Before acquiring horses, Indians used various means to hunt buffalo, such as sneaking up on them in an animal disguise or stampeding them over cliffs or into corrals. On horseback, they could ride with the galloping herds, picking off game with bows and arrows, lances, or rifles. The early muzzle-loading rifles brought to the plains by European traders were less effective than traditional hunting weapons. They were difficult and slow to reload on horseback. The Indians readily took to the new breech-loading rifles in the mid-1800s.
Buffalo meat was the staple food of Plains Indians. It was eaten raw in small pieces or roasted. The flesh from the buffalo’s hump was favored. Buffalo meat could also be prepared for use on the trail. Indians made jerky by drying meat in the Sun, and pemmican by pounding meat with fat and berries. Native Americans also ate the tongue, liver, kidneys, bone marrow, and intestines of buffalo.
Buffalo provided materials for numerous other applications. At least 86 nonfood uses have been counted. Some of them are: tipi coverings, shields, travois platforms, parfleches, blankets, and clothing from the skins, either in rawhide form or softened into leather; thread and rope for various purposes from sinews or buffalo hair; various tools from bones, including sled runners from ribs; rattles and other ceremonial objects from hooves, horns, and skulls; and buffalo chips as fuel.
Women mastered the art of preparing hides. They stretched the skins on frames or on pegs in the ground, then scraped away the flesh and worked the hide to an even thickness. If they stopped at this stage, they had rawhide. To soften the hide into leather, they worked a mixture of ashes, fat, brains, liver, and various plants into it, then soaked it in water. Sometimes the hair was left for warmth. In other instances, it, too, was scraped off.
World History
