Indigenous · History Classes · Grades 4–6

The Buffalo and the Peoples of the Plains

History Class · Level band: Grades 4–6

English edition — the language editions of the history classes are outstanding and will follow the site’s translation pattern; none is fabricated here.

Following the Herds: The Buffalo and the Caribou

Status: Researched draft — cultural review pending

How to read this entry: Documented fact = archaeological record, government or museum publication, or published scholarship (Sources). Tradition — the people's own account = oral history or a people's own published teaching, labelled as such. Debated / Claim = disputed point, shown as a sourced range with the disagreement printed. No ceremonial or restricted content is described. This entry is a history in time — from earliest evidence through height to disruption and continuance — not a catalogue of techniques. A practice named for one people is not transferred to another.

The Buffalo: Paleoindian Beginnings

• Clovis and Folsom. Documented fact: The Clovis tradition, about 13,200–12,900 years before present, is associated on the Plains with hunting large Pleistocene game, including the extinct Bison antiquus (University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, 2023). The later Folsom tradition based its Plains subsistence substantially on extinct bison, as at the Folsom site, New Mexico, and Lindenmeier, Colorado — a shift toward organised, repeated taking of herds (EBSCO Research Starters, n.d., summarising the excavations).
• Olsen-Chubbuck. Documented fact: At Olsen-Chubbuck, Colorado, Joe Ben Wheat (excavations 1958, 1960) documented a Cody-complex kill dated about 8000–6500 BCE: nearly 200 bison driven into a dry arroyo, killed and butchered (Wheat, 1972, The Olsen-Chubbuck Site, Society for American Archaeology Memoir 26; University of Colorado, 2023). Wheat estimated about three-quarters were butchered, yielding roughly 56,000–60,000 pounds of meat, enough on his reconstruction for about 100–150 people for a month, with some meat dried. Debated / Claim: head-counts in summaries vary (c. 157 to c. 190–200) and the people-fed figure is a bone-bed reconstruction, not an observed count.
• The pattern set early. Documented fact: Long before horses or firearms, Plains hunters were reading herd behaviour, using topography — arroyos, and later cliffs and corrals — as the killing instrument, and processing at a scale requiring many hands (Wheat, 1972; Frison, 1978, Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains). Jump, pound and surround all develop those three elements.

The Jump Tradition and Head-Smashed-In

• Length of use. Documented fact: Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, in Blackfoot territory in present-day southwestern Alberta, was in use from about 5,800 years before present to about 1850 CE — nearly 6,000 years (Parks Canada, n.d., statement of significance; UNESCO, 1981, World Heritage inscription). Parks Canada calls it one of the oldest and largest jumps on the northern Plains, with bison bone deposits over 10 metres deep below the cliff.
• Tradition — the people's own account: The Blackfoot name is Estipah-skikikini-kots. The English name derives from a Blackfoot account of a young man who stood below the cliff to watch, was killed by falling bison, and was found with his head smashed in — recorded here as the account as Parks Canada and the site programme tell it, not as an archaeological finding (Parks Canada, n.d.).
• Gathering basin and drive lanes. Documented fact: The jump was a system, not a cliff alone: a broad gathering basin where herds were slowly collected, and drive lanes of stone cairns, extending in places for kilometres, converging in a V toward a cliff edge concealed until animals were upon it (Parks Canada, n.d.; Brink, 2008, Imagining Head-Smashed-In). Parks Canada calls this basin-and-lane complex among the largest and most complex known, and essentially undisturbed.
• The buffalo runner. Documented fact: Site and ethnographic accounts describe a specialised front role: a young, fast runner in a calf skin imitated a distressed calf to draw lead animals into the lane, while hunters in wolf skins appeared at the flanks and rear to turn unease into a stampede; people hidden behind cairns then rose, shouting and waving hides, to hold the herd in the lanes (Brink, 2008; Grinnell, 1892, Blackfoot Lodge Tales). The runner escaped at the edge to a safe ledge. The role rested on detailed knowledge of bison senses — poor forward vision, strong herd-following, and reaction to motion and scent (Brink, 2005; 2008).
• The processing camp. Documented fact: Below the cliff lay the kill area and a processing camp — tipi rings, tools and butchering implements are part of the designated site, with artefacts from about 4800 BCE onward — where meat was cut and dried, hides dressed, and bone rendered for grease (Parks Canada, n.d.). A jump thus supplied both immediate distribution and stored food for winter.
• A wide tradition. Documented fact: Old Women's Buffalo Jump (Aakíípisskan), near Cayley, Alberta, was used for about 2,000 years and was the first major jump excavation on the Canadian Prairies, in 1958–59 (Alberta historic-places documentation, 2016). Jumps were a northern-Plains system over millennia, not a single invention.

Pounds, Surrounds and Running Hunts

• The pound — piskun. Documented fact: Where no cliff served, hunters built a pound: a strong corral of logs, brush and hides at a coulee foot or lane end, into which bison were funnelled and killed at close quarters. The Blackfoot word piskun / pis'kun is glossed "deep blood kettle" (Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles, 3rd ed., "piskun"; Grinnell, 1892). Grinnell, from Blackfoot informants, describes the pound built out from a bluff foot, with two diverging lines of rock piles and brush forming the V above it, and the 1952 source cited in the dictionary notes the pound as a communal enterprise whose kill was distributed equally (Grinnell, 1892; DCHP-3).
• Who used pounds. Documented fact: The historic summary lists among pound- and jump-users Blackfeet, Plains Cree, Gros Ventre (Aaniiih), Sarcee (Tsuut'ina) and some Dakota bands, with Cheyenne and Arapaho building pounds on level ground (Grinnell, 1892). The technology was shared; each people built and worked it in its own way.
• Surrounds and seasons. Documented fact: In a surround, a widening circle of people closed around a herd, frightening animals into milling until they tired and could be killed; breaking the circle early scattered the herd and ruined the hunt for all (Grinnell, 1892). Alberta's communal-hunting survey also lists driving herds with fire, onto frozen lakes, and into deep snow as documented methods (Alberta Historic Places, 2016).

