As I approached I was noticed by a couple of Indian men who ran to a very old looking man who seemed very wise.
As he approached me, I suddenly realised every eye turn to look at me. I felt very vulnerable as you could imagine and felt that at any second I could be killed. Instead of panicking like some other people would have done, I thought back to what I knew about the Indians. I knew that they used the buffalo for nearly every aspect of their life. Knowing it was very important to them; I thought that I could communicate with them and try to tell them that I had seen the buffalo. As I knew no words that these Indians spoke, I simply placed my fingers on my head and tried to look like a buffalo. I used to fingers to put on my head as horns and I started charging around. There was a sudden outburst of roaring laughter and I suddenly realised what an idiot I must be making myself out to be. One of the men suddenly shouted, “Tatonka!” Within seconds all of the Indian people were gathered a round me screaming, “Tatonka!”
It occurred to me that this must be how the Indian people say buffalo and so I started shouting, “Tatonka!” All of the people then grew quite and I saw the amazed look on their faces.
All of a sudden it all came to me, these Indians had had a scarcity of Buffalo, this was the reason there was no food, they wore raggedy looking clothes and also why the tepees had to be repaired with leaves.
I realised that if I were to take the Indians to the buffalo then I could be renowned as a local hero. The question was, how?
I decided that my best method to get them to follow would be to help one of the Indians onto my horse and I would take him to see the herd of buffalo.
I tapped my horses back signalising for one of them to get on. One of the more rugged looking Indians climbed on and so I got on the horse as well and we rode to where the buffalo were.
When we arrived at the destination, the Indian seemed very astounded and so we turned the horse around and headed back for the village. When we got there, the Indian man I took with me shouted something and abruptly the village went up in screams of delight.
The next couple of hours were spent by the Indians sharpening their knives and preparing their bows and arrows obviously getting prepared to hunt the buffalo. One kind Indian man invited me back to his tipi where he introduced me to his family and offered me some food. As the night was drawing closer, the Indian man handed me a blanket and I settled down for sleep.
I was awoken early next morning by the sounds of screams and shouts from he Indian villagers. I dragged myself out of the tipi and I noticed everyone on their horse back ready to ride off. Eager to follow suit I grabbed my gun and got onto my horses back.
We rode off in the direction that we had seen the buffalo in. Without warning all of the horses ahead of me suddenly came to a halt and the Indians clambered off the back of their horses. They crawled up the final bit of the hill and stuck their head up just enough so that they could see the buffalo. The oldest man of the pack then went to the front and said something in Indian. The Indians then got onto their horses looked as if they were prepared to ride into battle. In fear of my life I decided not to pursue the rest of the journey with the Indians as I felt that there was to be lots of death in the next stage of the journey. Instead I chose to stay stood next to the old man and as I wandered over to him he suddenly shouted something in Indian, thinking that it was me who had made him shout, I quickly dove to the floor trying to escape anything that might happen to me. As I looked up I noticed the Indian villagers charging towards the direction of the buffalo and I felt the old man pick me up and stand with me as I watched the hunt. Once among the buffalo, the Indian hunters dash forward in utter recklessness and self-abandonment. It seems as if they think of nothing and care for nothing but killing the buffalo; their minds look stimulated to the highest pitch, yet intensely concentrated on one object, the buffalo. In the midst of the flying herd, where the uproar and the dust are thickest, the hunter draws out an arrow and fires it straight into a charging buffalo.
As I watched on, I noticed some obviously very skilled hunters who looked as if they would kill about 5 or 6 buffalo in the hunt.
With a bold and well trained horse the hunter may ride so close to the buffalo that as they gallop side by side he may reach over and touch the buffalo with his hand. There isn’t much danger in this as long as the buffalo's strength and breath continue unabated; but when he becomes tired and can no longer run at ease, when his tongue lolls out and foam flies from his jaws, then the hunter had better keep at a more respectful distance; the distressed brute may turn upon him at any instant; and especially at the moment when he fires his arrow.
As I watch on in total amazement, I notice the wounded buffalo spring at his enemy; the horse leaps violently aside; and then the hunter has need of a tenacious seat in the saddle, for if he is thrown to the ground there is no hope for him. When he sees his attack defeated the buffalo resumes his flight, but if the shot was well directed he soon stops; for a few moments he stands still, then totters and falls heavily upon the prairie.
The obvious difficulty when hunting buffalo is when the Indian tries to load the arrow at full gallop.
It seemed to me that the danger of the chase arises not so much from the onset of the wounded animal as from the nature of the ground which the hunter must ride over. The prairie does not always present a smooth, level, and uniform surface; very often it is broken with hills and hollows, intersected by ravines, and in the remoter parts studded by the stiff wild-sage bushes. The most formidable obstructions, however, are the burrows of wild animal’s wolves, badgers, and particularly prairie dogs.
In the blindness of the chase the hunter could rush over it unconscious of the danger; his horse may get its leg caught in one of the burrows, the bone may snap, the rider could be hurled forward to the ground and could probably be killed.
As the hunt draws to a close, the remaining buffalo who were lucky enough to escape the hunt keep running and hope to find a newer, more peaceful settlement.
The Indians ride over to the dead buffalo and begin to dissect it, taking the flesh and the organs, and the bones and the skull; in fact, they take every part of the buffalo and load it onto horseback that is apart from one part of the buffalo, the heart. Instead of being used by the Indians the heart was left where the buffalo was killed to show a sign of respect.
When all of the buffalo was loaded onto the horse, the hunters rode back to the village where the woman had been busy preparing cooking implements ready for what looked like a large feast ready for that night.
When the hunters arrived back at the village, they placed the parts of the buffalo outside the tepees on top of leaves which had been laid down by the women to keep the meat and other parts of the buffalo clean.
That night I experienced a large feast which brought the whole village together, they ate together, danced together, and most importantly celebrated together.
The feast went on long into the night with music playing and people dancing, this is a memory that will certainly stay with me for the rest of my life.
To conclude I can say that the Indians are an amazing bunch of people, they work together and respect each other and help each other as a community. It is also clear to see that the Indians rely on the buffalo for their majority of needs such as clothes, food and weapons etc. This was clear for me to see because when I first met these Indians it was clear that they had not hunted any buffalo for a long time because of their raggedy looking clothes and also the poor conditions of the tepees. However, now that I have left the Indians, they are wearing much finer looking clothes and also their tepees seem to be in a much fitter state.
