Searching to update a dead link on an old post (as I sometimes do), I came across some interesting images of some stone cultural features at a Game Drive:
INDIAN REMAINS ON THE UPPER YELLOWSTONE*
By Col. Wm. S. Brackett.
"The most interesting of the Indian remains on our ranch is at Buffalo Bluff, where there is a remarkable game drive. Under the cliff, which is about 40 feet high, the ground is white with the splintered bones of large game animals that have been driven over the precipice - buffaloes, elks, and deer. Above is a level plain stretching back for several miles into the foothills. The cliff is only about a hundred yards wide at the steep part where the game was driven over. How did they manage to make wild animals run to this narrow cliff and leap over? You can see at once how this was accomplished when you climb to the plain above. There can be seen two long lines, composed of piles of stones, stretching out on the plains, each line about half a mile long and diverging from the edge of the cliff like the two arms of an open fan. The piles of stones are about 10 feet apart and each stone heap is 2 to 3 feet in height. When the Indians last used this game drive, which was about fifteen years ago, they set up wooden stakes about 5 feet long in each stone pile. From stake to stake were stretched lines of stout buckskin cord, like wires on a barbed wire fence, and from these cords were hung at short intervals feathers, strips of bright cloth, and scraps of white buckskin, fluttering in the wind. Of course this fence could be easily broken through, but the frightened animals always turned back from the fluttering rags, feathers, and other objects hanging from the long lines of cords.
A heard of buffalos or deer was carefully surrounded by the Indian hunters, and then gradually driven toward the opening of the drive, which was over half a mile wide. Once within these lines, the hunters drove the heard toward the bluff, waving their blankets as they rode forward. The terror stricken animals rushed toward the precipice, keeping away and turning back in fright from the lines of "fence," which gradually converged toward the cliff. At last, in a wild stampede, the frantic animals were driven over the edge of the precipice, where those who were not killed outright were dispatched by another party of hunters below. Only spears and arrows were used below the cliff, because the noise of firearms would frighten back the animals approaching the edge of the bluff. Among the mass of crumbling white bones beneath this Buffalo Bluff (as it is called here), where so many wild animals have been slaughtered, you can today occasionally find spear and arrow heads, beautifully formed of shining black obsidian, or volcanic glass, the material being formed in large quantities on the great plateau of the Yellowstone National Park.
By Col. Wm. S. Brackett.
"The most interesting of the Indian remains on our ranch is at Buffalo Bluff, where there is a remarkable game drive. Under the cliff, which is about 40 feet high, the ground is white with the splintered bones of large game animals that have been driven over the precipice - buffaloes, elks, and deer. Above is a level plain stretching back for several miles into the foothills. The cliff is only about a hundred yards wide at the steep part where the game was driven over. How did they manage to make wild animals run to this narrow cliff and leap over? You can see at once how this was accomplished when you climb to the plain above. There can be seen two long lines, composed of piles of stones, stretching out on the plains, each line about half a mile long and diverging from the edge of the cliff like the two arms of an open fan. The piles of stones are about 10 feet apart and each stone heap is 2 to 3 feet in height. When the Indians last used this game drive, which was about fifteen years ago, they set up wooden stakes about 5 feet long in each stone pile. From stake to stake were stretched lines of stout buckskin cord, like wires on a barbed wire fence, and from these cords were hung at short intervals feathers, strips of bright cloth, and scraps of white buckskin, fluttering in the wind. Of course this fence could be easily broken through, but the frightened animals always turned back from the fluttering rags, feathers, and other objects hanging from the long lines of cords.
A heard of buffalos or deer was carefully surrounded by the Indian hunters, and then gradually driven toward the opening of the drive, which was over half a mile wide. Once within these lines, the hunters drove the heard toward the bluff, waving their blankets as they rode forward. The terror stricken animals rushed toward the precipice, keeping away and turning back in fright from the lines of "fence," which gradually converged toward the cliff. At last, in a wild stampede, the frantic animals were driven over the edge of the precipice, where those who were not killed outright were dispatched by another party of hunters below. Only spears and arrows were used below the cliff, because the noise of firearms would frighten back the animals approaching the edge of the bluff. Among the mass of crumbling white bones beneath this Buffalo Bluff (as it is called here), where so many wild animals have been slaughtered, you can today occasionally find spear and arrow heads, beautifully formed of shining black obsidian, or volcanic glass, the material being formed in large quantities on the great plateau of the Yellowstone National Park.
*Reprinted from "The American Field," Feb. 11, 1893
The Old Post (about an Old Rock Piles Post): https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2009/10/old-post-from-rock-piles-indian-bars.html
1 comment :
This may interest you. Starting at about 28:27 it shows the quite similar ways in which stone was used for hunting caribou in Greenland during the time of Norse settlement. The Beothuk of Newfoundland are described as having used a similar strategy. Perhaps the Norse learned it from them, or vice versa, or it was anciently used by both cultures since long before contact?
GREEN LAND OF NORSE AND INUIT
https://youtu.be/1NkhDElo81c?t=1707
AP
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