The Eastern Plains of Montana

The great plains of eastern Montana was home to thousands of
buffalo before Euro-American hunters nearly wiped them out in the
early 1800's. The animals were central to the Indian lifeway. In the
dog days, hunters herded buffalo into corrals where they were killed.
They also stampeded the shaggy beasts over cliffs, called pishkuns.
With the arrival of the horse in the 1700s, hunting methods changed.
As much a sport as a necessity, hunting buffalo with bows and arrows
on horseback was dangerous and exciting.

A fat cow buffalo was the choice for meat. Women preserved the
meat by making jerky and pemmican. Pemmican was dried and
pulverized meat mixed with bone marrow and fat. Wild berries
gave it flavor; the ascorbic acid in the fruit acted as a preservative.
Pemmican, packed away in skin bags, kept indefinitely.

Indians used tanned buffalo robes and rawhide for clothes, teepees,
bedding, tools and utensils. Buffalo figured prominently in religious
practices, and disputes over prime hunting grounds frequently caused
intertribal conflicts.

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Show me all markers in:  Huntley, MT  |  Big Horn County  |  59037  |  Montana  |  United States of America

Pompey's Pillar Historical
Camp #44 of the 1873 Yellowstone Expedition
Pompey's Pillar
A Crossroads of Events
The Place Where the White Horse Went Down
Boothill Cemetery
Along the Zimmerman Trail
Chief Plenty Coups
National Cemetery
Fort Keogh Memorial Monument

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