What do native American do when they killed a buffalo?

Answer 1

Bison (historically known as buffalo) were killed in three main ways: by stampede over a cliff, by spearing and by shooting with arrows.

The pishkun or buffalo jump was essentially a huge trap, with brushwood fires, piles of stones and men waving hides to direct and stampede the herd over a steep cliff, killing large numbers of animals in one go. The amount of meat and other materials produced was often far more than needed, so this was not an efficient system.

Spearing could be done from horseback, or on foot in deep winter snows by hunters wearing snowshoes. In deep snow the animals could not run and were much more vulnerable.

In order to kill a fully-grown buffalo cow with an arrow, a trained horse must be used since a horse's natural instinct is to keep well away from the buffalo. It must gallop close alongside the animal and just behind its right shoulder so that the hunter can shoot to his left and slightly forwards, driving the arrow up into the rib-cage to penetrate the animal's lungs and heart. The horse must keep its position without any direction from the rider, who needs both hands free to use the bow.

Many of the short Plains bows were so powerful that an arrow would go completely through the adult buffalo, sometimes wounding a second animal running on the other side of the first. Each hunter's arrows were marked with individual painted designs to clearly show which buffalo he had killed; his womenfolk would come along behind to butcher the carcass on the spot.

Answer 2

In general, among Plains tribes the men would hunt on horseback and kill buffalo over many miles of terrain.

The women would follow and skin and butcher each carcass on the spot, packing the meat and hides on a travois to take back to the village. In order to butcher such a large animal, each side had to be processed in turn; a horse and rope were needed to pull the dead animal over when one side was completed. The process was very quick and when trade knives became available the entire work was done with a single sharp knife (which every woman carried for this purpose).

Each woman recognised the arrows of her father or husband by its painted markings; she would only butcher animals killed by a close male relative.

Among the Crows there was a tradition of painting the face of a young woman taking part in her first hunt: the right side of her face was painted in thick stripes with buffalo blood, while the left side had a single stripe of red earth.

In many tribes successful hunters would eat the raw liver or kidney of the animal as soon as the butchering was started.

The links below take you to a modern newspaper article about the Crow hunting traditions and also a photograph of a young Crow woman with her face painted as described above, plus an image of a travois:

Answer 3

They often shot them with a bow and arrow or cut them with spears.