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BUFFALO HUNTING. |
 | BUFFALO HUNTING. The hive of "The bee-hunter" |  |
BUFFALO HUNTING.
The buffalo is decidedly one of the noblest victims that
is sacrificed to the ardor of the sportsman. There is a
massiveness about his form, and a magnificence associated
with his home, that give him a peculiar interest.
No part of North America was originally unoccupied
by the buffalo. The places where now are cities and
towns, are remembered as their haunts; but they have
kept with melancholy strides before the “march of civilization,”
and now find a home, daily more exposed and
invaded, only on that division of our continent west of
the Mississippi.
But in the immense wilds that give birth to the
waters of the Missouri—on the vast prairies that
stretch out like inland seas between the “great lakes”
and the Pacific, and extend towards the tropics until
they touch the foot of the Cordilleras, the buffalo roams
still wild and free.
But the day of his glory is past. The Anglo-Saxon,
of invincible courage and unlimited resources, and feeling
adventure a part of life itself, has already penetrated
the remotest fastnesses, and wandered over the most extended
plains. Where the live lightning leaps from
rock to rock, opening yawning caverns to the dilating
eye, or spends its fury upon the desert, making it a
sheet of fire, there have been his footsteps; and there
has the buffalo smarted beneath his prowess, and kissed
the earth.
The child of fortune from the “old world,” the favorite
of courts, has abandoned his home and affectations,
and sought, among these western wilds, the enjoyment
of nature in her own loveliness. The American hunter
frolics over them as a boy enjoying his Saturday sport.
The Indian—like his fathers, ever restless—scours the
mountain and the plain; and men of whatever condition
here meet equal as sportsmen; and their great feats of
honor and of arms, are at the sacrifice of the buffalo.
In their appearance, the buffalos present a singular
mixture of the ferocious and comical. At a first glance
they excite mirth; they appear to be the sleek-blooded
kine, so familiar to the farmyard, but muffled about the
shoulders in a coarse shawl, and wearing a mask and
beard, as if in some outlandish disguise.
Their motions, too, are novel. They dash off, tail
up, shaking their great woolly heads, and planting their
feet under them, with a swinging gait and grotesque precision,
of dare-devils, fond of fun and extravagances, and disposed
to have their jokes at the expense of all dignity
of carriage, and the good opinion of the grave portion of
the world.
But, upon nearer examination, you quail before the
deep destructive instinct expressed in the eye; the shaggy
mane distends, and shows the working of muscles fairly
radiant with power; the fore foot dashes into and furrows
the hard turf; the tail waves in angry curves; the
eyeballs fill with blood, and with bellowing noise that
echoes like the thunder, the white foam covers the
shaggy jaws. Then the huge form before you grows
into a mountain, then is exhibited an animal sublimity,
a world of appetite without thought, and force without
reason.
Standing on one of the immense prairies of the
“south-west,” you look out upon what seems to be the
green waving swell of the sea, suddenly congealed—and
it requires but little fancy to imagine, when the stormcloud
sweeps over it, and the rain dashes in torrents,
and the fierce winds bear down upon it, that the magic
that holds it immovable, may be broken, and leave you
helpless on the billowy wave.
On such an expanse, sublime from its immensity,
roams the buffalo, in numbers commensurate with the
extent, and not unfrequently covering the landscape,
until their diminishing forms mingle in the opposite
sport, and such in quantity, is the game.
To the wild Indian, the buffalo hunt awakens the
soul as absorbingly as does the defying yell on the warpath.
With inflated nostril and distended eye, he
dashes after his victim, revelling in the fruition of all
the best hopes of his existence, and growing in the conceit
of his favor with the “Great Spirit.”
To the rude, white hunter, less imaginative than the
savage; the buffalo hunt is the high consummation of his
propensity and power to destroy. It gratifies his ambition,
and feasts his appetite; his work is tangible;
he feels—hears—tastes—and sees it; it is the very unloosing
of all the rough passions of our nature, with the
conscience entirely at rest.
To the “sportsman,” who is matured in the constraint
of cities, and in the artificial modes of enlightened
society, and who retains within his bosom the leaven
of our coarser nature, the buffalo hunt stirs up the latent
fires repressed by a whole life; they break out with
ardor, and he enters into the chase with an abandonment,
which, while it gratifies every animal sense possessed by
the savage and hunter, opens a thousand other avenues
of high enjoyment known only to the cultivated and refined
mind.
