buffalo / bison
buffalo. A species of the genus Bos, originally from India, but now found in most of the warmer countries of the eastern continent. It is larger and less docile than the common ox, and is fond of marshy places and rivers. The name is also applied to wild oxen in general, and particularly, but erroneously, to the bison of North America. — Webster, 1882
bison. A quadruped (Bison or Bos Americanus) inhabiting the interior of North America, especially about the Rocky Mountains. It is popularly called the buffalo; but the true buffalo belongs to the eastern continent, and to a different subdivision of the genus Bos. The bison is a large, wild animal, with thick body and stout legs, short black horns rapidly tapering, and with hair much more thick and shaggy in winter than in summer. It is most nearly related to the aurochs of Central Europe, and the two species have been referred to a common genus. — Webster, 1882
There were buffalo, but [Delos Perry] saw none, only the big circles of tramped down grass where they had protected their young from the prairie fires. Six buffalo were reported to have spent the winter of 1880-1881 in the shelter of the grove at Spirit Lake near Burvee’s. — De Smet News, June 1, 1929.
The true buffalo is native to India; the name is erroneously applied to the bison of North America. Little House readers are first introduced to the bison in Little House on the Prairie (see Chapter 22, “Prairie Fire”). The Ingallses don’t ever see bison on the Osage Diminished Reserve; the Indians have to travel west to hunt them twice a year. It is while the Osage are away on one of their hunts that the Ingallses probably settled illegally on the Osage Diminished Reserve.
Buffalo- or bison as they should properly be called – were not seen by the Ingalls family at any time in Kingsbury County, either. There had been at least one sighting in Badger Township (in the northeast corner of the township) in 1879, and a half dozen supposedly wintered at Spirit Lake about six miles north of De Smet. As they traveled west past Big Sioux railroad camp, Laura Ingalls Wilder noted signs of the earlier wild country (see By the Shores of Silver Lake, Chapter 7, “The West Begins”): Laura saw old Indian trails and buffalo paths worn deep in the ground and now grassed over. She saw strange large depressions, straight-sided and flat-bottomed, that had been buffalo wallows, where now the grass was growing. Laura had never seen a buffalo, and Pa said it was not likely that she would ever see one. Only a little while before the vast herds of thousands of buffaloes had grazed over this country. They had been the Indians’ cattle, and white men had slaughtered them all. In Chapter 30 “Where Violets Grow”), Wilder sums up the change from wild country to settled claims: “The buffalo are gone,” Laura thought. “And now we’re homesteaders.”
In his 1925 History of Badger Township, Percy R. Crothers (1862-1951) wrote about the last buffalo sighting near Lake Thisted a few months before the Ingallses arrived in Kingsbury County:
The Last Buffalo in Badger Township. At the time of the settlement of the township, the buffalo, elk, deer and antelope had disappeared and the only animals of the larger type were the grey wolf, badger, jack rabbit, the skunk, and once in a while a red fox. Around the lakes and ponds were a few mink and muskrats. There were weasels, ground squirrels, and many many gophers. A very few snakes and only the smaller variety, and an abundance of prairie chickens. During the fall and spring the lakes would fairly swarm with wild ducks and geese. In the winter of 1883, a vast number of the grey artic owl came down from the north and stayed through the winter. One of them that was caught in a trap measured five fee, four inches from tip to tip across the wings. When spring came the owls left and only occasionally has one been seen here since.
On June 26, 1879, just as the Quinns had finished dinner, they saw something coming down from the hills a mile to the east. They thought it was an ox, but as they stood looking, it broke into a run and they saw that it was a buffalo. In a hurry, they put the horses to a wagon and Tom took the only weapon they had, an old-fashioned muzzle loading, 44 caliber Colts revolver. While they were hitching up, Peter Christensen came along with a rifle, also on the hunt for the buffalo. They started north to head off the buffalo. At that time John Quinn had a strip of breaking a mile north of Thisted.
The buffalo struck into the south furrow of the breaking and went loping along toward the west as the hunters came up from the south, when he turned north across the breaking. As the team struck the breaking, thinking they could make better time afoot, Tom and Peter jumped out, taking the guns with them. Knowing that the buffalo would soon strike Lake Albert if he continued running and believing he would turn south and try to pass the south point, John Quinn unhitched the team, turned one loose and jumped on the other and rode west to the point of the lake. Sure enough as he came down the hill, there came the buffalo. A big bull, running swiftly along the shore and it became a nip and tuck race for the point. As they came closer together, how John longed for his Navy revolver. The bull edged around the point in front of him and he didn’t even have a stone to throw at him. He continued to chase for about a mile and watched him disappear. From the time when he was first seen until he disappeared he had covered a distance of six miles, running all of the time. This was the last buffalo ever seen in the township.
Just at present a buffalo overcoat is a very scarce article, and yet the humblest of Uncle Sam’s soldier boys may have one of these prized garments for the asking. All he has to do is to include the item in the requisition for supplies, and the coat will be issued to him, although it will still belong to the government, and if he loses or destroys it he has to pay $0 for his carelessness. The coats in the possession of the war department are relics of the day when no living man in the northwest was thought to be thoroughly equipped without a buffalo coat. All of them have been worn, but they are still in fair condition, and are issued annually to those soldiers who may want them. — De Smet News, November 8, 1901.
