Buffalo Girl Cooks Bison by Jennifer Bain

Author:Jennifer Bain
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-1-77151-076-9
Publisher: Touchwood Editions
Published: 2014-10-06T16:00:00+00:00

The Hunt

I’m transfixed as buffalo after buffalo tumbles to its death over a sandstone cliff in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The majestic beasts have been outwitted by the Blackfoot people in an ingenious communal hunt that will provide food, clothing, shelter, tools, and weapons.

The Plains Indians know the land and they understand the buffalo. They patiently guide the herd from a grazing area in the Porcupine Hills to “V-shaped drive lanes” they’ve created with rock clusters and tree branches. One hunter imitates a lost calf. The others, dressed in buffalo or coyote robes, spook the herd into a mass stampede so the buffalo gallop over the cliff and plummet 33 feet (10 meters) to their deaths. At the bottom of the cliff, tribe members finish off any wounded animals, gut the carcasses, and drag them to a nearby butchering camp where every part of the animal will be eaten or used. Horns are formed into spoons. Marrow bones are a treat. Some meat is sun-dried, pulverized, and mixed with buffalo fat and berries to make pemmican, which will keep for months.

The movie ends. The lights come up in the theater at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. We’ve just watched Piskun the Buffalo Jump, a docudrama about the way buffalo were hunted right here, where this building now stands, for nearly 6,000 years.

I’m at the jump with the Bison Producers of Alberta (bisoncentre.com) for a tour, history lesson, and lunch before we have a private association meeting.

We learn that “head-smashed-in” doesn’t refer to a buffalo. The name comes from the true story of a Peigan boy whose head was crushed when he got caught in the crush of corpses while watching the hunt from the bottom of the cliff.

TERRY KREMENIUK, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE CANADIAN BISON ASSOCIATION, AT THE HEAD-SMASHED-IN BUFFALO JUMP, 2013

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