Blackfoot tales include numerous references to repeated failures to get the animal into the corral. There are none that recount driving them off a cliff, which I have a feeling is a projection of our own wasteful practices on indigenous society. The particular importance of this bison being stampeded off the cliff myth is that it is a way for Americans to rationalize evil. Nearly everybody understands that the Great Plains are an ecological disaster. With the destruction of the bison and the removal of the Indian into reservations, we have seen agricultural development that contains the seeds of its own destruction.
Cattle are a waste of grasslands.
They foul the water supplies, while requiring all sorts of chemical additives that are destructive to our own health as well as their's. Meanwhile as cattle ranchers across the entire Northern Plains face economic ruin, they find themselves seduced by the cryptofascist message of the militia movement. The only way to deal with these problems is at their root. However, this means addressing the profit motive which is taboo in American society. While nobody can talk about it in the mainstream press, this does not mean that the problem will go away.