The Buffalo Economy and the Coming of the Horse
Unit 4 Handout 17The Buffalo Economy and the Coming of the Horse
Learning Goal: I can explain how the buffalo economy worked, what role women played in it, and how the arrival of the horse changed Indigenous economic life on the Plains.
For Plains peoples, the bison, commonly called the buffalo, was the centre of economic life. The buffalo economy required precise ecological knowledge, physical skill, sophisticated social organization, and complex spiritual practice. It sustained entire nations for thousands of years.
The bison provided food, clothing, shelter, tools, and spiritual material. Plains peoples used virtually every part of the animal. Hides became tipi covers, clothing, and shields. Bones became tools and weapons. Sinew became bowstrings and thread. Fat went into cooking and food preservation. Even the stomach served as a cooking vessel.
Hunters drove bison into pounds, enclosures built near cliffs or coulees, where they could be killed in large numbers before the plains froze. This required coordination among large groups of hunters and detailed knowledge of bison behaviour and local terrain.
Women's labour was central to the buffalo economy. After the hunt, women took on the work of butchering, processing, and preserving the meat and hides. Processing a single bison hide into usable leather required days of skilled work: scraping, stretching, soaking, tanning, and working the hide to make it soft. Women managed the distribution of food within families and communities and held authority over the domestic sphere.
Economic Power: A skilled hide tanner was a valued member of her family and community. The ability to process hides quickly and to high quality was recognized as skilled work that carried social standing and respect.
The horse arrived on the northern Plains in the early 1700s, spreading northward from Spanish settlements in the southwest. Hunters on horseback could pursue bison across open ground rather than waiting for drives. Families could move their camps more efficiently. Trade networks expanded as mounted warriors and traders covered more territory.
Horses became a form of wealth. A man's standing in the community partly reflected the size of his horse herd. Raiding for horses became a recognized economic and military activity. Nations that acquired horses early gained advantages over those that did not.
The Metis organized their bison hunts as large, rule-governed expeditions. Hundreds of hunters and their families travelled together under the authority of an elected hunt captain. Strict rules governed the hunt: no one could leave camp early or break from the group, to prevent scattering the herd. The hunters themselves elected the patrol that enforced these rules. The Metis were not just hunting. They were governing themselves.
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Daschuk, J. (2013). Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life. University of Regina Press.
Payment, D. P. (2009). The Free People, Otipemisiwak: Batoche, Saskatchewan, 1870-1930. University of Calgary Press.
Brink, J. (2008). Imagining Head-Smashed-In: Aboriginal Buffalo Hunting on the Northern Plains. Athabasca University Press.
Ray, A. J. (1974). Indians in the Fur Trade. University of Toronto Press.