Historian

Buffalo Return to Indian Lands
Posted: February 24, 2005
by: Editors Report / Indian Country Today

The return of the American buffalo to the northern Great Plains is now a well-established trend. The sacred relationship between human beings and the buffalo, a longstanding tradition for many Native cultures, never died. It is still the driving force for the involvement of many American Indian groups in this wonderful process.

One recent signal was the return of 100 buffalo from Catalina Island in California to the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. This move required the cooperation and support of several entities, including three tribes and the Catalina Island Conservancy, a non-profit group based in Los Angeles.

These particular buffalo were part of a genetically pure herd of 14 animals set loose on the island in 1925, after being used as extras in the early motion picture, ''The Vanishing American.'' The Catalina Island herd grew to as many as 600 animals since that time, outgrowing the natural carrying capacity of the island. Managers from the Conservancy sought out ways to relocate the Catalina Island buffalo back to a more adequate habitat, although there was some concern as to whether the southern California-bred herd could readapt to the natural conditions in the Northern Plains. In an earlier experiment, however, the Cheyenne tribe took in 50 test animals, mainly intact families, to their lands. The animals adapted well to the stronger winter conditions and variety of prairie grasses, to which they are genetically adapted. They gained on average 100 pounds and had no trouble growing winter coats again.

The leadership at Rosebud Sioux Tribe studied the situation and decided to take in the larger herd and work it into its own herd's genetic program. Through the consistent effort of American Indian television and film character-actor and Oneida Indian Nation entertainment advisor Sonny Skyhawk, funding was secured from the Morongo Band of Mission Indians to transport the buffalo. This was successfully accomplished in mid-December. Significantly, spiritual ceremonies attended by representatives of all the involved tribes were held to properly send the herd to its new home.

Another step forward in the reconnection between the tribes and buffalo conservation was the agreement signed last December between the Department of the Interior and Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. The CSKT thus established a role in running the National Bison Range, located entirely within the tribes' Montana territory.

Ever since the near extinction of the huge buffalo herds that once roamed the American plains, Native people have endeavored to assist this most appreciated of relatives to return to their proper place in the region's ecosystem. Perhaps as many as 60 million buffalo (more properly called bison) inhabited the region in the early 19th century. But commercial trade in their hides and other bi-products, plus their directed annihilation at the hands of hunters often supplied by the U.S. Army, reduced their numbers to around 1,000 at the start of the 20th century. As General William Sheridan, a renowned ''Indian fighter,'' told Texas lawmakers: ''These men [the buffalo hunters] have done ... more to settle the vexed Indian question than the entire regular Army has done in the last 30 years. They are destroying the Indian commissary ... Send them powder and lead ... let them kill, skin and sell until the buffalo are exterminated.''

The plan had its desired effect, but not totally, and not forever. Today, some 42 Native nations in several regions are cooperating in a major effort to recover the buffalo herds, for themselves and for posterity, and because it is the right thing to do. The tribes are organized as the Inter-Tribal Bison Cooperative (ITBC), a national agency based in Rapid City, S.D. The ITBC estimates that their member tribes, from 16 states, now hold a collective herd of some 9,000 bison.

This great buffalo revival, led and officiated over by American Indians - certainly with the alliance of many other people - is a welcome and necessary development. Self-determination is not only about gaming economies, although the economic growth of tribes makes the process possible. It is about creating economies that ultimately rebuild and recover the cycle of wellbeing that made the people strong. This includes the human being in the context of the full circle of life and nature, as the Lakota people express it: ''Mitakuye Oyasin.'' All my relations.

__________________

"Be good, be kind, help each other. Respect the ground, respect the drum, respect each other."
--Abe Conklin, Ponca/Osage (1926-1995)

Joe G

Great note, Historian, but wasn't that nauseating quote about destroying buffalo to eliminate Indians 'commissary' actually spoken by Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, and not Gen. Philip Sheridan? Ironic, isn't it that a man with the middle name of "Tecumseh" would be such a butcher...not only in the so called Indian wars, but in the Civil war also, against supposedly his own people!!! Not that Phil Sheridan, author of the 'only good Indian is a dead Indian' was any jewel in mankinds crown....
thanks,
C