The Origins of the Buffalo Dance by the Blackfeet

Long ago when the first buffalo came upon the land they were not friendly to the people. The people tried to coax the buffalo over a hill and to their deaths but always the buffalo would turn away at the last second avoiding certain death. There was this hunter although who had a daughter who was proud of her father’s grand hunting skills. She would always make the best garments for her father and herself. However even he couldn’t kill the buffalo. As soon as the hint of snow on the wind came to her she realized that the buffalo families had become a real problem. She immediately decided to do something about it. She went to the base of a cliff and started to sing a song calling the buffalo.
“Oh, buffalo family, come down and visit me. If you come down and feed my relatives in a wedding feast, I will join your family as the bride of your strongest warrior.” She sang. The buffalo came jumping over the cliff the largest, strongest buffalo took her away. Her father, the hunter, came looking for her the next day. He was a good tracker as well. He followed his daughter’s tracks until he was exhausted. He called down a Magpie and asked him to find the buffalo and his daughter. The Magpie came back almost immediately. He told the hunter that his daughter was right over the hill. Meanwhile the daughter was making garments for herself as her husband buffalo slept. Just then he awoken and told her to fetch some water with his horn that he removed. She ran into her father over the hill and he wanted to take her back but she knew that would only upset the buffalo and said that she would try to appease them. But when she got back her husband buffalo had his buffalo family stamped around. Her father ended up getting torn to pieces. And she ended up crying. Her husband asked why she was crying and she told him that they had killed her father. The buffalo told her that if she could bring her father back from dead he would let her go. So she asked the Magpie to help her collect the pieces of her father and danced a dance that her grandmother taught her to bring back the dead. The buffalo was surprised and told her that if she danced this dance for them to bring them back from death he would teach her the buffalo dance so she could call them. And that is how the Blackfeet got the buffalo dance.

“The Origins of the Buffalo Dance.” StoneEproducktions, 1996. 7 November 2008. http://www.ilhawaii.net/wstang/lore02.html.

Picture: Thiessen, Mark. “Buffalo Dance”. National Geographic, 1996. http://images.google.com. 11 November 2008.