Going to Buffalo: Indian hunting migrations across the rocky mountains - Part 1, making meat and taking robes

Montana

Volumn 53, Issue 4, 2003, Pages 3-21

  Farr, William E ^a,b  

^a Department of History ^*

^b UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61149299193     PISSN: 00269891     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (81)

1. Numerous sources confirm the long-standing tradition of buffalo hunting by western Indians. As early as 1800 David Thompson has the Flatheads hunting buffalo and stealing horses across the Rocky Mountains; Charles LeRaye corroborated Flathead buffalo hunting east of the Rocky Mountains in 1801. In his "Yellowstone Journal" fur trader François-Antoine Larocque observed: The Flatheads "come every fall to the fort [forks] of the Missouri and thereabouts to kill Buffaloes of which there are none across that range of Mountains, dress Robes, dry meat with which the[y] return as soon as the Winter sets in." David Thompson, Travels in Western North America, 1784-1812, ed. Victor G. Hopwood (Toronto, 1971), 224
2. "The Journal of Charles LeRaye," in South Dakota Historical Collections, vol. 4 (Pierre, S. Dak., 1908), 175
3. "Yellowstone Journal," Early Fur Trade on the Northern Plains: Canadian Traders among the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians, 1738-1818, ed. W. Raymond Wood and Thomas D. Thiessen (Norman, 1985), 218-29
4. See also Barry M. Gough, ed., The Journal of Alexander Henry the Younger, 1799-1814, vol. 2 (Toronto, 1992), 523-26
5. and, of course, Gary E. Moulton, ed., The Journals of Lewis and Clark Expedition, 13 vols. (Lincoln, 1983-2001), 8:85, especially the entry for Thursday, July 3, 1806, which tells of the Cokahlarishkit
6. See also Elizabeth Vibert, Traders' Tales: Narratives of Cultural Encounters in the Columbia Plateau, 1807-1846 (Norman, 1997), 221 and chap. 7
7. Gabriel Franchere, Journal of a Voyage on the North West Coast of North America during the Years 1811, 1812, 1813 and 1814, ed. W. Kzye Lamb (Toronto, 1969), 150
8. Elliott West, "The Way to the West," in Essays on the Central Plains (Albuquerque, 1995), 72-79
9. William A. Dobak, "Killing the Canadian Buffalo, 1821-1881," Western Historical Quarterly, 27 (Spring 1996), 50-51
10. Piegan elder Joe Bear Medicine related to me a traditional story, which also appears in George Bird Grinnell's Blackfoot Lodge Tales (New York, 1892), 145-48, in which Napi discovered how the buffalo had mysteriously disappeared from the plains
11. Jacqueline Peterson, Sacred Encounters: Father De Smet and the Indians of the Rocky Mountain West (Norman, 1993), 49
12. J. B. Tyrrell, ed., David Thompson's Narrative of his Explorations in Western America, 1784-1812 (Toronto, 1916), 533
13. See also Thompson, Travels, 224
14. New York Sun, January 8, 1899
15. Ross Cox, The Columbia River, or Scenes and Adventures, ed. E. I. Stewart and J. R. Stewart (Norman, 1957), 134-35
16. See also Lawrence B. Palladino, Indian and White in the Northwest (Lancaster, Pa., 1922), 2, concerning the protection of the hunting right as long as one warrior remained alive
17. Washington Irving, The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U.S.A., ed. Edgeley W. Todd, rev. ed. (Norman, 1986), 88
18. Flathead Post journal, 1824-1825, B 69/e/1, Hudson's Bay Company Archives, Winnipeg, Saskatchewan
19. Alexander Ross, Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River, 1810-1813, ed. Reuben Gold Thwaites, Early Western Travels 1748-1846, vol. 7 (Cleveland, 1904),215-16
20. Pierre-Jean De Smet, Life, Letters and Travels of Father Pierre-Jean de Smet ..., ed. H. M. Chittenden and A. T. Richardson, 4 vols. (New York, 1905), 3:1187-88
21. Cox, Columbia River, 134-35
22. Frederick A. Wislizenus, A Journey to the Rocky Mountains in the Year 1839 (St. Louis, 1912), 150
23. Moulton, ed., Journals of Lewis and Clark, 5:119-23
24. Thompson, Narrative, 463
25. Vibert, Trader Tales, 254
26. De Smet, Life, Letters, and Travels, 3:1187-88
