The Buffalo • Cottonwood Connections Season 2 Ep. 5

foreign numbering in the millions then brought almost to Extinction the American buffalo continues to hold a special place in the lives and the legends of the Great Plains [Music] the bisoner or buffaloes are more commonly known were very important as a food source for the people of America until they were almost exterminated and became extinct zoologists say that the Bison was the most numerous species in the world for a while of being on the Great Plains they said one time there were 20 to 60 million a surveying party in the 1850s that got on a high ground there was a high estimate of 500 000 that were in View and the head of the the surveying crew said now once he looked at it and stuff he thought it was only about 200 000 but to see 200 000 animals at one time is incredible [Music] take a closer look we traveled with Buffalo Rancher Brent Ginther to visit his herd in the snow-covered of rickery breaks of northwest Kansas when did you get into raising Buffalo probably about 27 28 years ago me and one of my work Partners we bought one and bottle raised it and it was a bull and so we bought some heifers and raised them and then we started to herd we usually raise them fatten them and then they go into Denver Colorado and some local restaurants for the meat it's just a healthy healthy meat and they're a lot easier to take care of than cattle they're really not bad at all to work with they eat about a third but a cow eats they really take care of the land they don't over graze like cattle they do exceptionally well in the snow and the cold and exceptionally well when it's in drought conditions they have a little bit of a different hoof configuration than cattle so their hooves are sharper and they actually till up some of the land when they graze and they eat a lot of stuff that cattle don't and save the good grass for winter is basically what they do and if we get a blizzard I always have to be out with the cattle I run I mean 24 7 it seems like uh the Buffalo are totally different we don't even worry about them if it blizzard still the cattle are taken care of and then we'll come check on them and they eat the snow they have an excellent sense of smell they can tell where the food is and just forage down they can dig through three or four feet of snow with their massive heads and it's nothing like cattle they just they hardly ever get sick and if they do get sick it's pretty hard to get them well they're just they're God's creature I've met a lot of Native American people in my time with the Buffalo so we had uh it was called ban land Buffalo bash and some of my native friends come out they dance they talk to the public I'm Mark knife Chief and I am from the Lakota which is it's one of the Sioux branches of the tribe and now that I'm 67 years old I'm an elder which the responsibility is that I uh I teach a lot about our ways to our children and try to make sure that they continue on with our culture and not just forget everything originally my people were in the Great Lakes area as we fought with the Chippewa and other tribes up in that area we were pushed out and we went and migrated to the Great Plains this is before horses came back after the horses came back and we were able to get a few from the Spanish it was so much easier for us to get to hunt the Buffalo my horseback instead of using the Buffalo jumps like we're sitting on right now the Buffalo jumps were a place where the tribal people would gather together in a long line and yelling and making a lot of noise would get the Buffalo to jump over the cliff to try and get away from them and then they could get the meat from them there we learned about horses we took that up pretty easily a lot of the higher up people were training Buffalo horses to hunt they were only used for that they weren't used for war for anything else they were just for hunting the Buffalo the Buffalo were an animal that could provide everything we needed to survive on the land you know everything from top to bottom was was useful teepees could be made out of their hides glue could be made out of their hooves um the hides could be made the best beds we used the brains to tan the actual hides uh uh the bones could be left behind when we moved camp and as when we came back they had been through you know storms and weather and animals that chewed on them everything and we could bust them up to make needles and and tools so they would provide everything we needed my name is Thomas de la horos Davis tribe yeah I travel throughout the United States to teach a lot of people about what Native Americans are really about to try to get them to understand you know we live we don't live in teepees or we don't live in igloos anymore and you know we're just like like everybody else but we we do keep our heritage and our culture alive through our songs and our dance and storytelling the song that I sing for everybody today bring everybody mainly the Buffalo represented strength to our people so anytime we used the buffalo gave our people the power and everything to be able to carry on and to be able to move with strength everywhere they went we believe that Buffalo were are healers there it was our medicine you know we got great feeling from them and everything that we use if you look at the landscaper on right now if you had no Buffalo what what will you do and and at one time there were millions of Buffalo and running across this land I I can't imagine it when we would hunt we would kill maybe 30 40 something like that and then the women would come down there and skin out the hides and put all the best meat and everything on the hides and we drag them up to the camps and they would work the hides and the food would be eaten and everyone would celebrate we had Buffalo dances and to honor the Buffalo like this post over here that has the buffalo skull on it that's to honor the Buffalo from this area because we had the Buffalo the meat and we also would gather berries and things like that we could make pemmican which was the source of food that contained everything we needed to be healthy you know we had the