Historic Treasure of the Week - November 8, 1992
By Alice Zimmerman Johnson
Vigo County Historical Society
Historic Treasure of the Week - November 8, 1992
By Alice Zimmerman Johnson
Vigo County Historical Society
Indiana lived in harmony with buffalo
In this year when some look with disdain on Columbus’s "discovery" of America, I am saddened by the loss of its cattle, the buffalo.
The Plains Indiana could never have survived the pillage of the white man after the slaughter of their buffalo. Indians were real environmentalists, they were at one with the earth and that which it provided. The buffalo was sent to them by the Great Spirit from beneath the earth for their use, this was their belief, and they did not abuse the gift.
Scientists tell us that buffalo came to North America during the Illinoisan glacial age.
Cortez was the first white man who recorded seeing a buffalo. He visited Montezuma’s zoo and described the buffalo he saw in the year 1521.
DeVaca also wrote of buffalo, when he was shipwrecked off the coast of what is now Texas. He said he saw herds of the animals and even ate the meat. He described how the Indians used their fur for robes and shoes and their meat for food.
The Indians depended on the buffalo. Chief Red Cloud, a Sioux Chief, told of 22 uses. He said the Indians dried the meat, stored the meat in the skin, kept the fat throughout the winter, made weapons from the bones, used the skull for medicine, the hide for blankets, clothes canoes and tents. The hooves were used for glue and the sinew was used for bowstring and twine. Even the droppings were used as fuel. The Indians wasted nothing, they even used the hide as a vessel in which to cook the meat.
The meat was healthy as the Indians dried it in the sun and not with salt. When they went on a buffalo hunt, they killed about 10 percent of a small herd of 300, enough to provide meat and supplied for the winter. The Indians and the buffalo lived in harmony.
The white man only saw the buffalo as a curiosity at best and something to be exploited at worst. I found the account of the white man’s encounters with buffalo in a book by David A. Dary called, "The Buffalo Book."
There is a story about a man who build his cabin by a salt spring. For several years the buffalo came in droves of about 300 each, always in single file. There were approximately 10 droves. They drank for three or four days and rolled in the mud. After a few days they left, again in single file. The mud kept the insects off.
One year the man and his friend killed a great many buffalo and left the remains by the lick. When the following droves saw the carnage, they left and never returned.
Buffalo and pioneers did not mix, as the Indian and the buffalo had. The white man did not need the buffalo, he had his cattle, and the large buffalo rubbed against his cabins, ran through his fences, and scratched his hide on the telegraph poles. The white man did not want to hunt the buffalo for food as much as they seemed to want to rid the earth of the marauding animals.
When the white man came to the plains, they found millions of buffalo. One hunter described traveling up a river for more than 200 miles among one continuous herd. Another counted 126,000 on the plains of Kansas in one day.
The buffalo were so numerous that small rivers and streams were said to have been drained in a day by the huge herds. One source is said to have estimated 75 million buffalo existed in North American when the white man entered the land of the Indians.
Buffalo is said to have been able to smell water, grass and, of course, "humans." The Indian hunters put coyote and wolf pelts, head intact, over themselves and crawled among the herds. In this way, they were not seen or smelled.
The buffalo herds are gone now, except in areas protected by the government, as in Custer State Park, and a few farms that raise them for their meat.
If you would like to see a buffalo robe, visit the museum. You also will see a wonderful watercolor by Omer ""Salty"" Seamon. This, the second in a series of historical paintings, depicts buffalo crossing the Wabash River.
The Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley, 1411 S. Sixth St., is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.