Indians and Buffalo

Indians and Buffalo

In modern times, the vast majority of the people of the United States would not survive if they had to rely on the land for sustenance. Food and resources are so readily available today that most take it for granted. The Native Americans did not share these tenets in the mid to late 1900s. They endured life in the Great Plains by honoring the land and all in had to offer them, in particular, the buffalo. The downfall of the Native American population in North America was a direct correlation of the collapse of their precious buffalo. American greed and desire for hegemony nearly wiped out the powerful animals, which enabled the settlers to take over the prairies, force the Native Americans onto reservations, and nearly obliterate their cultures and religion. Buffalo slaughter crippled Native American numbers to the delight of the American government. Manifest destiny motivated westward expansion, and the disappearing of the buffalo was the overture of Native American forthcoming disaster.
The buffalo were not merely a source of food to the people of the Great Plains. They provided spiritual and religious standards, material sources of wealth and resources, social norms, and cultural guidelines as to how the Native Americans would conduct themselves. In 1865, Chief Kicking Bear of the Kiowas explained, "The buffalo is our money. It is our only resource with which to buy what we need and do not receive from the government. The robes we can prepare and trade. We love them just as the white man does his money. Just as it makes a white man's heart feel to have his money carried away, so it makes us feel to see others killing and stealing our cattle given to us by the Great Father above to provide us meat to eat and means to get things to wear." (2) The buffalo are literally considered to be sacred by the Plains Indians, as they were honored and incorporated into all aspects of being. The Plains Indians considered the animals to be relatives of theirs and...

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