buffalo meat we had a little bit of Tallow or fat to hold that meat and everything together with the berries the berries would keep us from getting um uh sick it's a perfect food from just even eating buffalo we were living a lot healthier so bringing back the Buffalo is so important to our people so that we can live a healthier life so after the Civil War a lot of people came out here to hunt Buffalo professionally and they would wipe out big bunches I there was a man by the name of Meyer or it may be mayor m-a-y-e-r you know he had killed ten thousand Buffalo and so with thousands of Buffalo Hunters out here it didn't last long overall what was happening is they were they were chopping apart the herds that were huge and so it became difficult for our tribe to actually uh find where the Buffalo were sometimes the cows were the leader it wasn't the big Husky Bulls and they would sneak up on the buffalo with the rifles and stuff and you would figure out which was the dominant cow in a herd she was the lead cow and if you shot her the others wouldn't run away so they would Mill around her until they would kill the whole bunch and so they were easy to kill there was a lot of ways to take in the hides and that's all leaving the rest of the carcasses out they would take the tongues because they were a luxury item back east they would take some cuts of meat to feed railroad workers or whatever the hides sometimes they would they would take those as well because they can use them back East for lap ropes for wagons and things like that and then afterwards you think if there was anyway 20 million to 40 million Buffalo killed within the 19th century that would be a lot of remains there were people who for income would gather the buffalo bones out on the Prairie they were Gatherings by the wagon loads and putting them on railroad cars and then shipping them for fertilizer and also the Buffalo bone ground some way and I don't understand that completely was used in refining cane sugar also a lot of the euro-american hunters that came out the government did subsidize them a lot sometimes they would go and get free ammunition from the government sometimes they would be able to get good rifles because at the time the the military were using 45-70s which was a good Buffalo Gun when this assess Grant was President he said yes being with the Civil War and stuff you destroy the commissary you destroy the food supply before you can defeat the people and so if the Buffalo were gone the Indians would be gone and so there was logic at the time although it was maybe non-ethical but the logic was get rid of the Buffalo it gets rid of the Indians get rid of the Indians and the Buffalo and then the Euro Americans can come in and settle and bring cattle in and after that then the farmers come in to settle and that's when you build towns and stuff so there was a sequence going on that was kind of planned or at least thought about everywhere there were people who want to save the Buffalo and after getting into the late 1880s and 1890s I mean what was once you know millions of them were down to almost nothing they weren't even a good sample one man credited with saving many Buffalo was Scottie Phillip a South Dakota Rancher with Family Ties near Hayes Kansas I'm Sandra Sprague I'm the great grand niece of Scotty Phillip I live here on the Phillip Branch at Hays Kansas I am a large animal veterinarian and I love animals of all kind but I especially love uh horses and cattle and it's always been a love I've been born here Born and Raised on this Ranch but we've always been interested in Scotty's history he came over here in 1874 with my great-grandfather and another brother David he went to Dodge City Kansas they were shooting the Buffalo and the Buffalo hide industry was down there and it kind of made a an impression on him well from Dodge City decided to go to Cheyenne he had heard that there was gold discovered in the Black Hills so he thought hey there's my fortune but the Army told everybody that they had to get out because that was Indian country while he was going out there looking for gold um he discovered the beautiful country up there in South Dakota and a grass country and he thought that he really would like to become a Rancher but he had to make money to buy cattle so he did that by uh freighting he freighted from Sydney up to Deadwood and then he'd Freight to Fort Pierre also he was married in 1879 to Joseph larabee's daughter and her name was Sarah he established a really good Ranch ended up with a thousand head of cattle in 1890 there was a comment about him realizing that the Buffalo were disappearing he found out that a friend of his son had passed away and that son had accumulated Buffalo from The Last Buffalo hunts and so he had a herd of anywhere from 75 to 80 head well Scotty had heard about this and so he decided he would purchase the herd Scotty realized how important the Buffalo was and why it was disappearing so badly and he had a lot of respect for the Buffalo and also for the Native American and um he just felt like somebody should help preserve this animal and that's why he was so interested in going ahead and maintaining this herd and was very proud of it and he had a lot of dignitaries that would come and visit the ranch and the buffalo herd in 1903 it was reported that there were only about a thousand Buffalo left in North America after all the millions that were there earlier and that Scotty Phillip had the largest single herd of buffalo during that time Scotty realized that maybe he needed more pasture more ground for the Buffalo so he would ask Congress would there be any way that they could allot some ground for him because he felt like the preservation of the Buffalo was just very important and then finally in 1906 they did give him 3 500 acres of land and he personally fenced it and all he had to do was pay fifty dollars a year to use it Scotty died in in 1911. the the buffalo herd was maintained by his son-in-law called Andy Leonard until about 1925. and he decided then that he wanted disperse it and so what he did is he dispersed a lot to parks and preserves but there's