Buffalo coat / buffalo overcoat. In On the Banks of Plum Creek, Ma laments the fact that Pa doesn’t have a buffalo coat to keep him warm, instead of the thin, worn overcoat he has to wear to town to buy supplies (and Christmas candy). As luck would have it, Mr. Fitch offers to sell Pa a buffalo coat for ten dollars, which Pa arranges to pay for after he sells his furs in the spring, and which keeps Pa warm three long days after he’s “lost in a snowbank” during a blizzard on his way home.
Laura Ingalls Wilder never mentions Pa’s buffalo coat in the De Smet books, so if Pa had gotten such a coat in Walnut Grove, it’s possible that he couldn’t pay for it and gave it back to Mr. Fitch, or Pa purchased it and sold it. The story does not appear in Wilder’s Pioneer Girl memoir. In These Happy Golden Years, Almanzo Wilder is wearing a buffalo coat when he picks Laura up from the Bouchie School. He also has multiple buffalo robes in the cutter to keep him and Laura warm.
Buffalo coats were traditionally made out of the hide of buffalo killed during the winter, when their coats were thickest. Buffalo hide is extremely durable and warm. They were usually lined, often with quilted fabric which added even more insulation and made them quite comfortable to wear.
We children spent much time roaming about the prairie, picking flowers in spring, hunting for agates and Indian arrowheads which we found in abundance, making collections of the horns of buffalo whose bleaching skeletons still strewed the ground, stark evidence of their old haunts. — Neva Whaley Harding, De Smet News, June 1, 1929.
Buffalo horns. Buffalo horns are permanent projections on the head of a bison; they have a bone core with a covering of keratin and other proteins. They grow on either side of the skull at the top of the bison’s head, and are fully formed when the animal is five or six years old. In These Happy Golden Years (see Chapter 25, “The Night Before Christmas”), Almanzo Wilder surprises the family when he arrives on Christmas eve, when Laura had expected him to be gone all winter. Almanzo hangs his coat and cap on one of the polished buffalo horns that are attached to the wall for that purpose.
The curve of the horn made a natural hook for hanging. Two buffalo horns were often used to hang a rifle or shotgun over a door, within reach of an adult but out of the way for children. To make a rack for hanging, hollowed out horns were placed over large pegs attached to a board, then nailed to the peg through the horn itself. The board was then attached to the wall.
We admit there is some land rejected because of its lowness, burnt out places and buffalo wallows, but this same land after all the so called best land is taken up, will be accepted by some person and considered by most all, among the best land in Dakota. — Iroquois Herald, November 10, 1882.
Buffalo wallow. Although Laura Ingalls Wilder never told us where the buffalo wallow / fairy ring was on the Ingallses’ homestead, in By the Shores of Silver Lake, Pa says that the place had been created by buffalo wallowing in the dust, which blew away, creating a depression.
During a 2006 trip to De Smet, I heard a new story. Whether it is true or not, I haven’t a clue. When the current owners purchased the Ingalls homestead, it came with a buffalo, named Barney. Barney had been part of the former attraction at the Homestead, but the Sullivans didn’t want to keep him penned up all alone and on display, so he had been put out to pasture. But at some point when Barney had the run of the Homestead (during one of his escapes, which is another story), he had been found wallowing in the dust behind the Flindt garage building which had been moved to the property. Therefore, the supposed that THAT was the site of the original buffalo wallow on the property.
Is that the location of the original buffalo wallow on the property? I don’t know. I always had heard that the wallow was to the west of the little slough on the property, and over the years, the wallow had been taken over by the slough. In old topo maps (which show changes in elevation of two feet), you can see a circular depression beside this slough. It should also be noted that in Pioneer Girl, Wilder wrote that the two acre buffalo wallow was “south of the house, about halfway across the farm,” which happens to be just where the topo-depression and little slough are located.
Percy Crothers, who took up land in Kingsbury County in 1881, remembered that both buffalo wallows were common, with up to three or four to a section. They were round pot holes, 15 or 20 feet across at the top, and sometimes several feet deep. Martin Garretson (1866-1955), secretary of the American Bison Society in 1949, wrote in the Argus Leader that it was the habit of the buffalo in the spring and summer to paw up the turf and wallow in those spots in order to help shed their winter coat and to find relief from flies and other insects. There were “water wallows” in which rain would collect and soften the earth, and when a bison rolled and pitched up the moist soil, water would trickle into the depression, allowing for a cool bath. The bison would end up covered in mud that dried and was impenetrable to insects. By this method, soil was slowly carried away from the wallow, and it grew deeper and wider. When there was little rainfall, “dust wallows” were created, where pawing and rolling loosened the soil, which was carried away in the wind. These wallows were usually smaller than water wallows, being eight to ten feet in diameter and a few inches to around a foot in depth. Depending on the type of soil, a wallow can hold both rain and runoff for days or weeks, providing water for wildlife in time of need.
buffalo (LHP 22; SSL 7, 18, 30; THGY 20), see also buffalo bean, “Buffalo Gals”
coat / overcoat (BPC 37, 40; TLW 14; THGY 4)
buffalo fish (BPC 19)
buffalo grass (LHP 16; SSL 8; THGY 18; PG)
herds (LHP 22; SSL 30; PG)
horns (THGY 25)
hunt (LHP 22-23)
path (SSL 7; PG)
wallow (SSL 7, 30; TLW 1; LTP 2; PG)
buffalo wolves (SSL 15, 18; PG), see wolf