I am reading Mark Twain’s “Life on the Mississippi” and am somehow made to feel nostalgic for a period in American history — the middle of the 19th century — that neither I nor my parents lived through. Twain’s knack for telling a tale will do that to you. There were glorious steamboats, and on either side of the Mississippi, millions upon millions of buffalo.
In fact, estimates are as high as 75 million buffalo grazing the grassy plains. John Kirk Townsend, a naturalist en route to Oregon described that the “whole plain, as far as the eye could discern, was covered by one enormous mass of buffalo. Our vision would certainly extend ten miles, including about eight miles in width from the bluffs to the river bank, there was apparently no vista in the incalculable multitude.”
When contemplating the availability of that scene, the magnificent raw energy of the herds, a scant 150 years ago, how are we to come to terms with and understand what we see in its place today? Some 90 million acres of corn with a few high rises, Taco Bells, and cul-de-sacs scattered about. More sobering still is the realization that for many this is worthy of a smile. After all, it’s what we fought for: dominion over nature — progress!
Sure, I need to claw back the sarcasm. If for no other reason, to allow the buffalo to tell their own story and their potential role in revitalizing the environment upon which we all still depend. And their story is co-written by the Native Americans. We need to allow for a space where Western science and Native mythology can blend.
Where to start?
Why not in 1869 with President Ulysses Grant, who was compelled to be rid of the “Indian Problem” once and for all. The “savages” were in the way of enlightened Americans manifesting their ordained destiny. He recruited Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, of Civil War fame, for a remedy. Sherman keenly observed that wherever there were buffalo, there were Indians. As long as they had bows and arrows and game to hunt, the Indians would never shift careers and take up a plow, Sherman reasoned.
And thus began the mass slaughter of the buffalo by the U.S. Army. But there were so many bison and relatively few enlisted men. The task was then promoted to the wealthy in the form of a “leisure hunt.” A 25-wagon caravan of well-heeled bison bounty hunters left from New York with cooks, linens, china, carpets and chilled wine in tow. Even that effort fell short and the government opened the market for buffalo hides to any and all. A sound investment for thousands of “buffalo runners” — a round of ammo was only a quarter, while a hide sold for $3.50.
As Bill Moyers commented, this signaled “the exclamation point behind the destruction of Indian civilization.” In 2016, the federal government officials got out their binoculars and noticed there were still buffalo, about a quarter million of them; gratefully, Sherman’s buffalo march wasn’t a total success. The National Bison Legacy Act was signed. The buffalo had been designated America’s national mammal.
This is a positive step forward, not that the designation absolves America of its guilt, but it opens the window to recognizing the reverence with which we properly relate to the buffalo and its habitat. Now opportunities are open to approaching the buffalo in the way of the Native Americans — as a spiritual “thou,” rather than a material “it.” That relationship between Native and buffalo has existed for about 15,000 years; the buffalo have been grazing their grasslands in North America for the last 160,000 years.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has transferred ownership of the National Bison Range back to the Kootenai and Salish tribes and 69 tribes have come together to form the Intertribal Buffalo Council. European countries too are reintroducing the native bison to their continent. England placed a herd in a section of ancient forest in order to increase biodiversity. At long last, Western science is understanding the role of the bison and other grazers as “ecosystem engineers.”
Just as the salmon have been teaching us their spiritual and ecological lessons, the buffalo are coming full circle to do the same. Helping us listen with our ears and our hearts.
After years of globetrotting, Broadman finds himself writing from his perch on the Palouse and loving the view. His policy briefs can be found at US Renew News: usrenewnews.org.
