The people ate the meat. They dried some of it and mixed it with fat and berries to make small cakes called pemmican . They used buffalo hides for warm robes and the coverings of their tepees. They made tools from the bones and decorated the skulls as ceremonial objects. Nearly Gone Plains Indians were still hunting buffalo 150 years ago, when white pioneers moved west.
Pioneers didn t want the herds trampling their land and fences.
They killed every buffalo they could find. Some white hunters killed buffalo for sport. Often they took only the hides and left the meat to rot. Buffalo bones littered the prairie. Americans acted just in time to save the buffalo.