Buffalo Hunt A Numerous Group, by George Catlin, 1844
In 1541, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado wrote to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V: "I reached some plains, so vast that I did not find their limit anywhere that I went, although I travelled more than three hundred leagues through them. And I found such a quantity of cows [buffalo] in these…that it is impossible to number them, for while I was journeying through these plains, until I returned to where I first found them, there was not a day that I lost sight of them."
George Parker Winship, Coronado’s Journey to New Mexico and the Great Plains, 1540-41, American History Leaflet No. 13 (New York, 1894)
"When the European explorers first visited North America, large numbers of bison were present in perhaps 70 percent of the present-day continental United States...the pre-Columbian buffalo population is often estimated at some 60 million members. As a rule, the animals lived in groups of 20 to 40, gathering into larger herds only for rutting or migration. Native Americans long utilized the bison as a food source; archaelogical evidence suggests that buffalo hunting was practiced more than 10,000 years ago...
In a physical sense, the animal provided the plains inhabitants with many items essential to survival in this environment, in the form of blood, meat, hide, bone, sinew, and manure, that were used for food, rope, weapons, shelter, blankets, clothing, fuel and medicine. In a spiritual sense, the buffalo provided the first Americans with still more...
Native Americans honored it as a spirit that influenced fecundity, happiness, strength, protection, and healing...Methods of preparing bison as food were largely determined by the gender of the cooks. When eaten fresh, the meat was often cooked by the hunters, whereas meat curing and preservation were tasks reserved for women. Hunting parties would sometimes use the hide as a cauldron in which to boil the meat. Variations on this practice included lining a hole in the ground with the animal skin or suspending the hide aboveground on sticks over a fire. In addition to boiling, the meat was frequently roasted by rotating it over an open fire. To cure buffalo meat, Indian women relied on the sun, rather than on salting or smoking--
Selecting the choicest parts, the women cut the meat into strips, across the grain, in order to maintain alternating layers of lean and fat. These strips were then suspended on elevated racks in full sunlight for several days. The result was a jerky that could be eaten in the dried form or rehydrated by lengthy boiling. When cured, the meat was lightweight and largely imperishable, and ideal staple for a mobile culture. The jerky...could be even further condensed when transformed into pemmican...
Native Americans also incorporated buffalo into their diet in several ways other than as a fresh and preserved meat. Various tribes developed methods of preparing blood soups and puddings. Roasted throgh bones were a popular source of tasty marrow, and the tongue was savored."
"American Bison," Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Ornelas [Cambridge University Press:Cambridge] 2000, Volume One