27. James A. Teit, The Salishan Tribes of the Western Plateaus, ed. Franz Boas, Bureau of American Ethnology forty-fifth annual report (Washington, D.C., 1930), 316-22
28. Anthony McGinnis, Counting Coup and Cutting Horses: Intertribal Warfare on the Northern Plains, 1738-1889 (Evergreen, Colo., 1990), 9-10, 25
29. For buffalo ranges on the Plateau, especially in Spokane area, see George Gibbs, Indian Tribes of Washington Territory, 33d Cong., 2d sess., 1854, H. Doc. 91
30. and Francis D. Haines, "The Western Limits of the Buffalo Range," Pacific Northwest Quarterly, 31 (October 1940), 389-98
31. William C. Brown reported that there was the persistent opinion among Southern Okanagan elders that there were buffalo in their country and that when Lewis and Clark came through the animals were to be found on the west side of the Rockies, in the region of the upper Snake River. General Joel Palmer, a treaty commissioner at the Walla Walla council, reminded the participants that "It is but a few years since there were a plenty [sic] of Buffalo at Fort Hall. William C. Brown, "Old Fort Okanogan and Okanogan Trail," Oregon Historical Quarterly, 15 (March 1914), 31
32. Darrell Scott, ed., Record of the Official Proceedings at the Council in Walla Walla Valley by I. I. Stevens (Fairfield, Wash., 1985), 52
33. Peter Fidler, Journal of a Journey over Land from Buckingham House to the Rocky Mountains in 1792 & 3, ed. Bruce Haig (Lethbridge, Alberta, 1990), 47
34. Larocque, "Yellowstone Journal," 218-29
35. Jerome D'Aste, "Historical Notes on the Flathead Mission," n.d., folder 1:10
36. Jerome D'Aste, S.J., Personal Papers Collection, Jesuit Oregon Province Archives, Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington (hereafter Jesuit Oregon Province Archives)
37. Also see Palladino, Indian and White, 2
38. Nicolas Point, Wilderness Kingdom: Indian Life in the Rocky Mountains: 1840-1847, The Journals and Paintings of Father Nicolas Point, S. J., trans. Joseph P. Donnelly (New York, 1967), 120
39. John J. Killoren, "Come, Blackrobe": De Smet and the Indian Tragedy (Norman, 1994), 35
40. The fur traders favored the Flatheads with guns - so much so that by 1824 the early Blackfeet advantage in guns began to shift. At Flathead Post one band in 1824 had "180 guns to 168 'men and lads.'" Vibert, Trader's Tales, 215
41. Irving, Adventures of Captain Bonneville, 144
42. Washington Irving, Astoria, or Anecdotes of an Enterprise beyond the Rocky Mountains, ed. Edgeley W. Todd (Norman, 1964), 253
43. Pierre-Jean De Smet, Letters and Sketches with a Narrative of a Year's Residence among the Indian Tribes of the Rocky Mountains, ed. Reuben Gold Thwaites, Early Western Travels, 1748-1846, vol. 27 (Cleveland, 1905), 163
44. Irving, Astoria, 253
45. Gibbs, Indian Tribes, 21
46. U.S. Department of the Interior, Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1857, Report No. 154, Sept. 22, 1857 by Flathead Agent R. H. Lansdale, 35th Cong., 1st sess., S. Doc. 11, serial 919, 663-69
47. U.S. Department of the Interior, Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1870, Report No. 62, August 10, 1870, by Flathead Agent Geo. E. Ford, 41st Cong., 3d sess., H. Doc. 1, serial 1449, 660
48. Walter Cline, "Religion and World View," in The Sinkaietk or Southern Okanagon of Washington, ed. Leslie Spier, General Series in Anthropology No. 6 (Menasha, Wisc., 1938), 155
49. See also Teit, Salishan Tribes, 61
50. Augustus J. Thibodo, "Diary of Dr. Augustus J. Thibodo of the Northwest Exploring Expedition, 1859," Pacific Northwest Quarterly, 31 (July 1940), 330
51. John Owen, Journals and Letters of Major John Owen, ed. Seymour Dunbar and Paul C. Phillips, 2 vols. (New York, 1927), 1:30
52. Deer Lodge (Mont. Territory) New North-West, October 14, 1871
53. Helena (Mont.) Daily Record, November 3, 1939
54. Point, Wilderness Kingdom, 42-43
55. Warren Angus Ferris, Life in the Rocky Mountains, 1830-1835, ed. Leroy R. Hafen (Denver, 1983), 182
56. "Journal and Report by Dr. Marcus Whitman of His Tour of Exploration with Rev. Samuel Parker," Oregon Historical Quarterly, 28 (September 1927), 247
