Revival of a heritage
Plains Indian tribes work hard to maintain important cultural link
By JODI RAVE
Lee Newspapers
CROW AGENCY - Leroy Stewart grew up in the Bighorn Mountains, always with his grandfather, always close to the land. His grandfather was a ranger who spent 40 years working with the tribe's buffalo herd nestled then, as now, in a 22,000-acre pasture deep amid plunging canyon walls and rugged peaks.
The mountains here on the Crow Indian Reservation in southeast Montana have their share of snowfalls, thunderstorms, rivers, valleys and ponderosa pine. They offer elk, bear, deer and eagles. And they also offer something else.
Today and Monday The Gazette will publish a series of stories by Jodi Rave, the Lee Newspapers reporter based in Lincoln, Neb., who covers Native American issues.
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"You respect the mountain," says Stewart. "It's got a spirit."
One night about three years ago, he says five buffalo appeared to him in a dream. They led him to two sitting bulls one black, one white. The black one said: "We know where your heart is."
Stewart went with his instincts. The next day, he walked away from his job as a packager for a chemical manufacturing company in Billings.
Like his grandfather before him, he has been working with the buffalo ever since.
And he is far from alone in revering the animal that once provided the Crow with daily sustenance, an animal that came to define his people. In fact, many American Indians across the country, says Stewart, share a common maxim: "Without the buffalo, we wouldn't be a people."
As such, there has been a phenomenal resurgence this decade between man and mythic animal, a spiritual and cultural reawakening that has taken root and spread quickly throughout much of Indian Country.
To wit: Six years ago, only a handful of tribes - the Crow in Montana, the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara in North Dakota and the Oglala and Cheyenne River tribes in South Dakota - were tending to 2,500 buffalo on 40,000 acres. Today, there are 35 tribes in 16 states managing more than 15,000 buffalo on 100,000 acres of tribal land.
The remarkable turnaround did not occur by accident.
The InterTribal Bison Cooperative, a buffalo-networking organization for tribes based in Rapid City, S.D., is largely credited for bringing about the revival. Founded in 1992, membership in the ITBC has grown from 17 member tribes to 45. And still growing.
An event unfolding this week in Denver underscores the dramatic growth: Today through Wednesday, the ITBC is hosting its first national conference, "Sacred Buffalo: Back From Oblivion." Keynote speakers at the conference include American Indian scholar Vine Deloria Jr., a Lakota who teaches at the University of Colorado, and N. Scott Momaday, a Kiowa novelist awarded the Pulitzer Prize for "House Made of Dawn."
Among those attending the Denver conference is Louie LaRose, manager of the Winnebago tribal herd in northeast Nebraska. The herd, he said, is connecting the past with the present.
"It's like opening the door to lost information," said LaRose.
The historical link between Plains Indians and buffalo is a well-established one. For centuries, the animal provided spiritual sustenance and daily necessities: skulls for sacred Sun Dances, brains to tan hides, hides for tepee covers, stomach liners for cooking vessels, hooves for glue, meat for pemmican, fat for soaps, bones for knives and blood for puddings.
Now, say native people, it is their turn to take care of the buffalo.
In doing so, the buffalo, too, are allowing Indian people to survive in a new way. Although Indians no longer need horns for ladles, there are a multitude of contemporary uses: the low-fat, nutritious buffalo meat helps diabetic patients, the growing herds provide food and new jobs and the jobs sorely needed income. Most importantly, perhaps, it is fueling a spiritual and cultural rebirth.
"It's just indescribable, but when you get together with (Great Plains tribes) from the West, you see the spiritual tie to the buffalo and the land," said Patricia Cornelius, manager of the Oneida Tribe's newly established buffalo herd near Seymour, Wis. "We all have one thing in common: to help get the buffalo back to the reservation."
For many American Indians, and a growing cadre of white ranchers, this buffalo revival seems somewhat miraculous.
"Even before we lost our herds, and these other tribes lost their herds, we never lost the sense of value of the buffalo," summed up Joseph Medicine Crow, an 85-year-old storyteller, anthropologist and Crow tribal member who lives in Lodge Grass. "It goes back to legendary times. In Crow legend, it's said buffalo were once human beings."