Restoration by Nations

• Survival. Documented fact: The species survived in the Yellowstone herd, the Athabasca wood bison, a few private ranch herds (Goodnight in Texas; Pablo–Allard in Montana) and zoo herds from Hornaday-era rescues; some of the earliest reservation herds date to the 1930s, including Pine Ridge and Crow (Hornaday, 1889; Isenberg, 2000).
• InterTribal Buffalo Council. Documented fact: Founded in 1992 by a small group of tribes and federally chartered in 2009, the ITBC states its mission as "restoring buffalo to Indian Country, to preserve our historical, cultural, traditional and spiritual relationship for future generations" (ITBC, n.d.; Carlson, 2026, testimony to the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee). Its figures are time-stamped: 57 member tribes in 2009; 69 tribes in 19 states with over 20,000 buffalo at its 30-year mark; 89–90 tribes in 22 states managing over 25,000 buffalo in 2025–26 reporting; and over 1,500 buffalo transferred to more than 20 nations in 2025 alone, with National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and Nature Conservancy partners (ITBC, 2025; Carlson, 2026). In Canada, plains bison have also returned to First Nations lands and, in a Parks Canada reintroduction, to Banff National Park in 2017 — each herd is a separate nation's undertaking, to be named on its own page at publication. Flagged for publication check.

Sources

• Alberta Historic Places (2016). "Blood Kettles and Buffalo Jumps: Communal Hunting on the Plains of Alberta." Government of Alberta.
• Andrews, Thomas, Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre (2016). Sahtu caribou fence documentation, reported CBC News / Archaeology Magazine, Dec. 2016.
• Beckhusen, G. et al. (2022). "Dendroarchaeology in the Mackenzie Mountains: The Moose Horn Pass Caribou Fence (KjRx-1)." Forests.
• Bergerud, A. T. et al. (2008). George River herd history, as cited in Government of Newfoundland and Labrador releases.
• Borish, D. et al. (2021). "'Caribou was the reason, and everything else happened after'." Global Environmental Change.
• Brink, J. W. (2005). "Inukshuk: Caribou Drive Lanes on Southern Victoria Island." Arctic Anthropology; (2008) Imagining Head-Smashed-In. Athabasca University Press.
• Colpitts, G. (2015). Pemmican Empire. Cambridge University Press.
• Daschuk, J. (2013). Clearing the Plains. University of Regina Press.
• Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles, 3rd ed. (n.d.). "piskun." UBC.
• Frison, G. C. (1978). Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains. Academic Press.
• Government of Newfoundland and Labrador (2017–2020). George River herd releases and backgrounder, 2 Feb. 2017, and survey releases.
• Grinnell, G. B. (1892). Blackfoot Lodge Tales. Scribner's.
• Hargrave, J. J. (1871). Red River. John Lovell.
• Hornaday, W. T. (1889). The Extermination of the American Bison. Smithsonian Institution.
• Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada (n.d.). "Early Nationalism." indigenouspeoplesatlasofcanada.ca.
• InterTribal Buffalo Council (n.d.) mission; (2025) annual transfer release; Carlson, E. (2026), testimony, U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee, 18 Mar. 2026.
• Isenberg, A. C. (2000). The Destruction of the Bison. Cambridge University Press.
• Lewis, O. (1942). The Effects of White Contact upon Blackfoot Culture. AES Monograph 6.
• Métis Museum / Gabriel Dumont Institute (n.d.). "Bison Hunting." metismuseum.ca.
• National Film Board of Canada (1967). At the Caribou Crossing Place.
• Parks Canada (n.d.). Head-Smashed-In statement of significance; Kameshtashtan designation.
• Ray, A. J. (1974). Indians in the Fur Trade. University of Toronto Press.
• Samson, C. & Pretty, J. (2006). Innu hunting lifestyles and diets synthesis. Food Policy.
• Speck, F. G. (1935). Naskapi. University of Oklahoma Press.
• Stewart, A. M.; Keith, D.; Scottie, J. (2000). "Caribou Crossings and Cultural Meanings." Journal of Anthropological Archaeology.
• Tipatshimuna — Innu Nation / Canadian Museum of History (n.d.). Elders' accounts. tipatshimuna.ca.
• UNESCO (1981). Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, World Heritage inscription.
• University of Colorado Museum of Natural History (2023). "Bison, the Sustainer of Early Life."
• Wheat, J. B. (1972). The Olsen-Chubbuck Site. SAA Memoir 26.

Weakest-sourced / flagged points in this entry (flagged): (1) Pre-destruction bison population (30–60 million) — reconstructions, no census; disagreement printed. (2) Olsen-Chubbuck counts and people-fed figures — Wheat's reconstructions; summaries differ. (3) Sheridan's wording — sentiment attested, verbatim varies, not asserted. (4) Six-million-skeletons bone figure — single buyer's estimate, secondarily summarised. (5) Robe totals — single-post/company figures, not continental totals. (6) Dene fence antiquity "thousands of years" — inference; dated wood is 1314–1876 CE. (7) ITBC totals — dated figures printed because the council is growing. (8) Canadian First Nations herd restorations beyond Banff (2017) — general terms only, pending herd-by-herd dated sources. (9) George River decline causes — provincial, scientific and elder accounts differ; all printed, none settled.

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