Among the Indians there are but few methods of
hunting the buffalo; yet there are tribes who display
more skill than others, and seem to bring more intellect
the Sioux in the north, are, from their numbers, warlike
character, and wealth, by the aborigines, considered as
the true buffalo hunters.
The Comanches inhabit one of the loveliest countries
in the world for a winter home—but when the heats of
summer drive them northward, they travel over the
loveliest herbage, variegated by a thousand perfumed
flowers, that yield fragrance under every crush of the
foot. The wide savannas, that are washed by the
Trinity and Brasos rivers, are every where variegated
with clumps of live-oak trees, among which you involuntarily
look for the mansion of some feudal lord.
Here are realized almost the wildest dreams of the
future to the red men; and here the Comanches, strong
in numbers, and rich in the spontaneous productions of
their native land, walk proud masters, and exhibit savage
life in some of the illusive charms we throw around
it while bringing a refined imagination to view such life
in the distance.
Thousands of this tribe of Indians will sometimes be
engaged at one time in a buffalo hunt. In their wanderings
about the prairies, they leave trails worn like a
long-travelled road. Following the “scouts,” until the
vicinity of the animal is proclaimed, and then selecting
a halting-place, favorable both for fuel and water, the
ceremonies preparatory to a grand hunt take place.
Then are commenced, with due solemnity, the
thoughtful member of the tribe. The death-defying
warrior, who curls his scalp-lock derisively when he
thinks of his enemies, now bows in submission to the
invisible presence that bestows upon the red man the
great game he is about to destroy, and it is not until
the fastings, prayers, and self-sacrifices are finished that
the excitement of the chase commences.
The morning sun greets the hunter divested of all
unnecessary clothing, his arrows numbered—his harness
in order—a plume floats from his crown—his long hair
streams down his back—his well-trained horse, as wild
as himself, anticipates the sport, and paws with impatience
the ground.
Far, far in the horizon are moving about, in black
masses, the game; and with an exulting whoop, a party
start off with the wind, dash across the prairie, and are
soon out of sight.
The buffalo is a wary animal; unwieldy as he appears,
his motions are quick, and, at the approach of a
human being, he instinctively takes the alarm, and flies.
An hour or two may elapse, when the distant masses
of buffalo begin to move. There is evident alarm spreading
through the ranks. Suddenly they fly!
Then it is that thousands of fleet and impatient
horsemen, like messengers of the wind, dash off and
meet the herds. The party first sent out are pressing
them in the rear; confusion seizes upon the alarmed
plain. Now the hunters select their victims, and the
blood is up. On speeds the Indian and his horse. The
long mane mingles with the light garments of the rider,
and both seem instigated by the same instinct and spirit.
On plunges the unwieldy object of pursuit, shaking
his shaggy head, as if in despair of his safety. The
speed of the horse soon overtakes the buffalo.
The rider, dropping his rein, plucks an arrow from
his quiver, presses his knees to the horse's sides, draws
his bow, and with unerring aim, drives the delicate shaft
into the vitals of the huge animal, who rushes on a few
yards, curls his tail upwards, falters, falls on his face,
and dies. An exulting shout announces the success,
and the warrior starts off after another; and if he has
performed his task well, every bow that has twanged,
marks the ownership of a huge carcass upon the sea of
the prairie, as sacredly as the waiffe of the whaleman
his victim on the sea itself.
Thus, when the day's sport is over, every arrow is
returned to its owner. If two have been used to kill
the same animal, or any are wanting, having been carried
away in mere flesh wounds; the want of skill is upbraided,
and the unfortunate hunter shrinks from the
sarcasms and observation of the successful, with shame.
Following the hunter are the women, the laborers of
the tribe. To them is allotted the task of tearing off
what is not immediately consumed.
Then follows the great feast. The Indian gluts himself
with marrow and fatness, his eyes, lately so bright
with the fire of sport, are now glazed with bestiality,
and he spends days and nights in wasteful extravagance,
trusting to the abundance of nature to supply the wants
of the future.
Such are the general characteristics of the buffalo
hunt; and the view applies with equal truth to all the
different tribes who pursue, as a distinct and powerful
people—this noble game.
An Indian armed for the buffalo hunt, and his horse,
form two of the most romantic and picturesque of beings.
The loose garment that he wears is beautifully
arranged about his person, disclosing the muscles of the
shoulder and chest. Across his back is slung his quiver
of arrows, made from the skin of some wild animal; his
long bow, slightly arched by the sinewy string, is used
gracefully as a rest for his extended arm.