In fact, many tribes share a kindred relationship with the buffalo. The Lakota, for example, believe before their people emerged from an underground world in the Black Hills, they and the buffalo shared the same spirit. For thousands of years afterward, the buffalo or tatanka "his greatness" in Lakota took care of them.
Now, say many native people, it is time to return the favor.
"We need to do something for the buffalo who sustained us," said Rocky Afraid of Hawk, a member of the Cheyenne River Reservation's buffalo program near Eagle Butte, S.D.
"There's a song out there that says the buffalo are depending on you," he said. "They want our help."
And they're getting it.
Buffalo prayers have been said at North Dakota's Fort Berthold Reservation, home of the Three Affiliated Tribes the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara since 1983. That year, a traditional buffalo-calling ceremony was performed for the first time since the 1800s.
The drama-like ritual used to be done annually for the well-being of the people. Alyce Spotted Bear, then chairwoman of the Three Affiliated Tribes, remembers the year following the ritual's revival. In 1984, the tribe was allowed to round up 35 buffalo from Theodore Roosevelt National Park, animals that became its first herd.
Today the tribe grazes 235 buffalo on 13,000 acres east of Mandaree, N.D. "We belong with the buffalo," said Spotted Bear, now a guest lecturer at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H.
Thanks to some financial help from the InterTribal Bison Cooperative, the Winnebago now have 61 buffalo on 200 acres. Since starting the herd four years ago, LaRose has come to know the animals, giving many of them names like Ceva, Tonner and Mike Bison.
"When I get in the middle of them, I feel insignificant," said LaRose. "I kind of feel like Mike Tyson after he's lost a fight."
The buffalo's return has been foretold by spiritual leaders such as Black Elk, an Oglala holy man. But the buffalo won't come back on their own, said LaRose. It will be up to Indian people to help them.
"Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the enormous task that lies ahead. It's a lot bigger endeavor than just putting the animal back in the fields."
Meanwhile, the sacred animal already is having an effect on the mental and physical health of some tribal members, LaRose said. Winnebago adult and youth community service workers are required to work with the buffalo. The impact they have on the youth, he said, can be measured by changes in both attitude and clothing.
"By the end of the year," LaRose said, "they end up being better students. And if they come here wearing baggy pants, well they don't wear those baggy pants anymore."
Beginning Oct. 2, the low-fat, low-cholesterol buffalo meat will be given to the Winnebago's diabetic tribal members one-third of whom now suffer from the disease.
Almost overnight, an active lifestyle and a diet of lean meat, fruit and vegetables gave way to a sedentary one filled with sugar, starch and fat.
"That was the end," said LaRose.
Instead of changing their diets, "The approach was, 'Oh, we'll cut that foot off.' Pretty soon we had all these Winnebagos rolling around in wheelchairs," said LaRose.
On the Oneida Reservation, the tribe's one-year-old herd of 15 buffalo grazes on 60 acres of lush dairyland near Seymour, Wis. They have been a particular hit with the old people.
"There are certain elders that go out there everyday and look at them," said Patricia Cornelius, the tribe's buffalo project manager.
While tribes like the Oneida are tending small herds for the first time, the Crow and Lakota maintain some of the largest and oldest Indian-owned herds in the nation.
Over time, the herd was built back up to 1,200 and now numbers about 800.
The large herd now is used primarily for tribal purposes. Annually, the Crow find honor in donating between 80 and 130 buffalo for feasts, ceremonies, weddings, powwows and school events.
Although South Dakota's Cheyenne River Sioux also donate meat, skulls and robes, the tribe is unique among the reservations: Its buffalo represent a profitable enterprise.
"We had a self-sufficient economy at one time," said Fred Dubray, director of Cheyenne River's Pte Hca Ka, All of the Buffalo, program. "When they destroyed the buffalo, our economy then became one that was dependent on the federal government.
"We need to heal from the damage that was done not just in a financial sense, but in a cultural sense, which were one and the same to Indian people."
Today, Cheyenne River maintains 1,000 buffalo on 20,000 acres near the Missouri River, a significant increase from the 80 it had in 1990. Last year, the buffalo program contributed $27,000 to the tribe, which disbursed the money among 18 reservation communities.
And even higher dividends may be in the offing.
The tribe recently acquired the nation's only portable slaughterhouse. Bought with a $1.5 million federal grant, the unit was specially designed by Swedish engineers, who modeled it after a slaughter unit used to butcher Scandinavian reindeer.
