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Reasoning from cause to effect.
The buffalo of the
past was an animal of a rather low order of intelligence, and his
dullness of intellect was one of the important factors in his
phenomenally swift extermination. He was provokingly slow in
comprehending the existence and nature of the dangers that threatened
his life, and, like the stupid brute that he was, would very often stand
quietly and see two or three score, or even a hundred, of his relatives
and companions shot down before his eyes, with no other feeling than one
of stupid wonder and curiosity. Neither the noise nor smoke of the
still-hunter’s rifle, the falling, struggling, nor the final death of
his companions conveyed to his mind the idea of a danger to be fled
from, and so the herd stood still and allowed the still-hunter to
slaughter its members at will.
Like the Indian, and many white men also, the buffalo seemed to feel
that their number was so great it could never be sensibly diminished.
The presence of such a great multitude gave to each of its individuals a
feeling of security and mutual support that is very generally found in
animals who congregate in great herds. The time was when a band of elk
would stand stupidly and wait for its members to be shot down one after
another; but it is believed that this was due more to panic than to a
lack of comprehension of danger.
The fur seals who cover the “hauling grounds” of St. Paul and St. George
Islands, Alaska, in countless thousands, have even less sense of danger
and less comprehension of the slaughter of thousands of their kind,
which takes place daily, than had the bison. They allow themselves to be
herded and driven off landwards from the hauling-ground for half a mile
to the killing-ground, and, finally, with most cheerful indifference,
permit the Aleuts to club their brains out.
It is to be added that whenever and wherever seals or sea-lions inhabit
a given spot, with but few exceptions, it is an easy matter to approach
individuals of the herd. The presence of an immense number of
individuals plainly begets a feeling of security and mutual support. And
let not the bison or the seal be blamed for this, for man himself
exhibits the same foolish instinct. Who has not met the woman of mature
years and full intellectual vigor who is mortally afraid to spend a
night entirely alone in her own house, but is perfectly willing to do
so, and often does do so without fear, when she can have the company of
one small and helpless child, or, what is still worse, three or four of
them! But with the approach of extermination, and the utter breaking up
of all the herds, a complete change has been wrought in the character of
the bison. At last, but alas! entirely too late, the crack of the rifle
and its accompanying puff of smoke conveyed to the slow mind of the
bison a sense of deadly danger to himself. At last he recognized man,
whether on foot or horseback, or peering at him from a coulée, as his
mortal enemy. At last he learned to run. In 1886 we found the scattered
remnant of the great northern herd the wildest and most difficult
animals to kill that we had ever hunted in any country. It had been only
through the keenest exercise of all their powers of self-preservation
that those buffaloes had survived until that late day, and we found them
almost as swift as antelopes and far more wary. The instant a buffalo
caught sight of a man, even though a mile distant, he was off at the top
of his speed, and generally ran for some wild region several miles away.
In our party was an experienced buffalo-hunter, who in three years had
slaughtered over three thousand head for their hides. He declared that
if he could ever catch a “bunch” at rest he could “get a stand” the same
as he used to do, and kill several head before the rest would run. It so
happened that the first time we found buffaloes we discovered a bunch of
fourteen head, lying in the sun at noon, on the level top of a low
butte, all noses pointing up the wind. We stole up within range and
fired. At the instant the first shot rang out up sprang every buffalo as
if he had been thrown upon his feet by steel springs, and in a second’s
time the whole bunch was dashing away from us with the speed of
race-horses.
Our buffalo-hunter declared that in chasing buffaloes we could count
with certainty upon their always running against the wind, for this had
always been their habit. Although this was once their habit, we soon
found that those who now represent the survival of the fittest have
learned better wisdom, and now run (1) away from their pursuer and (2)
toward the best hiding place. Now they pay no attention whatever to the
direction of the wind, and if a pursuer follows straight behind, a
buffalo may change his course three or four times in a 10-mile chase. An
old bull once led one of our hunters around three-quarters of a circle
which had a diameter of 5 or 6 miles.
