Métis buffalo hunting

[2] The great buffalo hunts were subsistence, political, economic, and military operations[3] for Métis families and communities living in the region.

[9] In these early days buffalo herds still lived in close proximity to the communities, so Métis families in the Red River region could conduct their hunting and trading individually without needing to travel.

[10] These changes brought a new organization to the buffalo hunts, with Métis families forming parties to travel in safety.

[10] The Metis buffalo hunts were held at two times during a year by the Métis of the Red River settlements during the North American fur trade.

[10] All members of the family participated in the hunt in some way; the faster the buffalo meat could be processed and preserved meant less potential for spoilage as a result of changing weather conditions.

When the season began, the Métis, after sowing their fields in the spring, set out with their wives and children leaving a few behind to take care of the crops.

[13] The warmer temperatures made this season ideal for producing dried meat, pemmican, and buffalo tongue, which the Métis would trade most often with the Hudson Bay company.

The Bois brulés often dispense with a hat; when they have one, it is generally variegated in the Indian manner, with feathers, gilt lace, and other tawdry ornaments.Their horses are from the southern prairies or from New Spain having been traded and re-traded until they come into their possession.

Often its saddle and trappings were decorated with beads and porcupine quills[19] and for the hunt its mane and tail were intertwined with multicolored ribbons.

[13] The word given, the horsemen start in a body, loading and firing on horseback, and leaving the dead animals to be identified after the run is over.

The sagacity of the animal is chiefly shewn in bringing his rider alongside the retreating buffalo, and in avoiding the numerous pitfalls abounding on the prairie.

A handful of gunpowder is let fall from their "powder horns," a bullet is dropped from the mouth into the muzzle, a tap with the butt end of the firelock on the saddle causes the salivated bullet to adhere to the powder during the second necessary to depress the barrel, when the discharge is instantly effected without bringing the gun to the shoulder.Leaving Fort Garry on June 15, 1840 were 1210 Red river carts, 620 hunters, 650 women, 360 boys and girls, 403 buffalo runners (horses), 655 cart horses, 586 draught oxen and 542 dogs in the hunting expedition.

[14] Leaving Pembina on June 21 the group travelled 150 miles (240 km) southwest reaching the Sheyenne River nine days later.

[22] Isaac Stevens of the US Pacific Railroad Surveys (1853-1854) who camped near the Red River hunters near Devil's Lake, North Dakota in 1853 (July 16) provided a description of the 1853 summer hunt.

The camp consisted of 104 tepees, most shared by two families, arranged within a circle of carts which covered in skins provided additional sleeping quarters.

[20] When the hunters returned about half of the pemmican and dried meat was kept for their winter provision and the rest sold to the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Garry.

Some of the products of these hunts, especially prime buffalo robes taken from November to February,[25] also found their way by the Red River Trails to the American Fur Company at Fort Snelling and exchanged for dry goods such as sugar, tea and ammunition.

In North Dakota on the Grand Coteau of the Missouri on July 12 the scouts of St. François Xavier spotted a large band of Sioux.

Lafleche dressed only in a black cassock, white surplice, and stole, directed with the camp commander Jean Baptiste Falcon a miraculous defence against the 2,000 Sioux combatants holding up a crucifix during the battle.

[32] For example, in 1873 the Southbranch settlements organized a form of local government, under Gabriel Dumont, based on the laws of the buffalo hunt.

Every spring at the end of April, a general public assembly shall be held in front of the church of the Parish of St. Laurent to fix the time of the starting for the prairie.

Those persons, who having obtained permission to start in advance, shall profit by it to push ahead and to hunt without waiting for the big caravan shall be liable to pay a large fine which the Council shall fix according to the damage caused by them.

When once the caravan of the hunters has arrived at the place of general rendez-vous, the camp shall be organized, the captains, the guides for the roads, seekers for the animals shall be named, and the prairie laws shall be in full force.

It is expressly forbidden to fire when the animals are announced in the neighbourhood; a person infringing on this law is liable to a fine of five shillings.

A soldier sleeping at night on his post shall pay a fine of five shillings; if a captain , ten, and a member of the Council, one louis.

Father André provided additional commentary on the power and enforcement on these laws, as well as discussing his concerns about the dwindling bison herds and making recommendations about how to prevent their extinction.

The regulations have produced the greatest good among the Métis and have maintained peace and quietness among these great gatherings of men who free from all check would have given way to all sorts of disorders, but one can say without fear of mistake that the presence of the priest who always accompanies them on the journeys, is the most powerful instrument in bringing these men so proud by nature and so independent in character to submit to these laws.

The pemmican, which forms the staple article of produce from the summer hunt, is a species of food peculiar to Rupert's Land.

The tallow having been boiled, is poured hot from the caldron into an oblong bag, manufactured from the buffalo hide, into which the pounded meat has previously been placed.

[45] The winter hunts from Red River began in the early 19th century when the population included less than 200 Scottish and Irish settlers, about 100 De Meurons soldiers and a growing number of French voyageurs, descendants of North West Company employees now freemen, and their families.