With a five-man crew already in place, Dubray said plans are underway to further market the tribe's range-fed, stress-free buffalo meat, possibly "the best red meat in the world."
"We need trained professional managers," said Garrett, adding that the cultural method of management will be taught as opposed to Western animal science.
Nine other tribal community colleges have expressed interest in developing similar bison-management programs, he said.
"This is basically our last chance," said Dubray. "If they (buffalo) can't make it, we can't make it."
Dubray also firmly believes if the tribe can rebuild the herds, they can rebuild the structure of the tribe itself. "I think these buffalo can help. They have the power to do that."
On the nearby Pine Ridge Reservation in southwest South Dakota, the Oglala Sioux run 500 buffalo on 30,000 acres. The tribe is unique in that it also has a sharecrop program, allowing tribal members to raise private herds.
"It's not just individuals who are interested," said Gilbert Mesteth, tribal herd manager. "We have a waiting list. Some communities and voting districts want to start herds. We only have a limited number of buffalo to put into this program. But one of our goals is to have buffalo on this reservation rather than cattle.
"It's easier to start small and start slow. Maybe by the next generation, or the one after that, we will accomplish that goal."
Another goal is to provide enough buffalo to meet the dietary needs of the people within five to 10 years. "The people on this reservation know the buffalo belong to them," Mesteth said. "The buffalo are for the people. We want to bring them back so our own people can be strong."
Jodi Rave covers Native American issues for Lee Enterprises newspapers - parent company of The Billings Gazette - and is based at the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star.
White calves evoke strong emotionsLee Newspapers
According to the Lakota, White Buffalo Calf Woman came during a long ago time when the people were starving. She taught them numerous ways to use the buffalo and after four days, she left their village in the form of a white buffalo calf. Soon, many buffalo appeared for the people to hunt. She also left the people a bundle which contained the sacred buffalo calf pipe. She asked them to take care of it for all Indian people. The beautiful woman said the people should not worry, that she would return one day. A sign of her arrival would be clear to all: the birth of a white, female buffalo calf. Today, the sacred pipe is kept on South Dakota's Cheyenne River Reservation. The Keeper of the Sacred Pipe is Arvol Looking Horse, whose family has kept the pipe for 19 generations. Over time, the White Buffalo Calf Woman legend spread to many tribes who now consider white buffalo calves sacred beings. For that reason, the appearance of a white buffalo such as one born in Janesville, Wis., in 1994, and another on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation in 1996 has triggered hopes of a peace and harmony. By most traditional Lakota accounts, the birth of a white buffalo calf foretells great change. "The births of all these white buffalo calves are a sign of what's to come in the future when Mother Earth begins to shake and renew herself," said Ron Black Bird, a Sun Dance leader on the Cheyenne River Reservation. "Killer tornadoes, earthquakes, these are all signs saying 'be ready.' Nobody knows when this is going to happen." Added Wilmer Mesteth, an Indian studies instructor at Oglala Lakota College in Kyle, S.D.: "There always have been white buffalo born from time to time. Historically, our people hunted for the white buffalo. It was a highly sought after sacred hide. Each time in history there were great changes brought about when a white buffalo was born." Victor Douville, a Lakota studies instructor at Sinte Gleska University on South Dakota's Rosebud Reservation, said there are two stories relevant to the white buffalo: "One is that any white buffalo calf is sacred, it's kind of a pan-Indianism view. The other is a more traditional view, certain things need to happen." First, he said, "You need millions of buffalo in order to produce one free of genetic breeding and interference. When all the buffalo return, then you'll have hope. The traditional medicine people say anything that grows from nature has power. If you interfere with nature, then you cripple that power. "They (buffalo) must go about surviving in the natural way. No inoculations, vaccinations or crossbreeding. Most old people I have talked to felt that way." Meanwhile, many Indians and non-Indians believing the time has come to mend the sacred hoop, a time for all races to unite in spiritual healing. Since 1994, thousands of people of all faiths have made private pilgrimages to see "Miracle," the white buffalo calf born on Dave and Valerie Heider's Wisconsin farm.
