THE BUFFALO STONE

THE BUFFALO STONE

“I-nis’-kim”

By Lailani Upham

For Modern Huntsman magazine (December 2020)

BLACKFEET RESERVATION, Mont. -- Everything in the Backfoot peoples’ existence begins with a story. If you spend any time on the Blackfeet reservation in Montana or any of the Blackfoot Confederacy reserves in Canada you will hear that every living creature on the earth, sky, and water, is connected through a saga and through a ceremony.

There’s a story that was told to me by my great uncle and the Chief of the Blackfeet Nation, Earl Old Person. It is a story of our connection to buffalo. 

Earl, 91, one of the oldest and living elders of the Amskapi Pikunii (one of four bands of the Blackfoot Confederacy), kept his fluency in the old language throughout his century. The real Blackfoot language carries spirit and meaning that is lost in translation to the English language which is sadly the current language of our people due to U.S. government intrusion, but that’s another story for another day.

When you’re in the presence of Chief Earl, you’re able to surrender present day existence and enter the days of by-gone ancestors. Earl’s soothing, melodolical and thoughtful speech touch the spirit of a person; the sharing of a Blackfoot oral story is a full felt sweeping experience.

“The buffalo was our way of life,” he says. “It was everything to us. But there was a time way back when our people could not hunt the buffalo.” Earl says the time of this ancient story took place during a wicked winter. He describes a lake and a high ridge called Where The Cherries Were Smashed, located on present-day Blackfeet lands in Montana. “We have a place over here called Buffalo Lake. It is where a lot of buffalo roamed in the winter time,” he continues motioning in Indian sign language. ‘But this time they weren’t there. The people were getting hungry and they were going all over trying to find the buffalo. One woman went looking for buffalo on her own and while walking, she hear a song. She checked to see if anyone was around and could see no one. Every time she walked she heard the song. She forgot about the buffalo and started looking for this song. ‘Where is it coming from?’ As she got closer she noticed it was coming from the ground. Finally she came up on a stone, “I-nis’-kim” a buffalo stone. The stone was telling her where to find the buffalo.” And Earl begins to sing the song.

“This is the song, we use it today. Ervin Carlson has a buffalo program and they use it. They call it, “I-nis’-kim”, buffalo stone. And this is the one (stone and song) that gave the people direction.

If we don’t have a story of something that exists now - then it just isn’t so,” said Darnell Rides At The Door, Pikunii elder, knowledge keeper, and one of our traditional leaders. “That’s the way most Native people are.” She says the traditional stories bring us back to the original understanding of what makes us Blackfoot. “If we can go back and remember out story as a people of plants and animal through our ‘Napi stories’ that explain our existence with other living creatures, then we can honor other living things — on and below the earth.” Napi stories are the Blackfoot creation stories and draws pictures of how and why nature does what it does, she explains. “So the how and why of things are really important to us.” Through the stories and songs our identity to the natural world is understood not only through our mindful understanding, but more importantly through our spiritual reality and position us as “Niitsitapi” (people).

“If we don’t have a story of something that exists now - then it just isn’t so,” said Darnell Rides At The Door, Pikunii elder, knowledge keeper, and one of our traditional leaders. “And that’s the way most Native people are.”

The Iinnii is a representative of our way of life and a representative of our environment, and the way things came about in our environment. “Way back in ancient times buffalo ate people; and that’s a Napi story itself,” Darnell reminds me. It is the story of the Blackfoot genesis. Part of it tells of a day when the “Iinnii” dominated the plains. An excerpt from the English-language record, the 1892 book Blackfoot Tales book by ethnologist, writer and Blackfeet Nation friend George Bird Grinnell reads, “Those black animals with long beards were armed; and once, as the people were moving about, the buffalo saw them, and hooked them, and killed and ate them. Creator was travelling over the country and saw one of his children eaten by a buffalo. He became very sad. He said, ‘This will not do. I will change this. The people will eat the buffalo.’” The story continues the divine direction on how to hunt and use all parts of the animal in an honorable and prayerful way. Creator went on to tell the people the “Iinnii” will come to them in dreams, prayers, and ceremonies to guide them. 

“The Creator showed us how to prepare the meat from head to toe with nothing wasted,” Darnell said. “The hides went to lodges, clothing and heavy blankets. The fur and hair was made into ropes; the buffalo hooves are used in ceremonies a bring a unique sound that honors the Iinnii, paired with a song. This is a calling bringing the buffalo back.” The Iinnii has so much to offer in the life of the people she explained. The Iinnii cultivate the environment through other animals and plants. “The Iinnii is a planter of seeds. When a little buffalo bird lands on a buffalo it is there for a reason,'“ says Darnell. She says the bird puts seeds in the fur, and when the buffalo shakes around its head, it spreads the seeds to the ground. The buffalo then digs its hooves into the ground to create a culvert for the seeds to grow.

