The buffalo herds, depending entirely on grass for food, had to be on the move constantly seeking fresh pastures. In their search for grazing land they wandered rather aimlessly, often going from good pasture to poor for no apparent reason. At times they became frightened and started running. Then all the other buffalo in sight might start running too, until thousands were off on a wild stampede. As they ran they usually merged into a compact mass and galloped until they became exhausted. They trampled any small objects in their path but often were crippled or killed from running into large obstacles.
Except when stampeding, the progress of the herd was slow. Each animal needed several hours of grazing each day, and several more of standing or lying down to digest its food. About once a day the herd would go down to the water to drink, but they could go two or three days without water.
When the herds were moving across the country, unless they were stampeding, they spread out on a broad front, as much as fifty miles across, with each small band scattered over a few acres and separated from the other bands by about a quarter of a mile in all directions While moving in this manner, and grazing as they went, a herd would not leave any definite trail. The buffalo bunched up and moved in a column or compact mass only when their route was constricted by natural barriers. Thus when the buffalo approached a narrow mountain defile or a canyon, they came together and proceeded as a column until they reached the end of the passage, but as soon as they regained open country they again spread out on a broad front and the well-marked trail ended abruptly. Herds going to water or to salt licks followed the same pattern. Well-marked trails led some distance from the water's edge, but faded once good grass was reached.
And even when the herds crossing ranges were forced into mountain passes, they left no well-beaten path if the pass was fairly wide and covered with grass. Such broad passes used a great deal by buffalo were the Bozeman Pass between the Yellowstone and Gallatin watersheds, and the Reynolds, Monida, Deer Lodge, and South passes across the continental divide, the first four in Montana, the fifth in Wyoming. The early settlers found no well-beaten trails in these passes, and had to lay out their own wagon roads.
Buffalo trails were generally unsuitable for development into roads. George Washington noted in his journaclass="underline" ''At the crossing of this creek (Sandy Creek, West Virginia) Mccullock's path, which owes its origin to buffaloes, being no other than their tracks from one lick to another and consequently crooked and not well chosen, strikes off from the new road." And early hunters on the plains observed that buffalo trails usually were crooked even when there were no obstacles in the way.
Many of the early white explorers and hunters thought the buffalo were migratory animals, moving along definite routes with the changing seasons, northward in summer, southward in winter, but they could not agree on which direction the herds moved at any given time, nor where the migration paths could be found. Other observers were equally convinced that the herds did not migrate, for the buffalo would have beat out broad roads over their regular routes.
The Indian hunters were intelligent observers of the animal life around them and they paid particular attention to the buffalo, which furnished them with meat and hides so necessary for their basic living. With their very lives depending on a thorough knowledge of the buffalo and its habits, one would assume the Indians would know the precise movements of the herds, but in hundreds of years of hunting buffalo the Plains tribes were never able to discover a definite pattern for the herds. They learned that the buffalo were scattered over the entire range throughout the year and that a herd might be found at almost any place at any time. This uncertainty about the movements of the herds led the various tribes to develop elaborate dances and other ceremonies designed to lure the animals to the proper spots on the tribal hunting grounds.
Even when the herds had established well-marked trails leading to good fording places on a river, the next time they wanted to cross they often ignored that place and chose a new crossing a few miles away. Perhaps they did not remember the old crossing, or just did not care to look for it. Hence even the trails leading to good crossings were not used consistently, and no trails at all were trodden out across the broad expanse of the open plain.
Cattle on the open range, when left to their own devices, follow a pattern of behavior similar to that of the buffalo, except that they are smarter than the buffalo and less apt to get into trouble by trying a new, difficult place. The only time range cattle follow trails in open country is when they are being guided by stockmen.
The driving of cattle herds and wagon trains through the western grass country left behind distinct ruts that are plainly visible a century later. Once the grass sod is broken and the underlying soil eroded, the scar may heal but it will not disappear. Where the buffalo trampled out trails to water or left wallows on the open plain, the marks remain until the land is plowed, but in all the wide ranges in eastern Montana, untouched by a plow, where the buffalo ranged in large herds for thousands of years, there is no trace of a buffalo highway.
When they drove buffalo from higher, bare ridges down into snowdrifts, Sioux hunters could easily spear the floundering beasts. (Oil on canvas by George Catlin, Smithsonian Institution)
3. Early Hunters on the Great Plains
The roving bands of hunters who moved down from Alaska about 40,000 years ago left few traces of their passage. An occasional camp spot can still be found, usually near a good source of chipping rock for making weapons and tools, and in good game country. The waste chips of stone and the fragments of artifacts broken in the making are easily recognizable as made by human hands.
Sometimes the hunters found sheltering caves in good game country and lived in them over a long period, leaving their traces in the form of artifacts of stone. The garbage dumps, covered and preserved by drifting dust, may still hold some of the more durable remains of their foodbones from animals, pits from fruits, and seeds and stalks from plants. The sites of fire pits may be marked by charcoal fragments left from cooking fires.
Scant as these remains are, they tell a good deal about the level of material culture reached by these primitive people, as well as something of their diet, but nothing whatever of their physical characteristics. Only much later, when people came to settle in one place and learned to bury their dead, can enough skeletal material be found to identify the physical types.
Once the migrant bands established themselves on the southern plains, they had to find sheltered places where they could wait out the winter storms. A desirable location would lure them back year after year, until they found it advantageous to build small earth-covered lodges at the site. Strewn around the lodges were many discarded items, such as worn-out tools and broken stone artifacts. Sometimes, too, good knives, spear points, and the like were lost in the dirt. Many of these lodge sites have been excavated since World War II, giving a much more detailed picture of these early people and their activities than had been available earlier. Dating the village sites by the carbon-14 method, developed since 1950, has helped a great deal in establishing the time sequence for the sites. They vary from 6741 B.C. in an Iowa village to many fifteenth- and sixteenth-century villages in Kansas.
These primitive hunters lived in the heart of the buffalo country, yet their refuse heaps contain very few buffalo bones. The bones of several kinds of smaller animals are more common.