The horse, with a fiery eye—a mane that waves over
his front like drapery, and falls in rakish masses across
his wide forehead—a sweeping tail ornamented with the
brilliant plumage of tropical birds; champs on his rude
bit, and arches his neck with impatience, as the scent
of the game reaches his senses. Frequently will these
graceful Apollos pass before you, bounding gracefully
portrayed upon the Elgin marbles.
Then there may be seen dashing off with incredible
swiftness, a living representation of the centaur;—and
as one of these wild horses and wilder men, viewed from
below, stand in broad relief against the clear sky, you
see an equestrian statue that art has never equalled.
The exultation of such a warrior, in the excitement
of a buffalo hunt, rings in silvery tones across the plain,
as if in his lungs was the music of a “well-chosen
pack;” the huge victims of pursuit, as they hear it, impel
onwards with redoubled speed,—they feel that a
hurricane of death is in the cry.
Take a hunting-party of fifty “warriors,” starting on
a buffalo hunt. Imagine a splendid fall morning in the
southern part of the buffalo “grounds.”
The sun rises over the prairie, like a huge illuminated
ball; it struggles on through the mists, growing
gradually brighter in its ascent, breaking its way into
the clear atmosphere in long-reaching rays, dispelling
the mists in wreathing columns, and starting up currents
of air to move them sportively about; slowly they
ascend and are lost in the ether above.
You discover before you, and under you, a rich and
beautifully variegated carpet, enamelled by a thousand
flowers, glistening with the pearly drops of dew, as the
horizontal rays of the sun reach them.
Here and there are plants of higher growth, as if
shrubbery waves the pendant blossom, and wastes a
world of sweetness on the desert air. Among these
flowery coverts browse the graceful deer and antelope.
Far before you are the long dark lines of the buffalo.
In the centre of the group feed the cows and calves.
Upon the outside are the sturdy bulls: some with their
mouths to the ground are making it shake with their
rough roar; others sportively tear up the turf with their
horns; others not less playful, rush upon each other's
horns with a force that sends them reeling on their
sides.
Animal enjoyment seems rife, and as they turn their
nostrils upwards and snuff in the balmy air and greet the
warm sun, they little dream that around them are circling
the wild Indian, wilder—more savage—and more
wary, than themselves.
Fancy these Indians prompted by all the habits and
feelings of the hunter and warrior, mingling with the sport
the desire to distinguish themselves, as on a field of
honor, little less only in importance than the war-path.
With characters of high repute to sustain, or injured
reputations to build up—of victory for the ear of love
—of jealousy—of base passions—and a thirst of blood,
and you will have some idea of the promptings of the
hearts of those about to engage in the chase.
The time arrives. The parties already out, are driving
the herd towards the starting-place of the warriors.
which has startled the feeding monsters, as if the lightning
had fallen among them. With a bellowing response
the buffalo shake their heads, and simultaneously
start off.
The fearful whoop meets them at every point. Confusion
seizes upon the herd. The sport has begun.
In every direction you see the unequal chase; the
Indians seem multiplied into hundreds; the plain becomes
dotted over with the dying animals, and the whoop
rings in continuous shouts upon the air, as if the fiends
themselves were loose.
Now you see a single warrior: before him is rushing
a buffalo, which shows from his immense size, that he
is one of the masters of the herd; his pursuer is a
veteran hunter, known far and near for his prowess.
Yonder go some twenty buffalos of every size, pursued
by three or four tyros, who yet know not the art of
separating their victim from the herd.
Yonder goes a bull, twice shot at, yet only wounded
in the flesh—some one will have to gather wood with
the women for his want of skill.
There goes an old chief: his leggins are trimmed
with the hair of twenty scalps, taken from the heads of
the very Indians on whose grounds he was hunting buffalo;
he is a great warrior; he sings, that his bow unbent
is a great tree, which he alone can bend. See the
naked arm, and the rigid muscles, as he draws the arrow
him on the grass is the arrow; it passes through,
where a rifle ball would have stopped and flattened ere
it had made half the journey.
Here are two buffalo bulls side by side; they make
the earth tremble by their measured tread; their sides
are reeking with sweat. Already have they been singled
out. Approaching them are two horsemen; upon
the head of one glistens the silvery hair of age; the
small leggins also betray the old man: the other is just
entering the prime of life; every thing about him is
sound, full, and sleek. The old man compresses his
mouth into a mere line; the eye is open and steady as a
basilisk; the skin inanimate. The eyes of the young
man dance with excitement, the blood flows quickly
through the dark skin; and gives a feverish look to his
lip and cheek. What a tale is told in these differences
of look! how one seems reaching into the future, and
the other going back to the past!
