Shuffle off to Buffalo

[Dave Hardy]

If any animal can claim to be the iconic symbol of the American West, it is the buffalo (American Bison, bison bison for the pedants). The buffalo was fundamental to the support of Plains Indian culture. It was also vital to the Red River Metis of the north and the Ciboleros (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/poc02) of New Mexico. American traders (under Manuel Lisa) began dealing in hides early on, c 1818. The heyday of buffalo hunting lasted from 1865 to 1885. US military commanders encouraged hunting to deprive the Indians of sustenance. The drastic decline of buffalo sparked early conservation efforts and led to a growing realization that the Western environment was a fragile one.

Bearing that in mind, how a character in a Western interacts with a buffalo might just say a lot about them and their circumstances. If I can get the poll feature to work, I'll add one with a few options.

[J'Dubee]

I had to vote "Other".

So far I have only one story involving a Buffalo hunt. I was to get three oldest brothers, a Wuxia warrior, a Trekboer, and a rabbi, away from a farm where the action was to occur.

[Puma]

Only have a couple references to buffalo in my novel. One of them is a place - Buffalo Jump where the Native Americans drove the buffalo off a cliff. So it's an historic reference only. Puma

[bkendall]

I said shoot it for food and clothes. I'm just not sure if there's a typical response to this situation. I could see a character in a western doing any of the choices depending on his personality.

[Dave Hardy]

I said shoot it for food and clothes. I'm just not sure if there's a typical response to this situation. I could see a character in a western doing any of the choices depending on his personality.

Well, the "typical" part is optional. This is more intended to provoke discussion than to nail down your official stance on buffalo hunting for the permanent record.

Me, I'm interested in how many notable Western tough-guys were buffalo hunters: Wild Bill Hickock, Pat Garrett, and (obviously) Buffalo Bill Cody. Other writers might be drawn to different modes.

[bkendall]

Okay, if you mean a cowboy from the old west who has a shaky moral center and maybe doesn't like indians or any minority, they would probably shoot it for sport. While I wouldn't like this person for their values, I could like their character and this would reveal a part of his personality.

[J'Dubee]

Being influenced by today's morals and politically correct standards, I doubt any of us can truly say what the majority of common folks of the frontier felt about the condition of the Buffalo.
We have letters and reports of what "some" thought.
How many of the current readers of this board can truly say, from first hand experience, what the common citizen of the U.S. believed about the confinement of American Japanese here in the States?

Social Morals, they do change with each new generation, and it appears to me each generation feels the need to judge their ancestors, based on what they think they know, through the five stages ~~ Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.

:-)

[Dave Hardy]

Okay, if you mean a cowboy from the old west who has a shaky moral center and maybe doesn't like indians or any minority, they would probably shoot it for sport. While I wouldn't like this person for their values, I could like their character and this would reveal a part of his personality.

I don't know about cowboys shooting buffalo for sport. I'm not sure how that equates to a shaky moral center and racism.

I was thinking more of the professional buffalo hunter (http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-buffalohunters.html), the guys who shot buffalo for their hides. In most of what I've red, the hunters & cowboys were usually enemies.

No doubt some hunters had shaky moral centers (those make for more interesting characters IMO), some were probably rock-solid in their morals. I get the impression that by and large buffalo hunters were a tough bunch. I don't know if they were more racist than other Westerners. The Indians certainly knew what was going on and often tried to kill such hunters as they could & of course the hunters retaliated.

There's inherent conflict there, so you can build a lot of drama. Indian v white man, earning a living v destroying a part of nature, for example. You could look at it as a class conflict too, respectable town folk might despise filthy, boozing, brawling hunters, yet they want the money from the buffalo trade, moreover they want the buffalo cleared off & the Indians gone. Or they might regard the hunters as heroes for advancing industry.

[Puma]

Good post, Jay. I especially like your five stages of evaluating our ancestors.

You mentioned the Japanese during WWII; there were also similar conditions for German Americans. One of the gals who used to frequent the history boards put together a very good novel about them and the war.

There's a lot we don't know, or don't know very well. I think your signature says it all. Puma

[bkendall]

Dave, I agree. I was just kind of generalizing it but didn't know you were looking for with the buffalo hunters. That, I know very little about. Anyway, in commenting partially to both Dave's and Jay's posts, morally ambiguous characters are usually very interesting. Some writers, though seem to inject today's morals into historical stories. While I am sure that some folks were going against the social norms of the day, I don't think it was as common as some writers/movie directors would like us to believe.

