Catlin's North American Indian portfolio. : Hunting scenes and amusements of the Rocky Mountains and prairies of America. : From drawings and notes of the author, made during eight years' travel amongst forty-eight of the wildest and most remote tribes of savages in North America. |
PLATE No 2. |
 | Catlin's North American Indian portfolio. : |  |
PLATE No 2.
THE AMERICAN BUFFALO.
This noble animal, which is the largest and most formidable of the ruminating species, existing in North America since the extinction of the Mastodon race, has been the
most useful in contributing to Man's subsistence; and, consequently, most probably, allowed the longest to inhabit with him those vast and almost interminable regions of forest and
prairie where the Great Spirit designed them to roam together.
By this portrait of a bull, which is a very faithful one, it will be seen that the American Buffalo is a very different variety of the Ox species from the buffalo of the
Eastern continent, and probably closely allied to, if not exactly the same as, the European Bison. These animals, which were once spread in vast herds over nearly all of North
America, from the Rocky Mountains to the shores of the Atlantic, but now confined to a much narrower limit near the base of the Rocky Mountains, extending from the Mexican
provinces in the south, to the latitude of Hudson's Bay in the north, are in size somewhat above the ordinary bullock, and their flesh of a delicious flavor, resembling, and quite
equal to, the best of beef.
From the noble bearing and fine proportions of this animal, one instantly admits his gigantic strength, and estimates his splendid utility to man, provided he could be made to
bear the yoke. Almost endless efforts have been made by eager and avaricious man to enslave this noble Animal, and humble him to the drudgery of the plough; but with the
like result as with the noble Men of the same free country (almost the only living exceptions); who, if they lack the merit of meekness and docility, have had and maintained
the virtue of courage to contend for their lives with civilized man, and the sternness to resist his slavery.
The flesh of the Buffalo, which is easily procured, furnishes the Indians of those tracts of country over which they still roam, the means of a wholesome subsistence, and they
live almost exclusively on it; converting the skins of the animals, their horns, hoofs, and bones, to the construction of dresses, shields, bows, &c.
The Buffalo Bull is perhaps one of the most formidable and frightful-looking animals in the world when excited to resistance (as will be seen in some of the various phases
through which he is to be passed in the following chapter of accidents and disasters that befal him), his long and shaggy mane hanging in great profusion over his neck and shoulders,
and often extending down quite to the ground.
The color of the Buffalo, during the first summer, while a calf, is precisely that of a red calf in cultivated fields; but when shedding its first hair it takes another of dark
brown, which color it carries during its life. The horns are short, but, in the male, very large, with the peculiarity that they have but one turn; i. e., they are a simple arch,
without the least approach to a spiral form, like those of the common ox or goat species.
The female Buffalo is always much smaller than the male, and invariably distinguished by the peculiar shape of the horns, which are much smaller and more crooked, their
points turning more in, towards the head.
One of the most remarkable peculiarities of the Buffalo is the formation and expression of the eye, the ball of which is very large and white, and the iris jet black. The
lids of the eye seem always to be strained quite open, and the ball rolling forward and down, so that a considerable part of the iris is hidden behind the lower lid, while the pure
white of the eyeball glares out over it in an arch, in the shape of a moon at the end of its first quarter.
The Buffaloes are gregarious, but not migratory. They are found grazing in immense herds, from the Mexican borders to the fifty-fifth degree of north latitude, in all months
of the year, including the coldest of winters; and in these northern regions gaining their food by browsing on the limbs and buds of the frozen shrubbery, and pawing for grass
through the snow; afferding for the Indian sportsman the thrilling subjects for the chase, in that dreary season, as will be shown in some of the subjoined hunting scenes.
| Catlin's North American Indian portfolio. : | |