He of the flushed cheek touches his quiver, the bow
is bent, the arrow speeds its way and penetrates its victim.
The old man—he too takes an arrow, slowly he
places it across his bow, then bending it as if to make
its ends meet, he leans forward—sends the arrow home
—the bull falls, while the one first wounded pursues his
way. The old man gives a taunting shout as a token
of his success.
The young warrior, confused by his want of skill,
work he so bunglingly began, unguardedly presses too
near the bull, who, smarting with his wound, turns upon
his heels, and, with one mad plunge, tears out the bowels
of the steed, and rolls him and rider on the turf.
He next rushes at the rider.
The Indian, wary as the panther, springs aside, and
the bull falls headlong on the ground. Ere the bull recovers
himself, the bow is again bent, the flint-headed
arrow strikes the hard rib, splits it asunder, and enters
the heart.
The old warrior has looked on with glazed eye and
expressionless face, and the young man feels that he has
added no laurels to his brow, for an arrow has been
spent in vain and his steed killed under him.
There goes a “brave” with a bow by his side, and
his right hand unoccupied. He presses his horse against
the very sides of the animal which he is pursuing. Now
he leans forward until he seems hidden between the buffalo
and his horse. He rises; a gory arrow is in his
hand; he has plucked it from a “flesh wound” at full
speed, and while in luck, has with better aim brought
his victim to the earth.
The sun is now fairly in its zenith: the buffalos that
have escaped are hurrying away, with a speed that will
soon carry them miles beyond the hunter's pursuit.
The Indians are coming in from the field. The
horses breathe hard and are covered with foam. The
will soon pass away, and leave them cold and expressionless.
The successful hunters spare not the gibe and
joke at the expense of the unfortunate. Slowly they
wend their way back to “the encampment;” their work
is done.
The squaws, who, like vultures, follow on in the rear,
eagerly begin their disgusting work. The maiden is
not among them; slavery commences only with married
life; but the old, the wrinkled, the viragoes and vixens,
tear off the skins, jerk the meat, gather together the
marrow bones, and the humps, the tongues, and the
paunch; and before the sun has fairly set, they are in
the camp with the rewards of the day's hunt.
The plain so beautiful in the morning, is scattered
over with carcasses already offensive with decay; the
grass is torn up, the flowers destroyed; and the wolf and
buzzard and the carrion crow are disputing for the
loathsome meal, while their already gorged appetites
seem bursting with repletion.
As might be supposed, the members of a party
of adventurers once accustomed to the luxuries of
refined life, and who had recently for weeks slept in the
open air, congratulated themselves when they discovered
upon the distant horizon the signs that mark the habitation
of a “squatter.” A thousand recollections of the
comforts of civilized life pressed upon us before we
reached the abode. We speculated upon the rich treat
at once dispelled our illusions.
On the confines of the buffalo hunting-grounds, had
settled a family, consisting of a strange mixture of enterprise
and idleness, of ragged-looking men and homely
women. They seemed to have all the bad habits of the
Indians, with none of their redeeming qualities. They
were willing to live without labor, and subsist upon the
precarious bounties of nature.
Located in the fine climate of Northern Texas, the
whole year was to them little less than a continued
spring, and the abundance of game with which they
were surrounded afforded, what seemed to them, all the
comforts of life. The men never exerted themselves
except when hunger prompted, or a spent magazine
made the acquisition of “peltries” necessary to barter
for powder and ball.
A more lazy, contemptible set of creatures never
existed, and we would long since have forgotten them,
had not our introduction to them associated itself with
our first buffalo steak.
A large rudely-constructed shed, boarded up on the
northern side, was the abode. Upon close examination
it appeared that this “shed” was the common dwelling
place of the “family,” which consisted not only of the
human beings, but also of horses, cows, goats, and illbred
poultry.
Immediately around the caravansera, the prairie
you found yourself growing deeper and deeper in a
fine dust, that had, in the course of time, been worked
out of the soil. Some coarse blankets were suspended
through the enclosure, as retiring rooms for the women.
On the ground were strewn buffalo skins, from which
the animal inhabitants alone kept aloof.
We entered without seeing a human being. After
some delay, however, a little nondescript, with a white
sunburnt head, thrust aside the blankets, and hallooed
out, “They ain't injuns.” The mother then showed
herself. She was as far removed from feminine as possible,
and appeared as unmoved at our presence as the
post that sustained the roof of her house.