57. Thomas R. Garth, "Early Nineteenth Century Tribal Relations in the Columbia Plateau," Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, 20 (Spring 1964), 53
58. William Compton Brown, The Indian Side of the Story (Spokane, Wash., 1961), 70
59. See also Thomas J. Farnham, Travels in the Great Western Prairies, the Anahuac and Rocky Mountains and in the Oregon Territory, ed. Reuben Gold Thwaites, Travels in the Far West, 1839-1846, vol. 29 (Cleveland, 1906), 97, where Farnham reports that Indians in Oregon who raised cattle and planted crops later "will exchange [these] for buffalo meat with those who hunt."
60. P. H. Obermeyer, "George B. McClellan and the Pacific Northwest," Pacific Northwest Quarterly (January 1941), 40
61. De Smet, Letters and Sketches, 163
62. Deward Walker, Jr., Conflict and Schism in Nez Perce Acculturation: A Study in Religion and Politics (Moscow, Idaho, 1985), 14
63. Allen P. Slickpoo, Noon Nee-Me-Poo: Culture and History of the Nez Perces (Lapwai, Idaho, 1973), 142
64. James Doty, Journal of Operations of Governor Isaac Ingalls Stevens of Washington Territory in 1855, ed. Edward J. Kowrach (Fairfield, Wash., 1978), 43
65. Theodore Stern, Chiefs and Chief Traders: Indian Relations at Fort Nez Perce, 1818-1855 (Corvallis, Oreg., 1993), 55. Frequently those who did not go to buffalo were too poor. Father Joseph Joset remarked, "Father Hoecken visited Calispels and in spring and summer baptized a number of them chiefly of such as were too poor to follow buffalo hunting." Likewise Joset noted that Loyola, the Kalispel chief, was most religious and for that reason "gave up forever Buffalo hunting: that was reducing himself to poverty." Joseph Joset, "Linguistics of the Rocky Mountain Tribes," Pacific Northwest Tribes Missions Collection, Oregon Jesuit Province Archives
66. U.S. Department of Interior, Annual Report of the Secretary of Interior, 33d Cong., 2d sess., 1854, S. Doc. 1, pt. 1, serial 746, 447
67. Referring to the 1857 flood, Governor Benjamin F. Potts reported "Charlo and his people ... have lost their crops through hailstorms and must go to buffalo to survive." Later that year, Agent Yantis "reported the Spokanes' plight as severe. High water had washed out the fall salmon runs; to avoid starvation, many Indians were preparing to 'go to buffalo.'" B. F. Potts to Carl Schurz, Secretary of the Interior, October 1, 1877, frame 21, roll 517, M234, Montana Superintendency, 1864-1880, RG 75, NA; Ben Yantis to Commissioner J. W. Nesmith, December 7, 1857, roll 20, M5, Washington Superintendency, 1853-1874, RG 75, NA, as quoted in Robert H. Ruby and John A. Brown, The Spokane Indians: Children of the Sun (Norman, 1970), 106
68. De Smet, Western Missions and Missionaries, 309
69. Spier, Sinkaietk, 75, 155-56, 76
70. Donald R. Johnson, ed., William H. Gray: The Journal of His Journey East, 1836-1837 (Fairfield, Wash., 1980), 48
71. Farnham, Travels in the Great Western Prairies, 329-31
72. Charles W. Wilson, Mapping the Frontier: Charles Wilson's Diary of the Survey of the 49th Parallel, 1858-1862, ed. George Stanley (Toronto, 1970), 153-54
73. Mengarini, Recollections, 97
74. Isaac Ingalls Stevens, A True Copy of the Record of the Official Proceedings at the Council in the Walla Walla Valley, 1855, ed. Darrell Scott (Fairfield, Wash., 1985), 103
75. "Official Proceedings of the Hell Gate Treaty Council with notes by Albert J. Partoll," in In the Name of the Salish and Kootenai Nation, ed. Robert Bigart and Clarence Woodcock (Pablo, Mont, 1996), 22, 42
76. John Fahey, The Flathead Indians (Norman, 1974), 101
77. Kent D. Richards, Isaac I. Stevens: Young Man in a Hurry (Pullman, Wash., 1993), 230-34
78. Charles J. Kappler, ed., Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1904), 2:736-40, esp. article 3
79. William E. Farr, "'When We Were First Paid': The Blackfoot Treaty, the Western Tribes, and the Creation of the Common Hunting Ground, 1855," Great Plains Quarterly, 21 (Spring 2001), 131-54
80. Spier, Sinkaietk, 76
81. Doty, Journal of Operations, 43