The “Head-smashed-in” Buffalo Jump
For over five thousand years, the Plains Indians relied on buffalo for their survival. Stone spears, bows, and arrows would not have made much of a dent in these massive animals, and long before they secured horses and guns from the White Men, they developed a unique way to kill the buffalo—driving them over the cliffs. But how? Buffalo weren't stupid.
These buffalo jump cliffs extended all across the Great Plains in the foothills of the Rockies. Today, one of the best preserved and documented is the Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo Jump, a UNESCO World Heritage Site near Fort MacLeod, Alberta, Canada. The museum and interpretive center is in itself remarkable. It blends in so well that one barely notices, until in close proximity, this notable union of nature and architecture—a five-story building in a cliff. It has garnered many architectural awards.
The Indians had a great respect for the natural world and the Great Creator, who provided for their sustenance. They considered the buffalo a gift from the god and utilized all parts of the buffalo: the hides for shelter and clothing, the meat for food, the horns for toys, spoons and cups, the bones for tools and weapons—even the tail for a fly swatter and whip. There were numerous Blackfoot Indian tribes inhabiting this region, which necessitated killing hundreds of the animals. However, they killed only what they needed.
Each fall, the tribe would scout for herds of buffalo, well-fed and fat from feasting on the summer grasses. Before they started herding the animals, they made camp in the vicinity of a particular cliff, then staged days of fasting and ceremonial dances beseeching the Creator for success in the hunt.
Several miles back from the cliff, and leading toward it, the tribe erected two rows of stone cairns on either side of a drive lane. Into these cliffs, they stuck live tree branches to trick the animals into believing they were hemmed in by a forest on each side. This drive lane gradually narrowed into a V as it approached the cliff. When all was in place, the Indians started corralling the buffalo toward the drive lane and the "jump."
However, to get the animals to panic and race toward the cliff, the Indians selected a young boy from the tribe and trained him to be the “lost calf.” The buffalo herd had a tremendous maternal instinct and would go to extraordinary lengths to seek out and return a lost calf to its mother. Thus, this boy - the "lost calf"—disguised in buffalo skins and rubbed with their scent, would get ahead of the herd and, bawling loudly, lead them into the drive lane and ever closer to the cliff.
As he got closer to the edge, the "lost calf " started running as wild shouts and noises suddenly erupted from young braves hiding behind the cairns. Startled, the buffalo stampeded and thundered ever closer to the cliff with clouds of dust obscuring the edge of the precipice. At the last moment, the young boy threw off his buffalo skins and darted behind one of the cairns as the buffalo plunged to their doom.
Immediately, the whole tribe descended the cliff and they speared the few animals barely alive. Then both men and women started butchering. They relished eating as treats the warm heart, liver, kidneys and brain.
The provocative title? Legend has it that a young boy wanted a good view of the buffalo falling off the cliff, so he hid under a ledge below. As the animal’s bodies piled higher and higher, some rolled back onto him. Much later, as the tribe butchered the buffalo, they discovered him, his head smashed in.