Great White Buffalo

(Ted Nugent)

Well, listen everybody
To what I got to say,
There’s hope for tomorrow
Ooh, we’re working on today.
Well, it happened long ago
In the new, magic land.

The Indian and the buffalo
They existed hand in hand.
The Indian needed food,
He needed skins for a roof
But he only took what they needed, baby
Millions of buffalo were the proof.

The Apache

1. The Apache are a predominantly southern people connected with Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico.  But historical evidence suggests they once inhabited the Great Plains, Southern Colorado, and Northern Mexico regions too.
2. Anthropological finds suggest they migrated from the north, sometime between AD 1200-1500.
3. There were originally six major branches, independent of each other, who sometimes came into conflict.
4. They are closely connected to the Navajo.
5. Their language is related to the Athabaskan family.
6. The Apache are noted for their warfare skills – fierce braves and clever leadership.
7. They traditionally lived a nomadic life following the buffalo herds, incorporating regional practices into their own culture as they passed through.
8. They hunted animals, gathered plants, grew domestic food, and traded with neighboring tribes.
9. The villagers lived in tents, and moved their possessions on travois pulled by dogs.
10. They traded with – and raided from – the Spanish.
11. Plains Apaches used portable tipis.  Highland groups lived in a type of wood-framed hut covered with brush called a wickiup.  And in Mexico they built cool, earthen homes known as hogans.
12. Women were responsible for constructing and maintaining these homes.  And as well as the daily domestic chores, they also gathered food for cooking and plants for medicine.
13. Men were the hunters.  They prayed and fasted before setting out, and took part in medicine rituals.
14. Their most important weapon was the bow and arrow.  A successful hunt or battle often depended on cunning strategy.
15. They followed their tribal leader by choice.  A good chief was industrious, impartial, generous, forgiving, conscientious, and eloquent.
16. Their clothes were traditionally made from buckskin and decorated with colorful beads.
17. Eating “bad animals” animals was taboo (including bears, snakes, owls, and coyotes).  Fish were also avoided because they resembled snakes.
18. Some villagers drank deer-blood for good health.
19. After they acquired horses and guns, the Apache became a formidable force throughout the southern states.
20. In 1835, Mexico put a bounty on their scalps.
21. An influx of white prospectors into the Santa Rita Mountains triggered the Apache Wars of the 1850s.
22. In 1875 the U.S. military forced an estimated 1,500 Apaches onto a reservation 180 miles away, where they were held in internment for 25 years.
23. Apache children were taken away from their families, and adopted by white Americans, as part of the government’s assimilation program.
24. Their most famous warrior is Geronimo.  His band of 30-50 people surrendered in 1886, finally defeated by an army of 5,000 U.S. troops.
25. Sand painting has always been an important sacred ceremony in many communities.

The North American Buffalo (Bison) was the single most important resource for the Plains Indians because it provided:

From the skin:

tipi covers, leather clothing and goods, bedding, straps and belts, bags and pouches, drums, rattles, horse tack, water flasks

From the horns:

cups, headdresses, toys

From the flesh:

fresh meat, dried jerky, ground pemmican

From the hair:

ornaments, rope, pillows

From the sinews:

sewing thread, glue, bows

From the bladder:

pouches, medicine bags

From the bones:

tools, knives, toys, weapons, shovels, needles, clubs, food (marrow)

From the stomach:

buckets and other containers

From the dung:

fire fuel, baby diaper powder

From the fat:

cooking grease, soap

From the tail:

fly switches, brushes, whips

From the tongue:

food, hair brushes

From the brain:

leather tanning solution

From the hooves and feet:

glue, rattles

From the beard:

clothing, weapons

And the skull of this sacred animal was used in religious ceremonies!

Buffalo Bill

• William Cody – born in Iowa Territory, 1846 – was raised in Canada and Kansas Territory.
• At the age of 14 he became a Pony Express Rider after his father died and the family fell on hard times.
• From 17 – 19 years old he served as a Union soldier in the American Civil War.
• At 20 he married Louisa Frederici, with whom he had 4 children.  Only 2 reached adulthood.
• During the Plains War he returned to the army as Chief of Scouts for the 3rd U.S. Cavalry.  Although he fought in 16 battles and was awarded the Medal of Honor for gallantry, he spent a lot of time hunting bison to feed the army and workers on the Kansas Pacific Railroad.  Having killed 4,288 animals in 18 months he earned the nickname Buffalo Bill.
• When he was 26, Cody led a famous hunting expedition with  Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia.
• He called his rifle Lucretia Borgia, and his two favorite horses were Brigham and Buckskin Joe.
• Buffalo Bill became a celebrity when Ned Buntline began publishing stories based on Cody’s adventures.
• At the age of 27 he turned to acting and starred in The Scout of the Prairie, which later became The Scouts of the Plains when his friend Wild Bill Hickok joined the troupe.
• 10 years later the showman developed a huge, outdoor, circus-like rodeo event called Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.

