page_title: Bison hunting
section_title: Horse introduction and changing hunting dynamic
hierarchical_section_title: Bison hunting / Prehistoric and native hunting / Native American plains bison hunting / Horse introduction and changing hunting dynamic
caption_attribution_description: English: A Buffalo skin on a drying frame
context_page_description: Bison hunting was an activity fundamental to the economy and society of the Plains Indians peoples who inhabited the vast grasslands on the Interior Plains of North America, prior to the animal's near-extinction in the late nineteenth century following Euro-American expansion into the West. Bison hunting was an important spiritual practice and source of material for these groups, especially after the European introduction of the horse in the 16th through 18th centuries enabled new hunting techniques. The species' dramatic decline was the result of habitat loss due to the expansion of ranching and farming in western North America, industrial-scale hunting practiced by non-indigenous hunters, increased indigenous hunting pressure due to non-indigenous demand for bison hides and meat, and cases of deliberate policy by settler governments to destroy the food source of the native Indian peoples during times of conflict.
context_section_description: Before the introduction of horses, bison were herded into large chutes made of rocks and willow branches and trapped in a corral called a buffalo pound and then slaughtered or stampeded over cliffs, called buffalo jumps. Both pound and jump archaeological sites are found in several places in the U.S. and Canada. In the case of a jump, large groups of people would herd the bison for several miles, forcing them into a stampede that drove the herd over a cliff.
  Horses taken from the Spanish were well-established in the nomadic hunting cultures by the early 1700s, and indigenous groups once living east of the Great Plains moved west to hunt the larger bison population. Intertribal warfare forced the Cheyennes to give up their cornfields at Biesterfeldt village and eventually cross west of the Missouri and become the well-known horseback buffalo hunters. In addition to using bison for themselves, these indigenous groups also traded meat and robes to village-based tribes.
  A good horseman could easily lance or shoot enough bison to keep his tribe and family fed, as long as a herd was nearby. The bison provided meat, leather, and sinew for bows.
  A fast hunting horse would usually be spared and first mounted near the bison. The hunter rode on a pack horse until then. Hunters with few horses ran besides the mount to the hunting grounds. Accidents, sometimes fatal, happened from time to time to both rider and horse.
  To avoid disputes, each hunter used arrows marked in a personal way. Lakota hunter Bear Face recognized his arrows by the one of three "arrow wings" made of a pelican feather. Castaneda wrote how it was possible to shoot an arrow right through a buffalo. The Pawnees had contests as to how many bison it was possible to kill with just one bowshot. The best result was three. An arrow stuck in the animal was preferred as the most lethal. It would inflict more damage with each jump and move. A white traveler credited the hunters with cutting up a bison and packing the meat on a horse in less than 15 minutes.
  When the bison stayed away and made hunting impossible, famine became a reality. The hard experience of starvation found way into stories and myths. A folk tale of the Kiowa begins "Famine once struck the Kiowa People ..." "The people were without food and no game could be found ..." makes an Omaha myth certain. A fur trader noted how some Sioux Indians were in want of meat at one time in 1804. Starving Yanktonais passed by Fort Clark in 1836.
caption: Lakota winter count of American Horse, 1817–1818. "The Oglalas had an abundance of buffalo meat and shared it with the Brulés, who were short of food". A bison skin on a frame designates plenty of meat.[19]
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