Buffalo Dance
The Buffalo Dance is a significant ceremonial performance traditionally associated with the Mandan and other Plains Indigenous Americans, aimed at ensuring a successful buffalo hunt. This dance is deeply rooted in Mandan culture, originating from a legend involving a white buffalo that led a shaman to learn the dance from the "buffalo people" in the sky. During the ceremony, participants known as the Bull Dancers don buffalo head masks and use buffalo hide shields, embodying the spirit of the buffalo as they dance vigorously until exhaustion. Women play a crucial role by preparing corn meal mush and performing dances to attract buffalo to their camp.
Historically, the Buffalo Dance faced suppression, particularly after the near extinction of buffalo in the 1800s and subsequent bans imposed by reservation officials. However, it experienced a revival in the 1930s when buffalo populations began to recover, although often performed for tourists. Today, while the dance is no longer conducted before hunts, it remains a vital cultural expression for many Plains tribes, celebrated at powwows and special events to honor the buffalo and their connection to nature. This ongoing practice highlights the dance's enduring significance in Indigenous cultural heritage.
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Buffalo Dance
- TRIBE AFFECTED: Mandan and other Plains Indigenous Americans
- SIGNIFICANCE: The Buffalo Dance and ceremony were meant to ensure an adequate supply of buffalo from the hunt
The Mandan, a hunting people of the northern Great Plains, performed the Buffalo Dance before the yearly hunt to ensure success. A special society, the Bull Dancers, wore buffalo head masks with eye and nose holes. The dancers carried buffalo hide shields and long lances. They had buffalo tails tied around their knees and danced until they fell to the ground from exhaustion. Then, they were dragged away by other members of the tribe and symbolically skinned and butchered. According to Mandan tradition, this Indigenous American dance originated when a white buffalo took a shaman to the home of the “buffalo people” in the sky. Here, he was taught the dance, and he brought it back to his people. As part of the dance ceremony, Mandan women prepare two large kettles of corn meal mush—which buffaloes enjoy—and set them out at the edge of the village. Women in the White Buffalo Society lure buffalo to the camp by wearing buffalo robes and dancing wildly. As the dance ends, the performers say a prayer to the gods, thanking them for all they have provided and asking for their help in living as the gods wish. The dancers then eat the mush.
Buffalo dancing had stopped by 1900—the buffalo were gone with the American buffalo slaughter of the 1800s, so there was no longer a reason to perform the dance. White reservation officials had already banned buffalo dancing because of its “pagan” nature. Only in the 1930s, with buffalo herds restored to a few areas of the Great Plains, was the dance performed again, though mostly for the benefit of tourists.
In the twenty-first century, the Buffalo Dance was no longer performed before a hunt. However, many Plains tribes of Indigenous Americans continued to perform the ceremony to honor their deep connection to the buffalo and all forms of nature as an integral part of their culture. The Buffalo Dance was performed at powwows and special celebrations, and its importance, as well as the importance of the buffalo, has been passed down through generations.
Bibliography
"Buffalo Dance, Mandan." Smithsonian American Art Museum, americanart.si.edu/artwork/buffalo-dance-mandan-3962. Accessed 26 Sept. 2024.
Mark, Joshua J. "Mandan Buffalo Dance." World History Encyclopedia, 22 Sept. 2023, www.worldhistory.org/article/2284/mandan-buffalo-dance. Accessed 26 Sept. 2024.