Some of their most skillful hunters will kill nearly a hundred deer in five or six weeks. If I should tell you how many thousands of these robes are made and sold in a year by the Osages, and other more distant tribes, you would be astonished that there were any buffaloes to be found within hundreds of miles. ![]() The skins are of great value to them, and having secured these, the bodies are left for the wolves to devour, and it is much the same with the buffalo they are hunted for their tongues, and skins, of which they manufacture robes, and sell them to the fur traders. ![]() “You may say to them that the Indians do not eat all the game they take,–that it is not supposed they eat more than four-fifths of the deer they kill. “The Indian gluts himself with marrow and fatness…he spends days and nights in wasteful extravagance, trusting to the abundance of nature to take care of the future.” While one might wonder at his qualifications to make such a statement, Thomas Thorpe wrote that, “No part of North America was originally unoccupied by the buffalo”, and took note of the commonality of the Indians wasting a degree of the meat after a hunt. “If the chase has been a successful one, the remains of partially dressed buffalos are left but if not, they return, and the carcass is cleaned and meat taken to camp”. No one would argue the senseless slaughter and waste of these magnificent animals at the hands of the Europeans, however, the loss of the buffalo also rests on the shoulders of the Indian. © We are conditioned to think of Native Americans as good stewards of Nature, taking only what was essential for their well-being, yet it is not hard to find first-hand accounts of buffalo hunting which paint a different picture. ![]() Photo: Two men shown with a mountain of buffalo skulls, public domain.
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