THE CHEYENNE AND THE BUFFALO

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The Cheyenne, The Buffalo, and Bents Old Fort
National Historic Site By Eunice Petramala
(Lloyd Burton, ed.)
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• My name is Eunice Petramala.
• My Indian name is Smiling Elk Woman.
• I am of Southern Cheyenne descent.
• My name in my native tongue is Aaxmeno Moehtewa.

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• As is common among Cheyenne people, I hold in
  special reverence hotowae the Buffalo.
• For all the Plains tribes, from time immemorial,
  the Buffalo was the main source of our existence.
• He is revered, and holds a very high spiritual
  tie to Maheo, our God.
• The Buffalo provided the Plains
• people a lodge, clothing and tools to exist as
  one with our land.
• Peaceful co-existence with hotowae was at the
  core of our way of life.

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• When the white men first came to the Plains,
  there may have been as many as sixty million
  Buffalo there.
• But by the end of the nineteenth century, the
  Buffalo had become nearly extinct.
• One reason is that it became an important animal
  to the fur trade .
• It had a coat that could be fashioned into many
  items which the white man came to desire.
• The skin could be fashioned into rugs, the neck
  strap into belts.
• However, most of the rest of the animal was
  wasted except for whatever of the meat that could
  be consumed.

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• The Cheyenne and other Plains tribes participated
  in the fur trade at first, bringing hides to
  exchange for tools and other goods made by the
  white man at trading posts such as Bents Old
  Fort
• The tribes began to incorporate more of the white
  mans tools, weapons, and clothing into their way
  of life, and the white peoples desire for
  products made from the body parts of the Buffalo
  became greater and greater.

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• But soon the trade fell out of balance. Plains
  tribes and white hunters competed in the fur
  trade, and the herds were diminished.
• Large numbers were slaughtered simply for the
  neckstrap, and the rest of the animal left to rot
  upon the prairie.
• This became a constant eyesore for the Southern
  Cheyenne, as the Buffalo were seen wasted upon
  Mother Earth.
• Another problem was that the white man brought
  huge herds of cattle onto the range, fencing off
  the prairie where both the Buffalo and the Plains
  peoples had once roamed freely.
• The Cheyenne saw the future of the Buffalo as
  bleak, which meant that theirs would be as well

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• One of my dearest elders can remember the sight
  being described of wagons full of robes crossing
  the prairie and disappearing eastward into the
  distance
• Then the wagons would return with even more
  supplies to feed this monstrous trade, that would
  soon swallow up not only the Buffalo but many of
  the tribes whose way of life was bound to the
  fate of hotowae
• Their way of life was to be forever be changed
• Just as the Buffalo almost became extinct except
  in captivity, so too would the Indian way of life
  be mirrored in that same image

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• The differing regard for the Buffalo between the
  two cultures would ultimately cause the Indians
  to begin to fight the encroachments of white
  people, and to try to return to the old customs
  to maintain their existence
• The gross misunderstanding of relationship to the
  Buffalo was a major source of conflict between
  the whites and Indians.

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• The custom of the Indians was to show great
  respect for the animal.
• When you took its life, you also blessed
  hotowae, and used every portion to show the
  reasons why his life was sacrificed.
• Also, it was understood that you took only what
  you needed
• An unwelcome sight was whole skinned carcasses of
  the Buffalo littered upon the prairie and then
  left to rot
• This terrible disregard and disrespect for life
  was not well received, particularly among the
  Cheyenne and Plains tribes.

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• Today we have no free roaming Buffalo except
  where we have captured them and placed them
• So it was with the First Nations peoples of the
  Plains, who were also captured and confined to
  reservations, where we and our cultures drew as
  near to extinction as the Buffalo

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• The Buffalo is making a comeback, in terms of
  once again being near the people who had first
  incorporated them into their way of life
• The Buffalo has never lost the spiritual
  connections it has to Indian people
• And this has helped the Indian people keep our
  connection to our own heritage and to all of
  Mother Earths creatures alive and strong as
  well.