Legend of the Buffalo Dance (Blackfoot myth)

Author: Traditional Blackfoot

Time Period: 1001 CE–1500 CE

Country or Culture: North America

Genre: Folktale

PLOT SUMMARY

The legend of the Buffalo Dance tells the story of how the buffalo befriended the Blackfeet (or Blackfoot) people. Like most Great Plains people, the buffalo was central to the lifestyle of the Blackfeet tribe and considered an animal with great spiritual powers. Before they acquired horses from tribes further to the south, Plains tribes hunted the buffalo by using a buffalo jump. Hunters would try to stampede the herds of buffalo toward a high hill with a sharp cliff or drop-off, and many buffalo would be killed as they plunged over this edge. The legend of the Buffalo Dance tells of a time when the buffalo would not go over the cliff, thus leaving the people hungry and in great need.

A young woman goes out early one morning to fetch water from a source below the cliff. She sees a herd of buffalo grazing and cries out to them, promising to marry one of them if they will jump over the cliff. To her surprise, the buffalo begin running over the jump, and her people are supplied with meat, hides, and other resources from the buffalo in plenty. But a large bull buffalo requires that she fulfill her promise and marry him.

Later, the young woman’s father misses her from their camp and begins to search for her. He asks a magpie to help search for her. The magpie finds the young woman, but she warns her father that he will be killed if he tries to rescue her. As she fears, the buffalo tramples her father to death. But when the buffalo who had married the young woman sees her sorrow, he takes pity on her and tells her that if she can bring her father back to life, then she and her father can safely return to her people. She asks the magpie for help, and the bird finds a joint from her father’s backbone. Through spiritual songs, she restores the body of her father and, through further singing, brings him back to life. The buffalo-husband admits that strange things have taken place and notes, “The people’s holy power is strong” (Campbell 285). The buffalo then teaches the woman and her father the dance and song of the buffalo, and when they return to the tribe, they teach these to a select group of young men who perform the dance to assure that the buffalo will continue to come back to life after being killed for the needs of the people.

SIGNIFICANCE

The Blackfeet people live in central and eastern Montana and northward into the western Plains region of Canada. Today, there are three Blackfeet reserves in the Canadian province of Alberta and one reservation in Montana, but not all tribal members live on these reservations.

Like most of the tribes that inhabited the North American Great Plains, the Blackfeet depended on the vast herds of buffalo that roamed their homelands. The buffalo was the principal source of food, but the hides, bones, sinew, hair, and horns were all used for a variety of purposes. Buffalo were considered animals with great spiritual power as well, and significant beliefs and rituals associated with the buffalo are found among virtually all Plains peoples. A common spiritual theme among many hunting tribes is an account of how the hunted animal has, sometime in the past, given the people permission to kill it, if good use is made of the food and other resources the animal represents and if proper ritual and respect is demonstrated. In the story of the Buffalo Dance, the young woman represents a human who is willing to make a sacrifice for the good of her people—if the buffalo will go over the cliff to provide food for her people, she will marry one of the buffalo. The magpie, who helps the father find his daughter and then finds the piece of bone that allows the young woman to reconstitute her father’s body and then bring it to life, represents an intermediary figure, a creature that can connect the world of humans with the spirit world that surrounds him. Thus, the magpie may represent the role of the shaman in Blackfoot life. Shamans, whom early European observers often called “medicine men,” were men or women who had the ability to contact the spirit world directly in order to find guidance and power for their people. After the young woman’s spiritual songs resurrect her father, the buffalo-husband recognizes the great spiritual power of the humans and agrees to teach the woman and her father the song and dance that will allow them to bring the buffalo back to life after they have been killed to provide for the needs of the people. Thus, the people can make use of the resources the buffalo provide but still have a confident hope that the buffalo will continue to exist for the future needs of the people. As the young woman had sacrificed herself, the buffalo are willing to give themselves for the benefit of the Blackfeet people.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bullchild, Percy, and Woody Kipp. The Sun Came Down: The History of the World as My Blackfoot Elders Told It. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2005. Print.

Campbell, Joseph. The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology. 1959. New York: Penguin, 1976. 282–86. Print.

Grinnell, George Bird. “Origin of the I-kun-uh’-kah-tsi: The Bull Band.” Blackfoot Lodge Tales: The Story of a Prairie People. New York: Scribner’s, 1915. 104–7. Print.

Hefner, Alan G. “Legend of the Buffalo Dance.” Encyclopedia Mythica. Encyc. Mythica, 2005. Web. 18 June 2013.

Hungry Wolf, Beverly. The Ways of My Grandmothers. New York: Morrow, 1998. Print.

McClintock, Walter. The Old North Trail; or, Life, Legends, and Religion of the Blackfeet Indians. 1910. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1993. Print.

Wissler, Clark, and David C. Duvall, comp. and trans. Mythology of the Blackfoot Indians. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1995. Print.