The Element Encyclopedia of Native Americans: An A to Z of Tribes, Culture, and History

BUFFALO

The American bison was renamed “buffalo” by default: early French settlers and fur trappers referred to the animal as boeufs, French for “bullock” or “ox.”

The buffalo was easily the single most important animal to the Plains Indians, and the range of the animal was vast. These huge creatures—which can weigh over 2,000 pounds—occupied the plains and prairies west of the Mississippi from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico. Prior to the commercialization of their hunting and slaughter in the 19th century, there were, literally, millions of buffalo. The animal was driven very close to extinction, and today there are only something in the region of 15,000 buffalo remaining that are considered to be wild. These days, they are restricted to reserves and parks, although the commercialized buffalo industry is another matter.

But not so very long ago, the buffalo provided everything that the Native American needed for survival, and the list of uses to which the animal was put is impressive. The hides provided bedding, clothing, shoes, and the “walls” of tipis. The meat was good, nutritious food. The bones and teeth were used to make tools and also sacred implements. The hooves of the animal could be rendered into glue. Horns made cups, ladles, and spoons. Even the tail of the buffalo made a fly whip. The bones could be used to scrape the skin to soften it, and was also fashioned into needles and other tools. Some tribes used the bone to make bows.

The buffalo provided leather and sinewy “string” for those bows. Even the fibrous dung was used to make fires. The rawhide, heated by fire, thickened; this material was so tough that arrows, and sometimes even bullets, couldn’t penetrate it, so it made an effective shield. This rawhide was used to make all manner of objects: moccasin soles, waterproof containers, stirrups, saddles, rattles and drums for ceremonial purposes, and rope. Rope could also be made from the hair of the buffalo, woven into tough lengths. Even boats were made from buffalo hide, stretched across wooden frameworks. Buffalo offal was eaten as soon as the animal was killed, or else the flesh could be dried to make jerky and pemmican. The stomach of the animal could be used as a cooking container by stretching it between four sticks, suspended over a fire. The buffalo actually has two stomachs; the contents of the first were used as a remedy for skin ailments and also frostbite.

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 gods, and the animal was held in great reverence. A magical animal that was accorded the power of shape-shifting, and could even apparently transform itself into a beautiful woman, the sacred status of this rare natural phenomenon meant that the white buffalo became the subject of many myths and stories. The hide of the animal, once it had died a natural death, was made as an offering to the gods.

BULL ROARER

A piece of wood, carved and polished into a flat oval shape. The ends were pierced to allow thread to be passed through. The size of the wooden part of the instrument could be anywhere from 4 inches to 6 feet long.

When the bull roarer was spun around the head, it emitted a loud roaring sound that was thought to emulate the sound made by the Thunderbird. It was used as a magical instrument, the sound of which was believed to call rain from the skies.

It’s still possible to buy souvenir versions of the bull roarer.

BULLBOAT

A circular boat, something like a coracle, used for short trips across (inland) water. The bullboat was made of rawhides stretched over a willow framework. The seams of the hide were made waterproof with rendered animal fat, and ashes from wood fires. It was used by the Mandan tribes—who, it was conjectured, were descended from the Welsh; its similarity to the coracle, used in Wales, lends a certain credence to this theory.

BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS

This organization officially started as part of the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1849, but was first founded in 1824 when it was called the Office of Indian Affairs, a part of the War Department. It was given its current name in 1947.

BURIAL OF THE DEAD

Across the many tribes of Native American Indians, there were many different approaches to the disposal of the remains of a lost loved one. But it’s safe to say that the two main differences were whether the corpse was buried in the ground or left in the open air.

The latter was the preferred way among the Arapaho, Chippewah, Gros Ventre, Mandan, Siksika, and Sioux tribes. All these peoples placed the corpse either in the branches of a tree, or at the top of a framework that was specially constructed for the purpose. In northwestern America the body was put into a boat or canoe, the entire canoe then suspended in a tree.

The underground burial, though, was really the most widely used method. The corpse might be wrapped in matting made of cane, and buried in the ground. Some tribes embalmed the body prior to burial. Seminole and Creek Indians dug circular holes into which the corpse was inserted in a sitting position, whilst the Mohawk used the same method except the corpse would be squatting.

The buried bones of the tribes belonging to the Great Lakes region would be disinterred periodically and placed in a common pit.

Lots of tribes placed items near the burial place, such as weapons. The belief was that these worldly goods would be needed in the world that was to come. And sometimes the horse of the dead person was slain with him, so that the two might go into the afterlife together.

All tribes mourned their dead, but again, the methods of displaying that grief varied. Cutting the hair off, slashing the body or arms with blades, wailing and fasting; all these were ways of expressing grief to the rest of society. Among some tribes, if a person died in a tipi, then the tipi would be sealed up, marked as unlucky.

The Comanche, expert horsemen, placed the corpse on the back of a horse along with a (living) rider. The rider would then go in search of a suitable burial place, such as a cave. Once the body had been buried, stones were piled up to mark the spot.

If a member of the Creek tribe died while in bed, the corpse was buried underneath that bed.

Several prominent Native Americans, including Sitting Bull and Black Hawk, have been disinterred and moved to other places.

BURY THE HATCHET

When we “bury the hatchet,” we let go of irritations we might have with a neighbor or adversary in favor of peace.

The saying has its origins in a small piece of ritual belonging to the Native Americans. When chiefs of tribes met to discuss a problem, as soon as a solution was settled, the pact was sealed, symbolically, by the literal burying of the hatchet, which was a weapon of war. There are records to prove this, too: for example, in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register of 1870 is an account, first written in 1680, from a gentleman named Samuel Sewall:

“ … Meeting wth ye Sachem [the tribal leaders] the[y] came to an agreemt and buried two Axes in ye Ground; which ceremony to them is more significant & binding than all Articles of Peace the Hatchet being a principal weapon wth ym.”

CACIQUE

A word with Arawak origins (Kasseque), a cacique is another name for a chief or a head of a tribe and applies in the main to South American tribes as well as those of the Caribbean. Some Pueblo people applied the word to their spiritual leaders.