Like most entrepeneurs today, the buffalo hunters in the old west probably never thought about causing the extinction of these animals (at least I think they are. Correct me if I'm wrong.) Back to the original question, I could see the possibility of a westerner killing for food, clothes, and sport.

There is certainly a parallel today with poaching. I live in an area where hunters will cut a head off of a deer just for the antlers without considering the effects of their action.

Dave, I also believe the Manifest Destiny viewpoint made Americans feel entitled and still does.

[J'Dubee]

In reading the below link, I recall having a similar feeling in late night drag-racing down main street in the mid 1950's... I had a '41 Chevy, club coupe with an souped-up Olds 98 engine. Gave it to my kid brother when I enlisted.

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/buffalo.htm
I think the railroads did more to eliminate the Buffalo herds than the individual hunters. I've read many old communications between offices of the AT&SF Ry. Co. where special "hunters trains" were encouraged.

[Shadow_Ferret]

I chose "ignore it" because so far my stories haven't even involved bison.And though myself character doesn't have questionable moral character, at this point I'm not sure what he thinks of bison hunts and extinction.

I don't think anyone back then thought in terms of ecology and preserving wild life. I don't think anyone even considered Mankind's effect on the environment. I mean, even today there are whole groups that don't think we effect the environment.

[Chris P]

(American Bison, Bison bison for the pedants).

Mention the pedants and we appear ;)

[Dave Hardy]

Mention the pedants and we appear ;)

I bow to your pedantry! :D

Should I now say that Fort Griffin was an important stop for Texas bison hunters? Seriously, what's the difference between a bison and a buffalo? Why does this creature have two names? What's it trying to hide? I think buffalo are very suspicious...

[Dave Hardy]

I think the concerned parties saw the handwriting on the wall by the 1870s. IIRC, Gen Sherman gave a speech to the Texas Legislature where he said they should encourage buffalo hunters to finish off the animals in order to starve the Indians. The Red River War of 1874 was initiated by Quanah Parker as a last gamble to stop the hunters and preserve the Comanches' basis for life, at least that's always the way I've seen it presented. Quanah's first target was the hunters at Adobe Walls.

EDIT: DIDN'T SEE JAY'S LINK! YOU CALLED IT!
It's interesting to look at hunting techniques. In The Oregon Trail, Francis Parkman had some exciting descriptions of hunting from horseback. You had to load a gun on horseback, ride up to a fleeing buffalo, and shoot it in the heart while you and the buffalo were in motion. The Indians did the same with a bow and arrow.

The craziest hunting technique was the ciboleros. They hunted with a lance from horseback. I read an account of one cibolero who was providing meat for some travellers. He picked a buffalo out of a herd & poked it with his lance so it would chase him. Whenever it stopped, he'd poke it again until the beast had chased after him to camp. Then the cibolero speared it dead on the spot. That way they could cut the meat right where they were cooking.

Yeah, hunting a buffalo with nothing but a horse & a sharp stick sounds crazy to me.

[jdm]

If it is the professional hunter you have in mind, then some of the choices in the poll are not likely to even be a consideration.

[Dave Hardy]

If it is the professional hunter you have in mind, then some of the choices in the poll are not likely to even be a consideration.

Then is wouldn't be a poll. You need to read the question, "Your typical protagonist sees a buffalo, what do they do?" Just because the character I had in mind was a professional doesn't mean anybody else's would be.

[jdm]

Dave, I did answer the poll with regards to my own protagonist, but your number 8 post sort of makes it sound like you had the professional hunter in mind as an unvoiced condition of the poll. bkendall I think got the same impression. Glad you clarified things.

[Dave Hardy]

I chose "ignore it" because so far my stories haven't even involved bison.And though myself character doesn't have questionable moral character, at this point I'm not sure what he thinks of bison hunts and extinction.

I don't think anyone back then thought in terms of ecology and preserving wild life. I don't think anyone even considered Mankind's effect on the environment. I mean, even today there are whole groups that don't think we effect the environment.

I think you're probably right, most people in the West might have regarded a buffalo as a dinner, a dollar, or a nuisance. I wanted to include some options that go in the opposite direction. After all, we're fiction writers here. Someone might be interested in writing about a character who's absolutely in love with nature. Maybe a romantic or an anachronistic conservationist. Or maybe someone in a situation where they can see that things have gone too far and what was once endless is really limited.


