Native American Heritage Month: “The American Buffalo”

Happy Native American Heritage Month! One good way to honor Native heritage is to see the latest American history documentary from Ken Burns and company: “The American Buffalo.”  (You’ll also be honoring National Bison Day, November 4!)

 The theme running through the two-part documentary is the cultural heritage of Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains, whose lives have been intricately woven with those of the bison* for thousands of years. That relationship was severed in the last century-plus, but now is partially on the mend.

 Many of us know the story of the near-extermination of the bison by commodity market hunting. At one point, a small herd in Yellowstone National Park was the last of the wild, free-roaming bison. But bison populations are on the upswing now, not just in feedlots, but as wild-living creatures on relatively large stretches of prairie grasslands.

 Native Americans have been leaders in the restoration. In 1991, 19 tribes came together to form the Intertribal Buffalo Council, to bring bison back to tribal reservation lands as essentially free-roaming creatures. Three decades later, these bison roam about a million acres of tribal lands across 20 states.

 At the documentary’s close, George Horse Capture, Jr., of the A’aninin (Gros Ventre) Tribe, makes the point that wild bison restoration is reclaiming a national heritage for all of us, not only for Native Americans.

 “What I want for my people, I want for you people. I want your grandchildren to see them. I want your boy to tell stories, when you ain’t here anymore; he can tell your grandchildren, I was with my dad, your grandpa, to go see them. And it was good.” -- George Horse Capture, Jr.

* The “American buffalo,” biological name “Bison bison,” is widely known as just “bison.”