The Project Gutenberg EBook of When Buffalo Ran, by George Bird Grinnell

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Title: When Buffalo Ran

Author: George Bird Grinnell

Release Date: February 27, 2005 [EBook #15189]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN BUFFALO RAN ***

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[Illustration: PEOPLE LOOKING FROM THE LODGES]

_WHEN BUFFALO RAN_

_BY GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL_

_Copyright, 1920, by
Yale University Press._

_First published, 1920._

_Table of Contents._

Introduction: The Plains Country
The Attack on the Camp
Standing Alone
The Way to Live
Lessons of the Prairie
On a Buffalo Horse
In the Medicine Circle
Among Enemy Lodges
A Grown Man
A Sacrifice
A Warrior Ready to Die
A Lie That Came True
My Marriage

_List of Illustrations._

People Looking from the Lodges
Hunting in the Brush along the River
My Grandmother Lived in Our Lodge
My Grandfather ... Long before Had Given up the Warpath
I Killed Many Buffalo and My Mother Dressed the Hides
Holding the Pipe to the Sky and to the Earth
"Do Not Go, Wait a Little Longer"
Watch the Men and Older Boys Playing at Sticks

_The Plains Country._

Seventy years ago, when some of the events here recounted took place,
Indians were Indians, and the plains were the plains indeed.

Those plains stretched out in limitless rolling swells of prairie until
they met the blue sky that on every hand bent down to touch them. In spring
brightly green, and spangled with wild flowers, by midsummer this prairie
had grown sere and yellow. Clumps of dark green cottonwoods marked the
courses of the infrequent streams--for most of the year the only note of
color in the landscape, except the brilliant sky. On the wide, level river
bottoms, sheltered by the enclosing hills, the Indians pitched their
conical skin lodges and lived their simple lives. If the camp were large
the lodges stood in a wide circle, but if only a few families were
together, they were scattered along the stream.

In the spring and early summer the rivers, swollen by the melting snows,
were