The Buffalo Hunt - notes from Father Lacombe's notes of his hunt in 1850. (at Pembina)
...On the eve Father called the band together. In the open air they recited with him evening prayers. The women and the children withdrew after the prayers to their lodges, and the fine discipline of a mmilitary camp suddently prevaded the assembly. the hunters held a council to select, by a majority of votes, a Chief and ten captains. who in turn selected ten to fifteen others to act as scounts. They they drew up anew the laws of the hunt.
The half-breed hunter, Wilkie, whohad been elected Chief rose at the close of the council. and asked for the hunter acceptance of these laws as a whole. This being done by a majority of votes the Chief solemnly declared.
"If any of you do not approve of these laws, let him leace our camp and come not with us, for once we set out together from this encampment no one will ve free to separate from us."
No one left the assembly.
After an early Mass next morning, the signal of departure was given by the guide of the day with s little flag. In an instant a great commotion ran through the whole camp. The lodges of skin and the tents were pulled down, the horses were brought into a coral from the prairie andthe women made haste to pack into the cats their small household goods. Then the women and children took seats in the carts - the hunters mounted their buffalo runners... and the camp set out on its march. Father Lacombe watchful of his bandaged foot, (an accident which unfortunatly happened before leaving, an accident serious enough, that Father Lacombe should not have untaken this hunt, However, he likes to be with his people and could not miss the opppor-tunity of his first hunt).
It was estimated there were 800 to 1,000 carts in the camp that year and over 1,000 men, women and children, as well as hundreds of fines ponies for buffalo runners, cart horses, oxen and innumerable dogs.
Close on the sixth day out, and the slow moving cavalcade begun began to throw long shadows across the tender grass, the Métis' long disorderly lines drew near to the Turtle Mountains. Scouts pushing on ahead saw in the distance an immense herd of buffalo, and thrilled with delight they huried in the nearest hill and signaled the good news to their party.
The information flashed back by the flags was intoxication. Joy like an infectious laugh ran through the whole regiment of marching Métis, and the buffalo ponies, keen for the hunt as they masters were understood the sudden commotion and half. In a trice the women, children, and old men dragged out the lodge poles and skins and erected the camp. The hunting -ponies were led aside, swiftly mounted -- and presto! in a flash men and horses hurried themselves against the herd.
In full gallop, Father Lacombe with them, they flashed along the prairie and in less time than an onlooker could credit it the bluff, on which the scounts had paused, was covered with this cavalry of the pains.... On the green rolling prairies stretching vefore them to the horizon buffalo were grazing ---thousands of them, forming a billowy black lake on the prairie.
Our captains gave th4e work, and the hunters instantly fell into place forming one immense line of attack. It was all done with the least possible noise or commition, so that the unsuspecting animals might not be aroused. For while their vision is short, their hearing and power of smell are very acute. Our ponies lined up without direction from their masters, poawing up the short herbage and dust.-- as ardent for the chase as the riders they carried.
Father Lacombe recited and Act of Contrition to which the hunters responded with bent heads. They raised their eyes, took a a glad survey from the bluff -- then --
"En avant!" the leaser cried, and mem and horses as one flew forward with whirlwind velocity -- and the poor stupid buffalo pitlessle trapped broke into confused flight.
The stillness of the plains ws broken with the heavy thunder of stampeded bison, the shrilling of the Métis and the tumult of the rushing pinies blended with the animals" mad bellowing.
The hunter's daring as he urged his poney in and out labyright paths among the doomed buffaly was fiendish; he was exposing himself momentarily to the thrown from his horse and trampled into the earth under the cruel insentient hoogs, on to become a human plaything tossed again and again into the air from the horns of an enraged animal.
The attack was short, terrible and altogether decisive. The melee of man and beast, the industrious designed work pf carnage that day near Turtle Mountain lasted about twenty minutes; by which time the immense herd of buffalo was utterly put to rout. Hundreds of wounded animal strewed the plains but on this occasion to Falher Lacombe's anxious delight there were no accidents. No hunter, but lately exultant, lay moaning in the brief hour of pain that bridges the glory of the hunt -- and Stillness.
Close to 800 animals have been killed.
At the camp the ponies were turned free. The hunters sat about the fires, smoking and living the brief wild hunt over again. Meanwhile hte women picked out the choicest bits of fresh meat and cooked a savoury meal for their lords.
....The camp remained at this point for several days while the women after the centuries-old fashion of their sex dressed the buffato skins and dried the meat...They first cut up the meat in very longstrips which they stretched to dry on scaffolds made at young trees. After two or three days' exposirure to the sun the meat was sufficiently dry for the women to fold it in packages tighly bound with sinew, each bundle wirghinf from 60 to 70 pounds.
Then with their stone mallets they pounded dried meat to powder in wooden bowls, mi9xed hot grease and dried berries with it, packing the whold into a large sacks of buffalo-hide, called by the Métis-- taureaux... This was pimik-kun, the manna of the Canadian prairies
ref Talken in parts from the book - "From the Buffallo to the Cross" by Venini Byrne
 |
Father Albert Lacombe |
No comments:
Post a Comment