Montana oil and mining journal. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1931-1953, 1935-09-07

I many parts of Montana, ten q fairly
clear story of q waning art rather than
as would ordinarily be supposed, a
| growth In skill Of the arrow maker. For
every buffalo jump yields an arrow
point different In varying degrees from
the points found In the deposits of even
its near neighbors. These differences
give rise 10 another question. Despite
their nearness to each other in places
were these jumps used by different
tribes, or are they merely another mile
stone along the path Of prehistoric
retrogression?
There seems to be no clue which
archaeologists and historians may
grasp looking to solution OF the cues
ton. For, so far as known, no white
man ever actually saw q buffalo jump
in use. Lewis and Clark, in the diary Of
the ascent Of the Missouri river in
1905, give the most notable observation
of white men on the subject. They
wrote that on the north side Of the
Missouri river q short distance below
the Great Falls Of the Missouri, on May
%, 1905, they passed 120-foot prectpice
under which lay scattered at least q
hundred buffalo carcasSes. They ex-
plain, although they apparently did
not witness the spectacle, the buffalo
had been stampeded over the precipice
by Indian hunters to make easy the
butchering and processing Of the meat.
They give a rather comprehensive de-
scription of the mode Of hunting,
wherein an Indian, dressed with q buff
falo head and robe, would guide the
herd to the cliff after other hunters
had started the stampede, sometimes
losing his life under the feet OF the
numbering herd or being crowded over
the cliff before he could seek safety.
Lewis and Clark did not say they
witnessed such hunt, nor where they
received their information Great num-
bers OF stone arrows under these cliffs,
however, are evidence that the wound
ed animals we're killed there, and II the
early generations Of the present IN
dian tribes used the cliffs they borrow
ed the arrows made thousands OF years
before.
Chief Max Big Man of the Crows,
visiting q buffalo Jump at Emigrant IN
1892, wrote Of his visit:
zone OF the stories told me Gas q boy)
by the story tellers Of the tribe was that
our people, when they first came into
this part Of the country, had no horses,
so. in order to kill their buffalo for
meat, they had to run the buffalo over
q cliff and cripple them then kill them
with bows and arrows. I DO not know
II this Is true or not, because we could
only remember the stories that were
told us and we also tel them to our
children"
II Is evident that, II Indians stil used
the buffalo jumps when Lewis and
CLARK explored the upper Missouri, the
custom was fading, since the Indians
by then had horses, and were In the
transition from stampede slaughter 70
The mounted hunt.
1t may be that bone arrowheads were
used ia the last days OF the buffalo
Jumps, though none have been found. /
Thfs might be explained, however, by
the fact that small pieces Of bone would
In few years decay beyond recogn-
si0n.
That the stone arrowheads found at
buffalo Jumps differ IN each location,
and that arrow-making became pro-
lost art Is rather con-
cIusively proved by the experience OF
Sidney A. Nesbit of the upper Yellow