• As the show expanded it featured many famous Wild West figures including Annie Oakley, Calamity Jane, and Sitting Bull.
• Cody performed in England by royal command of Queen Victoria and he also met Pope Leo XII.
• When he was 55 years old his Wild West show was involved in a serious train accident that injured Annie Oakley and led to the deaths of 110 horses.  This disruption in touring signaled the demise of his performing career.  But by this time Cody was an international superstar.
• Buffalo Bill then turned to other business ventures.  He founded the town of Cody (Wyoming), which was incorporated in 1901.
• He owned several hotels and a large property on the Shoshone River called the TE Ranch.
• In 1879, Cody published his autobiography called The Life and Adventures of Buffalo Bill.  By then he had become a supporter of regulated hunting seasons, the rights of women, and Native American civil liberties.  He died in 1917.
• At the turn of the 20th Century “Cody was the most recognizable celebrity on earth” (Larry McMurty and R.L. Wilson).

Sources:

Cody, William F. The Life and Adventures of Buffalo Bill at http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/seven/w67bbauto/w67bb0.htm

Wikipedia, “Buffalo Bill” at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Bill

Buffalo Stew

Ingredients

1lb buffalo steak, cubed

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup red wine

1 onion, chopped

2 large tomatoes, diced

1 stick celery,chopped

2 carrots, chopped

2lb potatoes, whole or halved

1/2 lb mushrooms, slice

1 clove garlic, crushed

2 cups beef stock

3 teaspoons beef flavor bouillon (or 1 Oxo cube)

1 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce

1 teaspoon mixed herbs

Salt

Pepper

Corn starch to thicken (or Bisto Gravy powder / granules)

Method

1. Heat the olive oil in a large cooktop pan.  Add the steak.  Sear and stir until brown.
2. Add the garlic, onion, carrots, potatoes, celery, and mushrooms.  Stir until softened and slightly brown.
3. Pour in the wine, beef stock, bouillon, Worcestershire Sauce, mixed herbs, salt and pepper.  Bring to the boil.
4. Add the tomatoes.  Stir well.  Reduce heat and simmer on low.
5. Cover the pan with a lid.  Cook for approximately 1-2 hours, until the meat is tender.
6. Thicken with gravy mix, or melt the corn starch with water in a small bowl and add through a sieve to avoid lumping.
7. Stir to desired thickness.
8. Serve with corn, peas, or fresh crusty bread and butter.

“The Great Spirit is our Father,

but the earth is our Mother.

She nourishes us; that which we put into the ground

she returns to us.”

Big Thunder (Wabanaki Algonquin) 

(Photo: David Milch)

Of the many portrayals of life in the old Wild West, the TV Series Deadwood remains my favorite.  This three-season show – the brainchild of David Milch – is based around the newspapers, diaries, and real characters who inhabited the pioneer gold town in South Dakota during the 1870s.

The series charts the tenuous progress of order emerging from chaos as the original gold camp struggles to become a lively town.  It remains so today.  Legendary characters such as Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane (who are both buried there) move through life toward their historic destinies, with other fictional representative characters weaving in and out of the drama.

Most impressive is the historical accuracy.  But Deadwood is also extremely well-written and compelling, if at times rather base and violent.  Only the profanity has been modernized – to capture the shocking language of frontier society – but the muddy clothes remain filthy as the characters move from one deplorable act to another in their struggle for wealth and survival.

The series is headed up by excellent Ian McShane (the crass owner of the Gem Saloon), and Timothy Olyphant (Sheriff Seth Bullock), alongside a stellar cast of actors who authentically recreate this by-gone period.  I particularly love Robin Weigert’s portrayal of the good-hearted (but foul-mouthed) Calamity Jane, who emerges as a far cry from the traditional romantic Hollywood heroine!

Not recommended for a squeamish audience, but the best Western series to date.

“She had some horses she loved.

She had some horses she hated.

These were the same horses.”

Joy Harjo

from She Had Some Horses (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1997)

“If you’ve lived to be 29 –

and have made no enemies –

you’re a failure!”

Pocahontas

(Neil Young)

Aurora Borealis,
The icy sky at night,
Paddles cut the water
In a long and hurried flight.

From the white man to the fields of green
And the homeland we’ve never seen.

They killed us in our tepee,
And they cut our women down.
They might have left some babies
Crying on the ground.

But the fire sticks and the wagons come
And the night falls on the setting sun.

They massacred the buffalo,
Kitty corner from the bank,
The taxis run across my feet
And my eyes have turned to blanks.

In my little box at the top of the stairs,
With my Indian rug and a pipe to share.

I wish I was a trapper,
I would give thousand pelts
To sleep with Pocahontas
And find out how she felt.

In the morning, on the fields of green
In the homeland we’ve never seen.

And maybe Marlon Brando
Will be there by the fire.
We’ll sit and talk about Hollywood
And the good things there for hire.
Like the Astrodome and the first tepee.

Marlon Brando, Pocahontas and me –
Pocahontas.