Many more also have journeyed to Joe Merrival's ranch near Pine Ridge, S.D., to see "Medicine Wheel," a white buffalo calf born there in May 1996 the first to an Indian owner on Indian land this century. "Our religious rebirth will come with the birth of a white buffalo calf," summed up Douville. "You can compare that with the coming of the Messiah." |
On South Dakota's Cheyenne River Reservation, the philosophy of the tribal buffalo program is a simple, fundamental one: to treat buffalo with respect and honor their spirit. In other words, never treat them like cattle.
As a result, overall treatment of the tribe's 1,000-member herd from birth to death to butchering has persuaded some vegetarians to take up meat again, according to program director Fred Dubray. "I think we have the highest quality red-meat product in the world," he said, sitting in a truck on a hill overlooking several buffalo grazing on native grasses.
The tribal herd, he said, is never dehorned, given growth stimulants or fed corn or grain, all of which are typical cattle-ranching practices. And, when the time comes to harvest a wild buffalo, it's done with minimal stress to the buffalo. They aren't rounded up, loaded into trailers and hauled to slaughterhouses. Instead, each is shot in an open field. A prayer and tobacco are immediately offered for its spirit. Afterward, each carcass is individually processed in a mobile slaughterhouse, the only one in the country.
The tribe's Pte Hca Ka, or "All of the Buffalo," program is among a growing number of businesses working to supply the world's growing demand for buffalo meat, which has increased 20 percent a year for the past 20 years, said Sam Albrecht, executive director of the Denver-based, 2,100-member National Bison Association.
Health-conscious consumers are fueling a demand for buffalo meat, which has less fat and lower cholesterol than beef, pork, chicken and even some types of fish.
While the buffalo-ranching industry continues to grow, two types of ranchers are emerging: those prone to treating buffalo like a domesticated cow and those who think they should remain wild. The cowlike buffalo get sent to feedlots and fed grain before slaughter. The wild buffalo live out their final days grazing on grass.
But a question has arisen: Does a change in a buffalo's traditional diet alter its genetic makeup, including the nutritional and fatty composition of what is otherwise lean meat?
Martin Marchello, an animal and range sciences professor at North Dakota State University, has tried to answer that question. He says his preliminary study, funded by the National Bison Association and the United States Department of Agriculture, shows little difference in nutrient composition. However, grass-fed buffalo do have higher levels of polyunsaturated, or "good," fat compared to grain-fed buffalo.
Meanwhile, the government requires no nutritional labeling on buffalo-meat products.
Dubray says consumers are misled by a false belief that they are eating healthy meat, when in fact, they may not. Many ranchers agree.
"The whole road the beef-cattle industry has gone down is one we want to avoid for the buffalo," said Larry Mason, president of the Nebraska Buffalo Association. "When you start treating buffalo like cattle and vaccinating them, then you start messing with their genetic history," said Mason, an owner of the Tarbox Buffalo Ranch northeast of Norfolk.
T.R. Hughes, of Seward, Neb., says he formed the Great Plains Buffalo Organization because he "saw a disturbing trend where people were starting to tinker with (buffalo) genetically and starting to put them in feedlots. My real concern is that buffalo ranchers are in the process of domesticating the animal."
Rusty Seedig, vice president of operations for the Denver Buffalo Co. in Denver, Colo., said: "Nebraska is one of the more vocal groups. They are proponents of grass-fed buffaloes. One of the reasons is they have very nice grass."
The Denver Buffalo Co. sells about 100,000 pounds of buffalo meat a month to major grocery and restaurant chains and plans to double that number in 1999.
The company also sends its buffalo to feedlots for 100 days or more to be grain fed before slaughter. "Probably 90 percent to 95 percent of all buffalo products are grain finished," Seedig said.
The Denver Buffalo Co. trucks its buffalo to the North American Bison Cooperative, a buffalo slaughterhouse in New Rockford, N.D. The co-op slaughters 60 percent of the country's bison meat, including buffalo from Ted Turner, who - with a herd of about 15,000 - is owner of the world's largest private buffalo herd. Program avoids treating buffalo like market cattle
JODI RAVE
Lee Enterprises
Updated: Sunday, September 20, 1998
Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises.
To the Lakota, the legend of the White Buffalo Calf Woman has shaped nearly every aspect of their life. Much like the Ten Commandments, it provided the people with a religious foundation which endures today. Before leaving, the holy woman gave them seven sacred rites, each incorporated into a ceremony: the sweat lodge, Sun Dance, marriage, adoption, healing, vision quest and naming rituals.