hunting, fishing, and gathering: The Americas 551 Buffalo Hunting The Plains Indians used a number of techniques to hunt buffalo before the arrival of Europeans and their horses One of the most common methods was the “corral” method A hunter dressed in buffalo robes lured buffalo into a narrow ravine At the end of the ravine was a long corral, or pen Other hunters were ranged along the ravine and herded the buffalo into the corral, where they were slaughtered Another technique was the “jump” method Again, hunters lured buffalo to the edge of a cliff Then other hunters appeared and waved blankets and shouted to force the buffalo to jump over the cliff At the bottom another band of hunters stood ready to kill animals that were injured but not dead Other techniques included driving the herd into deep snow, where they could not easily move, making kills easier Sometimes hunters waited at watering holes and killed the buffalo when they came to drink Another method was to set grass fires, which either drove buffalo into streams or forced them into restricted areas, where they were easier to kill For the Plains people, buffalo hunting was not just a matter of material survival Hunting and the rituals associated with slaughtering, cooking, and consuming the buffalo were matters of great religious significance Plains Indians used virtually every part of the buffalo The meat, typically around 225 to 400 pounds from an average mature buffalo, was either roasted or made into pemmican (a mixture of meat, fat, and berries) or sausage, which could be preserved over the winter Hides were used for clothing, blankets, ceremonial robes, gloves, and the like Additionally, hides with most of the hair removed were used for clothing, tepees, boat skins, containers, blankets, and rope Sinews (muscle tendons) were used for thread, webbing for snowshoes, laces, and bowstrings Bones (especially the ribs) were turned into sled runners, arrow points, hoes, shovels, pipes (for smoking), awls for sewing, and scraping tools; the skull was used for ceremonial purposes The list of useful buffalo parts goes on Horns were turned into containers, spoons, cups, bowls, and even toys Hair was used to make yarn, pillow stuffing, brushes, and rope; even the buffalo’s beard was used as clothing decoration, and the tail could be used as either a flyswatter or a whip The buffalo’s brain was employed as a tanning substance to soften hides Hooves were turned into rattles and boiled to make glue Fat was used as paint or to make candles and soap The teeth were used for decorative objects and necklaces The stomach and bladder served as containers for water and other liquids, and the stomach could be used as a cooking vessel Even the buffalo’s manure was used as fuel for fires (after it dried, of course) A controversy among scientists and historians concerns the way buffalo were hunted and used The conventional view is that the Plains Indians hunted just what they needed and used every part of the animal—acting in this way as North America’s earliest conservationists In contrast, early European settlers, according to this view, hunted the buffalo into near extinction for their hides, often wasting most of the resources the buffalo provided Another view notes, however, that Native Americans may not always have been the conservationists of popular myth In many cases male animals were left to rot in preference for the more tender meat of females Moreover, the tongue and hump were the preferred meats, so sometimes large portions of the animal remained unused, and occasionally entire herds were killed just for the tongues In some hunts it was not unusual for as many as a thousand animals to be killed—far more than necessary to meet the group’s needs the last hunter-gatherer societies in the Americas, primarily the Sioux, the Cheyenne, and the Arapaho, among others The Plains Indians survived primarily as nomadic hunting bands, moving to temporary encampments to follow herds of buffalo, their primary source of food The Plains Indians also hunted other large game, including elk Frequently, they traded buffalo meat and hides for agricultural produce from more sedentary neighbors The Plains people may have “managed” their landscape to increase their hunting success Some historians and biologists believe that large areas of the Great Plains were created by hunting groups who used fire to beat back the forests creating what were, in effect, game preserves In other parts of the Americas human populations altered their environment to create habitat areas for beaver, deer, elk, porcupine, hare, turkey, grouse, quail, and other game birds, all with a view to boosting food supplies To the east, stretching from the eastern coast of Canada and down to the Carolinas, then westward to roughly the Mississippi River, numerous Eastern Woodland peoples relied on a mixture of agriculture and hunting, gathering, and fishing The forests of these regions provided large game, such