still a lot of descendants from them at his funeral he had built a Cemetery just for his children and for himself and it was right at the backdrop of the Buffalo pastor what was so fascinating and everybody talks about it the reporters and everybody the Buffalo because of all the commotion heard all this and they came to the top of the hill and up to the fence and watched the whole procession and then when everybody left they turned around and went back to their pastor and that was something that was very fascinating to all the reporters back then thought that was interesting and he did a lot to preserve the Buffalo and felt very proud of it [Music] after the Buffalo started making a recovery it started out with a lot of parks and zoos that won the the Buffalo to maintain it they were kind of the leaders in the 20th century there got to be large herds not only on a Native American reservations which they wanted them on there but also Farmers the zoos and stuff and there was a demand for buffalo meat we visited the duff Ranch near Scott City Kansas the day of their annual Buffalo Roundup to visit with Richard Duff long time Buffalo Rancher well we're we're weaning the calves so we're separating them and we're preg checking the cows worming the cows today is Thursday by on Tuesday the majority of our calves other than the ones that we're keeping for replacement heifers those are the ones have been sending that way the majority of them will put on a semi that'll go to a feed lot in Nebraska we just do this once a year got got the first bison in 1973. I guess I graduated in 71 when I was in high school our history teacher had a portion of the year that he dedicated to Native American history because he was really into that from his teaching I became really interested in in Native Americans and then because of the Native Americans and of course the bison and uh there was a man that lived in Scott City that had I think three or four and I would just drive by and sit on the on the road right by his house and just watch him I was just intrigued by him just watching him move around you know I mean somebody said hey they said he's he's moving away and he wants to get rid of some of his Buffalo so I got a hold of him and he had a bull and a cow that he wanted to sell then over the years I I my dad had he was he he was a Cattleman from way way way back and started a feed lot uh south of Scott City he would come out and uh he was just intrigued by the Buffalo kind of like I was so he started started getting his own animals and then he bought a pastor uh to run him on then he developed for the time it was a large amount you know of course that was counting everything uh I think 1500 head you know we've sold sold a lot for breeding stock at one point in time around the time that uh Ted Turner I started getting in the prices started going up a lot of people were buying them now most are going for meat production and that's that's one thing I always try to tell people you know they go I hate the idea of eating them because there's not a lot of them so the only reason we can raise them at all is because so we can sell them I mean because we can sell them and say if you want to see more Buffalo just eat more Buffalo you know it's supply and demand like anything else some people ask me they said if you if you couldn't raise Buffalo anymore would you raise cattle no to me it's the difference between night and day it's just whether you know they're made for this this land they can take care of themselves in 1994 we had a bull born that had some white on him we had like white socks white belly white forehead white broom on his tail and uh you know we were really excited and then that was the same year that miracle was born in like Wisconsin and she was Pure White and was a heifer which to the Native Americans that's you know that was like the uh the ultimate sign you know we carry The White Buffalo as one of our most sacred animals ever because it was uh Through The White Buffalo Calf Woman Who had given the White Buffalo Calf uh pipe to our people The White Buffalo Calf Woman came down from uh wakam Tonka which is our creator she gave us these gifts and one of them was the pipe and the pipe was to be used in ceremony to keep our tribe healthy and alive and vibrant The White Buffalo significance is that it is connected to that story I always wanted to raise a white buffalo and uh so I bought a white bowl I run almost a white bull with every herd and even though I do that it doesn't mean I'm gonna get a white calf I've had a white bull a white bull and a white cow breed and got a black calf so just because you have a white bowl doesn't mean you're gonna get a white calf your chances are better but they're not a hundred percent so they are pretty special they're pretty special and The White Buffalo is very sacred in that there's only one born in uh several thousand Buffalo there's more born now today because to to our people's way of thinking the prophecies are starting to come true I always compare it and hopefully Native Americans wouldn't disagree but I always compare it to things in the Bible where you know there's prophetic signs and I feel like you know that's what it was but since uh miracle was born we didn't pay a lot of attention to it but uh since then we've we've had several white ones there's certain ceremonies that are done by our people to honor the Buffalo and everything that the Buffalo has given us in life which is everything our ancestors could not have survived without the Buffalo being here at one time by the Millions and as the Buffalo nearly disappeared the native people nearly disappeared but we are all able to come back The White Buffalo is a very blessed animal that is carrying our traditions and our stories forward and is actually a a barometer to what's happening in the world in honoring The White Buffalo Calf he so honors us [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Cottonwood Ranch Media

Views: 19,255

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Id: Q5xdX4IC4DU

Length: 24min 58sec (1498 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 19 2023