The last buffaloes were mentally as capable of taking care of themselves
as any animals I ever hunted. The power of original reasoning which they
manifested in scattering all over a given tract of rough country, like
hostile Indians when hotly pressed by soldiers, in the Indian-like
manner in which they hid from sight in deep hollows, and, as we finally
proved, in grazing only in ravines and hollows, proved conclusively that
but for the use of fire-arms those very buffaloes would have been
actually safe from harm by man, and that they would have increased
indefinitely. As they were then, the Indians’ arrows and spears could
never have been brought to bear upon them, save in rare instances, for
they had thoroughly learned to dread man and fly from him for their
lives. Could those buffaloes have been protected from rifles and
revolvers the resultant race would have displayed far more active mental
powers, keener vision, and finer physique than the extinguished race
possessed.
In fleeing from an enemy the buffalo ran against the wind, in order that
his keen scent might save him from the disaster of running upon new
enemies; which was an idea wholly his own, and not copied by any other
animal so far as known.
But it must be admitted that the buffalo of the past was very often a
most stupid reasoner. He would deliberately walk into a quicksand, where
hundreds of his companions were already ingulfed and in their
death-struggle. He would quit feeding, run half a mile, and rush
headlong into a moving train of cars that happened to come between him
and the main herd on the other side of the track. He allowed himself to
be impounded and slaughtered by a howling mob in a rudely constructed
pen, which a combined effort on the part of three or four old bulls
would have utterly demolished at any point. A herd of a thousand
buffaloes would allow an armed hunter to gallop into their midst, very
often within arm’s-length, when any of the bulls nearest him might
easily have bowled him over and had him trampled to death in a moment.
The hunter who would ride in that manner into a herd of the Cape
buffaloes of Africa (Bubalus caffer) would be unhorsed and killed before
he had gone half a furlong.
Curiosity.
The buffalo of the past possessed but
little curiosity; he was too dull to entertain many unnecessary
thoughts. Had he possessed more of this peculiar trait, which is the
mark of an inquiring mind, he would much sooner have accomplished a
comprehension of the dangers that proved his destruction. His stolid
indifference to everything he did not understand cost him his existence,
although in later years he displayed more interest in his environment.
On one occasion in hunting I staked my success with an old bull I was
pursuing on the chance that when he reached the crest of a ridge his
curiosity would prompt him to pause an instant to look at me. Up to that
moment he had had only one quick glance at me before he started to run.
As he climbed the slope ahead of me, in full view, I dismounted and made
ready to fire the instant he should pause to look at me. As I expected,
he did come to a fall stop on the crest of the ridge, and turned half
around to look at me. But for his curiosity I should have been obliged
to fire at him under very serious disadvantages.
Fear.
With the buffalo, fear of man is now the
ruling passion. Says Colonel Dodge: “He is as timid about his flank and
rear as a raw recruit. When traveling nothing in front stops him, but an
unusual object in the rear will send him to the right-about [toward the
main body of the herd] at the top of his speed.”
Courage.
It was very seldom that the buffalo
evinced any courage save that of despair, which even cowards possess.
Unconscious of his strength, his only thought was flight, and it was
only when brought to bay that he was ready to fight. Now and then,
however, in the chase, the buffalo turned upon his pursuer and overthrew
horse and rider. Sometimes the tables were completely turned, and the
hunter found his only safety in flight. During the buffalo slaughter the
butchers sometimes had narrow escapes from buffaloes supposed to be dead
or mortally wounded, and a story comes from the great northern range
south of Glendive of a hunter who was killed by an old bull whose tongue
he had actually cut out in the belief that he was dead.
Sometimes buffalo cows display genuine courage in remaining with their
calves in the presence of danger, although in most cases they left their
offspring to their fate. During a hunt for live buffalo calves,
undertaken by Mr. C. J. Jones of Garden City, Kans., in 1886, and very
graphically described by a staff correspondent of the American Field in
a series of articles in that journal under the title of “The Last of the
Buffalo,” the following remarkable incident occurred:41
“The last calf was caught by Carter, who roped it neatly as Mr. Jones
cut it out of the herd and turned it toward him. This was a fine heifer
calf, and was apparently the idol of her mother’s heart, for the latter
came very near making a casualty the price of the capture. As soon as
the calf was roped, the old cow left the herd and charged on Carter
viciously, as he bent over his victim. Seeing the danger, Mr. Jones rode
in at just the nick of time, and drove the cow off for a moment; but she
returned again and again, and finally began charging him whenever he
came near; so that, much as he regretted it, he had to shoot her with
his revolver, which he did, killing her almost immediately.”