We asked for lodging and food; she nodded a cold
assent and disappeared. Not disposed to be fastidious,
we endeavored to make ourselves as comfortable as possible,
and wait for the development of coming events.
In the course of an hour a woman younger than the
first made her appearance, and on hearing the detail of
our wants, she wrinkled her soiled visage into a distorted
smile, and told us that the “men” would soon be
home with “buffalo meat,” and then our wants should
be supplied.
Whatever might have been our disappointment at
what we saw around us, the name of buffalo meat dispelled
it all. The great era in our frontier wanderings
was about to commence, and with smiles from our party
belles, we lounged upon the skins upon the ground.
It is needless for us to say what were our ideas of
the “men,” soon to make their appearance. Buffalo
hunters were, of course, tall, fine-looking fellows—active
as cats—mounted upon wild steeds—armed with terrible
rifles, and all the paraphernalia of the hunter's art.
The Dutch angels, that figure so conspicuously on
many a gem of art in the “Lowlands,” are certainly not
farther removed from the beautiful creations of Milton,
than were the buffalo hunters that we saw from the
standard our imagination and reading had conjured up.
Two short, ill-formed men finally appeared, whose
bow-legs, formidable shocks of red hair, clothes of skin,
and shuffling gaits, were the realities of our poetical
conceptions.
Whatever might have been the charms of their faces,
our admiration was absorbed in viewing their nether
garments. They were made of undressed deer-skin, the
hair worn outside. When first made, they were evidently
of the length of pantaloons, but the drying qualities
of the sun had, in course of time, no doubt imperceptibly
to the wearers, shortened them into the dignity
of breeches. To see these worthies standing up was beyond
comparison ridiculous. They seemed to have had
immense pommels fastened to their knees and seats.
Under other circumstances, the tailor craft of the
frontier would have elicited great merriment; but a
were exchanged, and the preliminaries for a hearty
meal agreed upon, the basis of which was to be, buffalo
steaks.
A real buffalo steak! eaten in the very grounds
which the animal inhabits! What romance! what a
diploma of a sportsman's enterprise!
Whatever might have been my disappointment in
the hunters, I knew that meat was meat, and that the
immutable laws of nature would not fail, though my
ideas of the romantic in men were entirely disappointed.
A promise that our wants should soon be supplied,
brought us to that unpleasant time, in every-day life,
which prefaces an expected and wished for meal.
Seated, like barbarians, upon the floor, myself and
companions enjoyed the pleasing mental operation of
calculating how little the frontier family we were visiting
were worth, for any moral quality; and the physical
exercise of keeping off, as much as possible, thousands
of fleas, and other noxious insects, that infested the dust
in which we sat.
While thus disposed of, the “hunters” were busy
in various ways about the premises, and received from
us the elegant names of “Bags” and “Breeches,” from
some fancied or real difference in their inexpressibles.
“Breeches,” who was evidently the business man, came
near where we were sitting, and threw down upon the
ground, what appeared, at a superficial glance, to be an
for a knife, to cut for the strangers some
buffalo steaks.
Now if the nondescript before me had as coolly proposed
to cut steaks from an ill-natured cur that was wistfully
eyeing the saddle-bags, no more surprise could
have been exhibited by my companions than was, when
they heard the suggestion.
The knife was brought, and “Breeches” made an
essay at cutting up the saddle-bags, which gave him,
dressed as he was in skins, the appearance of a wild robber
just about to search the effects of some murdered
traveller. The work progressed bravely, and, to our
surprise, soon were exhibited crude slices of meat.
What we saw were the fleshy parts of a buffalo's hams,
ingeniously connected together by the skin that passed
over the back of the animal, and so dissected from the
huge frame as to enable it easily to be carried on a
horse, and thus brought “into camp.”
As the sounds that accompany the frying of meat
saluted our ears, we moved into the open air, to avoid
the certain knowledge that we were about to complete
the eating of that peck of dirt, said to be necessary before
we die. Before the door were the two horses belonging
to our hosts; just as they returned from the
hunt, and upon one still hung huge pieces of meat, thus
simply, and frontier-like, held together for transportation.
Our first buffalo steak disappointed us. The romance
of months—and of years—was sadly broken in
upon. The squalid wretchedness of those who administered
to our wants, made rebellious even our hungry
stomachs; and we spent our first night of real disappointment
on the great prairies, under circumstances
which we thought, before our sad experience, would
have afforded us all the substantial food for body and
mind that we could have desired.
| BUFFALO HUNTING. The hive of "The bee-hunter" | |