Pre-Contact, Aboriginal and First Nations Successful bison hunt like a shopping spree By Fraser Taylor WESTERN PEOPLE        July 7, 1978        p. 4 & 5 One historian listed 87 uses for the bison by plains Indians and he thought the list may have been incomplete.  The hides provided shelter, of course, and the meat was a food for feasting but uses were found for all parts of the body.  Author Fraser Taylor suggests in his sketch that even the tail may have been used as a fly swatter. The bison, commonly but improperly called “buffalo,” was to the plains Indian what the shopping centre is to today’s family.  Most of us know about the more common usages of this animal such as skins for tents and clothes.  Anthropologist and historian John Ewers made a list of 87 uses and this he considered incomplete.  Little wonder then that the Indians suffered so greatly when the animal was killed off. Even the partially digested grasses in the paunch had several applications.  This hot steaming mass, freshly removed from a carcass, was applied to frost-bitten fingers and to infected areas of skin.  It could also be eaten as fodder by horses, and also by humans when the need was great.  Material scraped from just under the skin was boiled to supply a food similar in appearance and taste to mashed potatoes, or it could be used like flour to make berry cakes. Historians, delving into accounts by early explorers, have noted that bone frequently took the place of rock in the manufacture of tools and weapons.  The Blackfoot and Dakota Indians, for instance, made many of their arrowheads from bone. “Shopping” for bison was often a dangerous undertaking.  There were several methods of capture, the most spectacular being the flat-out chase on horseback.  When scouts located a herd the police society took over and strict regulations were enforced so as not to frighten the bison prematurely.  While a good horse was capable of travelling about 34 miles an hour it couldn’t keep it up for very long.  Bison could do 30 miles an hour all day.  Thus a maximum number of hunters had to hit the herd at the same time to get the greatest benefit, a situation much like a 9 a.m. special. The hunters would park in the lee of a hill out of sight but in the path of the moving animals.  At a signal they would all gallop into the herd.  The bison would break into a run and the fleet cows, which were the main target, would soon outdistance the calves and the much heavier bulls.  On a good pony a man might bring down three to five cows, while those more poorly mounted had to be satisfied with one cow or a bull or two. The Indians attributed their success or failure directly to their horses.  These pampered, well-trained animals were never used for anything but the chase.  A good horse would move in close to a bison to allow for a short, powerful heart shot.  As soon as the arrow hit the target the horse would swerve aside in case the bison lurched or tried to hook it.  If the shaggy target stayed up the horse moved in again to allow another shot.  Usually two more shots were required to bring the burly beast down.  Sometimes a horse was gored and a hunter thrown.  He then had to scamper and dodge for his life. When the herd had passed out of sight the women came with the pack animals.  In some tribes the men did the butchering while in others it was the women.  A joint effort was more common and a husband- wife combination could dismember and pack one bison an hour.  The poor and needy families of the tribe (those without good horses or hunters) were always on hand for they could count on the generosity of good hunters for a hind quarter. There were also various types of drives over cliffs or into pounds (corrals), where the animals were dispatched.  Some woods tribes in the east were in the habit of visiting the plains, and they would drive bison past a line of archers.  Most tribes had individuals skilful enough to work their way into a herd while dressed in calf or wolf skins.  They often managed to drop several animals without alarming the rest of the herd. Choice items such as the brains, kidneys, soft nose gristle, marrow, and the liver, were likely to be consumed raw during the course of the butchering.  Four-year-old cows supplied the best meat, about 400 pounds when rendered.  Their hides were more easily worked and the hair was fluffier and silkier than those of the bulls.  Generally bulls were taken only in the spring, their meat being unpalatable and hides unmanageable for the rest of the year.  An average bull weighed up to 1500 pounds, about 600 pounds heavier than a cow. After a bountiful “shopping trip” there was always a big feast back at camp.  A healthy hunter could eat about three pounds of meat at these affairs, and some reportedly ate up to five pounds, a feat which usually left him in a benumbed condition for the next few days.  If the feasting was extensive, a family would consume a bison in about three days (with the help of relatives).  A more frugal family could make a carcass last about 16 days. Those of us who are fond of haggis and various types of sausage would have enjoyed the many varieties of pemmican.  There were different grades ranging from coarse to fine depending on how long the meat had been pounded and on whether rendered grease or marrow fat was used.  Variety was obtained by the use of different meats and berries.  Pemmican, along with other forms of dried and smoked meat, kept for an amazingly long time, though it was usually consumed during the winter when game was scarce and hunting difficult. Much of the meat was roasted barbecue style or done up in stews.  Older people particularly enjoyed a cheese-like substance taken from the intestines of newborn calves, and the intestines themselves were considered a great delicacy by everyone.  The Blackfoot liked to clean the small intestine, turn it fat side in, then stuff it with long strips of meat and roast it.  A real blood sausage was made by filling a length of intestine with blood, tying it off, then boiling it.  The white fur traders also enjoyed these “boudins.”  Daniel Harmon, fur trader with the North West Company, ate what he called “raw entrails” with the Indians and had no qualms about it. Harmon also reported that the Indians drank bison blood on occasion though this seems to have been largely a symbolic act.  The Cree, for example, drank it so that sight of blood in battle wouldn’t bother them.  Liquid from the paunch was a more common drink that the bison provided.  Apparently a few drops of gall would clear the liquid.  