The mothers of the thirteen other calves that were caught by Mr. Jones’s
party allowed their offspring to be “cut out,” lassoed, and tied, while
they themselves devoted all their energies to leaving them as far behind
as possible.
Affection.
While the buffalo cows manifested a
fair degree of affection for their young, the adult bulls of the herd
often displayed a sense of responsibility for the safety of the calves
that was admirable, to say the least. Those who have had opportunities
for watching large herds tell us that whenever wolves approached and
endeavored to reach a calf the old bulls would immediately interpose and
drive the enemy away. It was a well-defined habit for the bulls to form
the outer circle of every small group or section of a great herd, with
the calves in the center, well guarded from the wolves, which regarded
them as their most choice prey.
Colonel Dodge records a remarkable incident in illustration of the
manner in which the bull buffaloes protected the calves of the herd.42
“The duty of protecting the calves devolved almost entirely on the
bulls. I have seen evidences of this many times, but the most remarkable
instance I have ever heard of was related to me by an army surgeon, who
was an eye-witness.
“He was one evening returning to camp after a day’s hunt, when his
attention was attracted by the curious action of a little knot of six or
eight buffalo. Approaching sufficiently near to see clearly, he
discovered that this little knot were all bulls, standing in a close
circle, with their heads outwards, while in a concentric circle at some
12 or 15 paces distant sat, licking their chaps in impatient expectancy,
at least a dozen large gray wolves (excepting man, the most dangerous
enemy of the buffalo).
“The doctor determined to watch the performance. After a few moments the
knot broke up, and, still keeping in a compact mass, started on a trot
for the main herd, some half a mile oft”. To his very great
astonishment, the doctor now saw that the central and controlling figure
of this mass was a poor little calf so newly born as scarcely to be able
to walk. After going 50 or 100 paces the calf laid down, the bulls
disposed themselves in a circle as before, and the wolves, who had
trotted along on each side of their retreating supper, sat down and
licked their chaps again; and though the doctor did not see the finale,
it being late and the camp distant, he had no doubt that the noble
fathers did their whole duty by their offspring, and carried it safely
to the herd.”
Temper.
I have asked many old buffalo hunters for
facts in regard to the temper and disposition of herd buffaloes, and all
agree that they are exceedingly quiet, peace loving, and even indolent
animals at all times save during the rutting season. Says Colonel Dodge:
“The habits of the buffalo are almost identical with those of the
domestic cattle. Owing either to a more pacific disposition, or to the
greater number of bulls, there, is very little fighting, even at the
season when it might be expected. I have been among them for days, have
watched their conduct for hours at a time, and with the very best
opportunities for observation, but have never seen a regular combat
between bulls. They frequently strike each other with their horns, but
this seems to be a mere expression of impatience at being crowded.”
In referring to the “running season” of the buffalo, Mr. Catlin says:
“It is no uncommon thing at this season, at these gatherings, to see
several thousands in a mass eddying and wheeling about under a cloud of
dust, which is raised by the bulls as they are pawing in the dirt, or
engaged in desperate combats, as they constantly are, plunging and
butting at each other in a most furious manner.”
On the whole, the disposition of the buffalo is anything but vicious.
Both sexes yield with surprising readiness to the restraints of
captivity, and in a remarkably short time become, if taken young, as
fully domesticated as ordinary cattle. Buffalo calves are as easily
tamed as domestic ones, and make very interesting pets. A prominent
trait of character in the captive buffalo is a mulish obstinacy or
headstrong perseverance under certain circumstances that is often very
annoying. When a buffalo makes up his mind to go through a fence, he is
very apt to go through, either peaceably or by force, as occasion
requires. Fortunately, however, the captive animals usually accept a
fence in the proper spirit, and treat it with a fair degree of respect.
This site includes some historical
materials that may imply negative stereotypes reflecting the culture or language
of a particular period or place. These items are presented as part of the
historical record and should not be interpreted to mean that the WebMasters in
any way endorse the stereotypes implied.
Source:
The
Extermination of the American Bison,
1886-’87, By William T. Hornaday, Government Printing Office,
Washington, 1889
Extermination of the American Bison
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