Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-08-06


panoply of steel. Wounds in the rear
of the body were seldom fatal. 1t was
only in the region Of the heart that a
bullet was sure. and the Indians and
white hunters always aimed to strike
there.
In the spring of the year. when the
ice was going out. great numbers of
the animals were drowned in the Mis-
souri, river while trying to cross. In
some years their bodies floated down
the stream in such numbers as TO rem
der the air almost uncomfortable to boat
crews and passengers on their way
up the river. Indians liked this kind
of buffalo meat better than any other
and would tow carcasses ashore TO
be cut up.
There are today less than 1000 buff
falo in captivity in the United States.
the largest herd being in the national
bison reserve in the southwestern part
of the Fla,head Indian reserve in Mon
ANA. where a small herd has grown to
several hundred. and another herd is
growing at a normal rate in Vel
stone park.
The herd in the national bison re-
serve have found a home in a country
of romano and much historical in
terest. Here the Flathead Indians
have dwelt since e~ncroaching civiliza-
ton beat them back from their once
free hunting grounds. Every gulch and
ridge bears a name preserving a frag-
ment of tradition in a tongue that ever
reaches the world in lcssening whis-
pers. The Indian, especially the old
man. feels a warm and loving interest
in the buffalo. for the fate of his race
and Of the bison are akin. Both now
o,;.. NJ a.. NANCY of fbntr nlI-tipna
foe, the white man. Had it not been
for the comparatively recent activity
in establishing the two herds amid
suitable surroundings for propagation.
the buffalo would in Il very few years
have departed from the face of the
earth with the fast vanishing Indian
and would live only in the history and
tradition of the western frontiers that
have also gone forever.
The death of Sacajawea. described
BY, Luttig. took place at Fort Manuel.
a trading post on the Missouri close to
fhe present line separating North and
South Dakota.
Statues and Monuments
Several monuments have been erect
ed to the memory of SacaJawea. \
statue in bronze at Portland of the
III NtltIdb Iiat Al III VI
the expedition of which she was guide.
AT Three Forks, Mont. is n great
boulder with bronze tablet, erected by
the Montana Daughters of the Ameri-
can Revolution. At Armstead. Mont.
near where the exploring party met
members of Sacajawea's own tribe. the
S~hoshones. and from them obtained
horses necessary to complete their
journey to the Pacific. is another stone
erected to the Bird Woman
by the Daughters Of the Revolution.
The women and children of North
Dakota have erected a fine statue in
bronze at Bismarck, the site of the
I'D Mandan village where Lewis and :,
lark met Sacaiawea. But the most
monument To this heroine of
western history is that towering emf
ncnce in the Bridger mountains in
Montana. named Sacajnwea peak. which
,verlooks the valleys of the Gallatin,
Jefferson and Madison rivers. where
;he was captured when a child by an
.nemy tribe; the place where she stood
md pointed out to her captain the pass
-Bozeman-he should take to cross
u" mountains to the Yellowstona.