THE BISON - Part one

Noble Monarch of the Great Plains Country Was By Far the Greatest Factor in Molding History of the Northwest. Battles of the Wilderness. What the Buffalo Meant to the Indian and One Method Employed by Redmen In Hunting the Herds and Preparing the Hides

By Dan R. Conway

(Originally printed in the Hysham Echo on February 24, 1927)

“The buffalo (or more correctly speaking bison),” says Catlin (writing in 1833), “is a noble animal, that roams over the vast prairies, from the borders of Mexico on the south, to Hudson’s Bay on the north. Their size is somewhat above that of our common bullock, and their flesh of a delicious flavor, resembling and equalling that of beef. Their flesh, which is easily procured, furnishes the savages of these vast regions the means of a wholesome and good subsistence, and they live almost exclusively upon it - converting the skins, horns, hoofs and bones, to the construction of dresses, shields, bows, etc. The buffalo bull is one of the most formidable and frightful looking animals in the world, when excited to resistance; his long shaggy mane hangs in great profusion over his neck and shoulders, and often extends quite down to the ground. The cow is less in stature, and less ferocious; though not much less wild and frightful in her appearance.”

The Bison and History

Of all the wild inhabitants of the great aboriginal west none has had more to do with molding history and the paving of a way for civilization’s advancement than the beaver and the bison, the greater of these being the bison. King of the plains country, prolific in numbers, until the aggressive forces of a white race brought it practically to extinction, the buffalo (as the bison is commonly known), has left a story which is closely interwoven with every epoch in the history of the “far west.” Today, it is generally conceded that nowhere has there ever existed an animal which in its wild state performed a more valuable service to mankind; or was wiped out so rapidly.

Bison Lead the Way

The journals of Ashley and Smith giving accounts of their experiences in the exploration expeditions of 1822, states as follows regarding the services rendered them by the buffalo:

“At three o’clock on the afternoon of December 26th (1822), it began to snow and continued with violent winds until the night of the 27th. *** The snow was so deep that had it not been for the numerous herds of buffalo moving down the river, we could not possibly have proceeded. The paths of these animals were beat on either side of the river and afforded an easy passage to our horses. These animals were essentially beneficial to us in another respect by removing (in their search for food) the snow in many places from the earth and leaving the grass exposed to view, which was the only nourishment our horses could obtain.”

The great commonwealth lying along the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, and now embraced within the defined borders of Montana and Wyoming, was a wild, a rugged, a vast, and an awesome wilderness 160 years ago when these virgin plains and foothills and ranges first unfolded before the eyes of the early white explorers. And, for half a century following that time, this section of the far west was a veritable paradise for hunters - a hunting ground that has been equalled, perhaps, by no other region on earth. This territory abounded in all kinds of game peculiar to this particular zone, but the buffalo were by far the most numerous.

The American bison, history tells us, was found by the first colonists of the Carolinas and the other southern and middle states, from which section of the country the great herds were soon driven out or exterminated. Late in the eighteenth century, about the time the city of St. Louis was being founded, they were seen in a wild state in Kentucky. But, early in the nineteenth century most of these animals in the region east of the Mississippi river were exterminated or had found their way across Wisconsin and Minnesota to the prairies and foothills west of the great river.

First Seen by Coronado

It was Coronado who was the first white man to give an account of buffalo. This Spanish explorer and conqueror saw great herds of them along the route of his march from Mexico in 1585, over a territory lying between the Missouri river and the main range of the Rocky Mountains. One of the earliest buffalo hunts conducted on a large scale was that described by M. Nicollet as having taken place in the late thirties, near Fort Pierre, South Dakota. Catlin tells of hunting buffalo with Alexander McKenzie and Chardron at Fort Union in 1833. Horace Greely, in the course of his perilous journey across the continent in 1859 encountered herds which he estimated to number millions in western Kansas.

The Hunters; Paradise

When the first explorers had returned from the far west, and after they had unfolded their story of a boundless wilderness teeming with bison and other wild game, even the menace of hostile Indians failed to keep big game hunters from the eastern states and even as far distant as Europe from invading this land of wonders. For three score years most of the noted sportsmen of the world came once or more to kill the buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, bear, moose, mountain goat or sheep, mountain lion, lynx and other game with here abounded.

I have often remarked; and, it is true: “I wish I had been a Piegan warrior, or a mountainman one hundred years or more ago,” so that I thus might have been afforded the opportunity to view the wilderness in the days before the white man’s harsh hand “ruined” it.

The home of these wild things was characterized by the huge backbone and lofty altitudes of the main range of the Rocky Mountains with its numerous spurs, and by the vast, free, sweep of rolling prairie that stretched away to yonder horizon. It was a land of splendid distances, where, even today, the air is so clear, that by moonlight on a fine night, the rugged contour of the great mountains can be seen at a distance of 125 miles.

One hundred years ago, the winters were longer and more rigorous than now, with by far a heavier snowfall. The great mountain ranges were sheathed in glacial ice; their flanks clothed in dense, sunless forests of giant cedar, of fir and pine, tamarack, larch and spruce. Fringing the myriad rivers and their more numerous smaller tributaries were the ribbon-like groves of silver-leafed cottonwood, quaking asp and willow. To be true, these mountain slopes, these trees, these streams, stand, grow and flow on in much the same manner today as then; yet, the white man’s plow, his ox, his steel rails, his smokestacks, and his dams have marred the scene and the slopes and the prairies have suffered an unbelievable change.

A Place of Rare Beauty

Picture, if you can, this hunting ground, one hundred years or more ago: In the spring and summer the mountains and the foothills of the Rockies’ majestic ranges are a never-ending garden of bloom. Kinnikinick (the Indians’ tobacco) weaves thick, green mats patterned here and there with crimson berries, over a mossy ground. Beneath the shade of heavy trees in forests, in their rich mountain mold, spring forth in infinite variety, the wild flowers - sweet-perfumed Lily bells of pale pink, known to some as the twin flower; briar roses, shading from white to crimson blossom in fragrant thickets. In the edge of the open grove purple clematis hoops its delicate garlands from limb to limb, its drooping violet-colored blossoms swaying in the breeze. Wild hollyhocks, tall and stately, tufted with masses of pale pink and lavender blossoms, form a jungle beneath the protecting and over-lacing boughs of the great forest trees. There are also the orchids of many kinds, forget-me-nots, bluebells, and out in the open, the purple and yellow aster, the brown-eyed mountain lilies, pale queen’s cups, gentian flowers, columbine, violets, white and yellow; pink syringa, Indian paint brush, and pillowy, snowy fields of squaw grass. Then down along the slope the bitter root, clinging close to Mother Earth, with leaves holding guard beside a silver-rose-colored blossom, and whose roots the thrifty group of Piegan squaws bending here and there, are digging to use as food and medicine. That is spring along the slopes that border the buffalo country.

On throughout the seasons that mark the steps of time from winter to winter, each degree of altitude is marked by its changing bloom. First one variety is found in sheltered valleys, where the doe and her fawn graze alert to every sense of impending danger of beast or savage; later it is found on the slope of the hills. Then, as the warmth of the sun increases, the handiwork of the Deity creeps higher and higher until its last elevation is reached on the upper timber line where bold blossoms force their heads above the banks of perennial snows. Print this post