This is really a side thought, but has something to do with modern & 19th century perceptions of nature.

Have you thought about how to describe how a character perceives the wilderness. It's easy to talk about the majesty of the West, its beauty. I can't deny those, but I wonder about the effect of speaking of it from a 21st century living room. Didn't pioneers look at the wilderness and see majesty and terror? Wouldn't you see it all in its vastness and think, how can you survive in this land? How will I eat? How will I survive the weather? How will I cross it?

I wonder about who would answer those questions with confidence, and who would tremble & go forward, and who would just crack and die. Or maybe some folks just didn't think of it at all. I think living in a vast and unsettled land had to give a person a very different attitude to nature than living in a world bounded by roads, airplanes, fast food joints, and gas stations.

Can we really see a buffalo the way 19th century Westerners did?

[Puma]

Turn the question a bit - how would an early 20th century non-farmer have viewed his neighbors cows that got out and tramped down the vegetable garden? How do current farmers (and residents) view deer that eat up crops and decorative yard plantings? How do we view that pack of T-Bone steaks in the grocery? How do some moderns hunt deer, elk, and other "game" (I'm thinking of the deer drives we have around here.)? I don't think some attitudes have changed too much.

As far as how pioneers viewed the vastness and dangers of the wilderness, I think people were more matter of fact back in those days (and days not so long gone by). We're intimidated because we haven't experienced many hardships - look at all the media hype when there's a major snowstorm, power outage, threat of tornadoes. People back in those days took things as they came - hazards were part of life and I honestly don't think too many families expected all their offspring to live to adulthood. One of my ancestors kept a journal on the trip from eastern Pennsylvania to Ohio back in 1804. There are matter of fact entries that Mister so and so died, someone's son fell over the side of the wagon and was run over and was buried beside the trail and the wagon train kept going. No time for the families to grieve because they had to get to their new homes in time to erect shelters before the winter and try to raise a few crops. Think about the women who gave birth on the trips and were out walking beside the wagons immediately after - there wasn't room for passengers. The hardships were an expected part of life - but someone in each of the families (and maybe all of them) had decided that their lives would be improved in the new location so the risks and hardships were worth it.

By the way, in my novel I do have two characters seeing the west for the first time and each of them perceives it differently - one as an uninhabitable waste and the other as a place of grandeur. Puma

[Dave Hardy]

You raise some good points, Puma. I have a distant relative who was shot to death in early 20th c Colorado in a dispute over stray cows. As for deer, we have an upscale suburban town in Travis Co, that's absolutely overrun with nuisance deer. Well, the proposal of what to do came up and of course shooting was an option. NOT. I think they had visions of camo-clad hillbillies swarming in to shoot bambi on the cul-de-sacs. At one point they were going to trap 'em (the deer) and deport them to Mexico. That went about as far as those sorts of plans go. As far as I know they are still overrun with nuisance deer. The rest of us got a good laugh out of it.

I guess in facing wilderness travle, maybe the first reaction might be some trepidation, followed by boredom. The routine hardships get to be uppermost. They might kill one or two people, but it's expected. For every Donner Party suffering indescribable hardship there are hundreds who suffered ordinary hardship. I guess that's what makes the frontier fascinating, the monumental changes come down to personal events.

[Puma]

Personal events, yes, and recollections. I traveled a fair amount in the west (and all over this country and Canada) before the days of the super highways. The super highways leave no impressions, but the roads in my early traveling days did - the road up the Shoshone Canyon into Yellowstone with the sign "Towing Service to the Top", boiling over going over Teton Pass, the sand reclaiming the road going across Mono Lakes, meeting logging trucks on Highway 1 in California, driving towards an inky black maelstrom in Kansas, sliding off the road somewhere far up in Alberta, having wind tear a campground apart in North Dakota, camping out not far from the Montana/Wyoming/Idaho line the night of the Hebgen Lake Quake, breaking the arches in both feet coming down off a mesa through an arroyo in New Mexico. My experiences were no where like the pioneers, but I feel I am much richer for having experienced a taste of adversity and that those experiences help me into a pioneer adventurer / settler mindset. If you've never crossed a cattle grate, how do you even know things like that existed?

I really have to wonder if I would have been bored crossing the prairie at a snail's pace. I like to think not, but, who knows. Puma