Daniel Harmon said that this drink had no unpleasant taste.  The gall juice itself could induce a mild intoxication. Some people obtained milk by slicing the teats of a freshly-killed lactating cow bison.  At times when water and the other liquids were scarce, they resorted to the amniotic fluid from the fetal bag. Next on the list after food and drink was clothing and shelter.  It was mainly women’s work to make the hide useable.  Prepared skins varied widely in texture and finish depending on the age, size, sex, and condition of the animal it originally covered; the end use, which determined its degree of finish; and the skill of the worker.  Some leather is as good now as it was 100 years ago.  Processing the skins was a long arduous task, involving the application of egg, liver, brains, spleen, and vegetative material; or the result was rawhide, which is good only for moccasin soles. The softest skins became lodge linings, pad saddles, and winding sheets for the dead.  Thin calf skins were made into small bags, underpants for the women, and children’s robes.  Hairy pelts became mittens, winter caps, winter moccasins and headdresses.  Old lodge covers, being the ultimate in soft smoked leather, were cut up and reused as breechclouts, moccasins and leggings.  Rawhide could only be used for resoling moccasins and to make “booties” for sore-footed horses. Clothing was made from skin smoked to a rich gold-brown color.  The making of a man’s shirt, including the decorative quill work, took about three weeks.  Blackfoot Indians preferred white skins for dress occasions, leaving the brown for everyday wear.  The excellence of Crow Indian clothes made them “the sartorial dandies of the plains.” The bison also put a roof over one’s head.  Ten to 20 hides were required to make a tepee.  These usually had a diameter of 15 feet and weighed about 100 pounds when packed.  As some houses were constructed better than others, so it was with tepees.  Some brands were even named by terms which reflected the quality of their dwellings.  Thus, to the Blackfoot, the Shoshonies were the “Bad lodge people.” In any one tribe, however, there were families of indifferent hunters and/or inept women.  Their tepees were made up of as few as six skins, and these were frequently cut up hand-me-downs from the families of good hunters. The making of a tepee was similar in many ways to the building of a house.  Within a tribe there was usually a woman exceptionally skilled at tepee-making.  With a suitable gift she could be prevailed upon to line out the patterns on the hides.  These pieces she would then “sub-contract” out to a sewing bee.  Work would start early in the morning and by mid-afternoon the tepee was raised.  Most tribes then carried out some form of ceremony similar to a house-warming. As a final touch, bison dew claws were hung on the front for a door-knocker. There was a great variety of luggage and containers for hauling the groceries and other possessions.  A water bag used on the march was simply the bison’s paunch, which had a capacity of eight gallons.  Skin from unborn calves was made into containers for pemmican, berries, and tea.  The pericardium (skin covering the heart) made a neat little sack for paints or tobacco. The various bison bones became a multitude of artifacts in the hands of a skilled artisan.  Rib bones were made into dice, sled runners, and knives.  The porous part of the hip bone or shoulder blade was converted into paint brushes after some carving.  The shoulder blade could also be fashioned for use as a hoe, scraper, or axe.  Dead-fall traps for small animals were made out of the massive thigh bones.  The boss rib with a hole drilled in it became an arrow-shaft straightener.  Smaller bones were shaped into needles, awls and arrowheads. Even the bison skull had several usages.  When smeared with grease it made an unquenchable fire in rainy weather.  New hide ropes could be de-haired by pulling them back and forth through the eye-socket. With the miscellaneous parts of the carcass an Indian’s imagination could run wild.  The bison’s tail could be a tepee ornament, a fly-swatter, a club handle covering, or a knife scabbard.  For the smokers a pipe bowl could be carved from the thick neck ligament.  Hubby’s pipe was polished with bison fat or with the aqueous humor from the bison’s eye.  Hair brushes were made from the rough papillae of the tongue.  The coarse woolly hair was stuffed into pad saddles, balls, or made into rope.  Glue was obtained by boiling the phallus, the head cartilage, or the thick part of the neck.  Horn coverings were boiled and then carved into highly artistic spoons, ladles, and cups. The bison figured largely in Indian religious ceremonies and social life.  The Blackfoot determined the approach of spring by checking the embryo development in a newly killed cow (calves were dropped in May and June).  Mandan Indians had a lengthy and elaborate ceremony in which the Bull Society dressed up as bison, the complete skull with hair being somehow worn on the head by certain individuals.  Bison horn caps were common to all the plains tribes on festive occasions. Some tribes used the bison skull in spectacular fashion during the famous Sun Dance.  These 12-pound burdens were dragged around by thongs skewered through the breast or back muscles of a brave seeking to gain the sympathy of the spirits.  Bison tongues were frequently stored up for consumption during this important ceremony, the Blackfoot being known to accumulate as many as 300. A form of life insurance was also provided by this four-legged wonder.  Magical shields guaranteed to protect that life of the bearer were made from a piece of thick hide taken from the bison’s neck or shoulder.  This slab of sinew and muscle was fire-treated in a pit until it shrank to the point where it appeared useless; but after it was endowed with magical powers by ritual, no Indian would venture far without it. With the arrival of the white man, thousands of bison were shot solely for sport.  Also the fur trade required tons of hides, tongues, meat, and tallow for the eastern markets.  The bison was pursued into near extinction in the 1880s when eastern tanners discovered the excellent qualities of the hides.  The effect this unfortunate event had on the plains Indian can hardly be overestimated.  Even when the animal was gone white settlers made money by gathering old bison bones and sending them east to the fertilizer plants.  Many a settler’s sod dwelling was supported by interlaced old bison bones.