are cut off as well as the shoulder blades. Doing so exposes the hump meat (in the Wood Bison), as well as the meat of the ribs and the Bison's inner organs. After everything was exposed, the spine was then severed and the pelvis and hind legs were removed. Finally, the neck and head were removed as one. This allowed for the tough meat to be dried and made into pemmican.
Castaneda saw Indigenous women butchering bison with a flint fixed on a short stick. He admired how quickly they completed the task. Blood to drink was filled in emptied guts, which were carried around the neck.Castaneda (1966), p. 112.
Each animal produces from of meat.
Horse introduction and changing hunting dynamic
Horses taken from the Spanish were well-established in the nomadic hunting cultures by the early 1700s, and Indigenous groups once living east of the Great Plains moved west to hunt the larger bison population. Intertribal warfare forced the Cheyenne to give up their cornfields at Biesterfeldt village and eventually cross west of the Missouri and become the well-known horseback buffalo hunters.Hyde, George E. (1987): Life of George Bent. Written From His Letters. Norman, p. 12. In addition to using bison for themselves, these Indigenous groups also traded meat and robes to village-based tribes.
A good horseman could easily lance or shoot enough bison to keep his tribe and family fed, as long as a herd was nearby. The bison provided meat, leather, and sinew for bows.
A fast-hunting horse would usually be spared and first mounted near the bison. The hunter rode on a pack horse until then.Nabokov, Peter (1982): Two Leggings. The Making of a Crow Warrior. Lincoln and London, p. 158. Hunters with few horses ran beside the mount to the hunting grounds.Murray, Charles A. (1974): Travels in North America. Vol. I. New York, p. 386. Accidents, sometimes fatal, happened from time to time to both rider and horse.Chardon, F. A. (1997): Chardon's Journal at Fort Clark, 1834–1839. Lincoln and London, p. 159.Boyd, Maurice (1981): Kiowa Voices. Ceremonial Dance, Ritual and Song. Part I. Fort Worth, p. 15.
To avoid disputes, each hunter used arrows marked in a personal way.Hyde, George E. (1987): Life of George Bent. Written From His Letters. Norman, p. 200.Walker, James R. (1982): Lakota Society. Lincoln and London, p. 40.Fletcher & La Flesche (1992), p. 272. Lakota hunter Bear Face recognized his arrows by one of three "arrow wings" made of a pelican feather.Densmore, Frances (1918): Teton Sioux Music. Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology. Bulletin 61. Washington, p. 439. Castaneda wrote how it was possible to shoot an arrow right through a buffalo.Castaneda (1966), p. 71. The Pawnees had contests as to how many bison it was possible to kill with just one bowshot. The best result was three.Blaine, Martha R. (1990): Pawnee Passage, 1870–1875. Norman and London, p. 81. An arrow stuck in the animal was preferred as the most lethal. It would inflict more damage with each jump and move.Walker, James R. (1982): Lakota Society. Lincoln and London, p. 80. A non-indigenous traveler credited the hunters with cutting up a bison and packing the meat on a horse in less than 15 minutes.Murray, Charles A. (1974): Travels in North America. Vol. I. New York, p. 297.