History

During the 19th century, “Iinnii” were hunted nearly to extinction by American settlers. A combination of horrific U.S. policy, non-Native land-grabs, and settler encroachment took a vast toll on the main source of sustenance for the Blackfeet. Millions of buffalo were killed, along with many Native Americans across the land. By the turn of the century, less than a hundred Iinnii remained. Buffalo were hunted for their fur and tongues, while the rest of the animal was abandoned to decay. After the animals rotted, their bones were collected and shipped back east in large quantities. It was known to the plains tribes who relied on the bison that the slaughter was a policy from the U.S. government to starve Native Americans into submission. Unlike the Indigenous tribal people who killed for food, clothing and shelter, the hunters from the East killed mostly for destruction. The Blackfoot and other plains tribes looked on with traumatized dismay as landscapes and prairies were littered with rotting buffalo carcasses. The kills were advertised excursions for “hunting by rail.” Trains encountered massive herds alongside or crossing the tracks and men aboard climbed to the roofs and took aim, and left countless 1,500-pound animals dead to rot.

Conflict Dicrimination and Resistance. 

Blackfeet Tribal Buffalo Program Director Ervin Carlson said the “Iinnii” began a trickle back on the Blackfeet reservation in 1974. The first season of return encountered little support from outsiders, as well as some disinterest from within the Blackfeet community. “They weren’t used to this wild animal anymore because they had been gone for so long,” he said. Carlson, a Native cattle rancher, explains that at the time, he didn’t totally understand or feel the connection. “I really didn’t care one way or another until they (bison) were put under my care.” Carlson was hired as the tribal Agriculture Manager in 1996 and shortly after asked to take over on the management of the bison. From the start it has been a challenging, yet rewarding, learning, growing, and even healing journey for him. 

“You’d like to think the discrimination and racism is not there and we are past those things,” says Carlson. But in many non-Native ranchers it persists, which Ervin realized after working with tribal buffalo projects in efforts to bring them back.

“You’d like to think the discrimination and racism is not there and we are past those things,” says Carlson. But in many non-Native ranchers it persists, which Ervin realized after working with tribal buffalo projects in efforts to bring them back.

Resilience

“In my early years when I was president of the InterTribal Buffalo Council, we received the 2005 Conservation Achievement award from the National Wildlife Federation for ‘extraordinary contribution to the conservation of wildlife and natural resources.’” Carlson recalls attending a large conference of congressional representatives in Washington D.C. where he spoke on behalf of the council receiving the award. He said he spoke from the heart rather than relying on a prepared speech. Carlson presented a rundown on what the Blackfeet Buffalo program was doing to restore the bison to the traditional homeland. Carlson spoke on the hurdles he witnessed firsthand around the state of Montana. “I told them that the buffalo were almost killed to extinction and the reason was, they thought if you get rid of the buffalo that’s when you are going to get rid of the Indian. I said the buffalo are still here and we are bringing the buffalo back — and we’re still here.” He remembers this statement received a loud applause; he had expected a different response. 

The “Iinnii” that many believed were lost in history are once again grazing on Blackfeet territory. The “I-nis’-kim” Buffalo Stone story is a modern-day prophecy of the Blackfoot Confederacy. 

“Hunting is a ceremony, not a sport,” said Terraine Edmo, 33, “Awanaaki” (Rattle Woman), Blackfeet Climate Change Coordinator. She explained that Iinnii always protect the people. “In a sense the buffalo  is like our leader and guides us in our way of life,” she said. “We (both Indians and buffalo) had to fight all our lives.” 

“Blackfeet people are connected to the animals,” said Joe Wagner, 34, Crazy Dog Society member. Wagner said when hunting is done as a sport it’s removes the spiritual engagement of the people with both their animal relatives and their past. “We are disconnecting our identity and stunning our spiritual growth.” 

Blackfoot people know their connection to the sacred four-legged relative to be powerful. “We learned to follow them as patterns in life. Look at the power they have to face a storm,” says Wagner. “Just as the buffalo face and walk toward a storm and know there is light on the other side; they have taught us not to turn away from our problems.” 

Edmo says the tie Blackfeet with the Iinnii is a common thread. “We’re not going anywhere; we are going to continue our being and tradition until the last.”

“Hunting is a ceremony, not a sport,” said Terraine Edmo, 33, “Awanaaki” (Rattle Woman), Blackfeet Climate Change Coordinator. She explained that Iinnii always protect the people. “In a sense the buffalo  is like our leader and guides us in our way of life,” she said. “We (both Indians and buffalo) had to fight all our lives.”

Led by Tribal Scientists, Montana’s Trumpeter Swan Revival is a Triumph

Lailani Upham reported for National Audubon Society

After two decades the Flathead Indian Reservation’s breeding program prepares for its swan song.

On a dewy summer morning in the Mission Valley, a quartet of Trumpeter Swans bobbed around a grassy pen at the Montana Waterfowl Foundation’s captive-breeding center, waiting for their checkup. By July’s end, the five-foot-long birds would be free to roam the vast Flathead Indian Reservation. But at the moment, they were being tailed by Dale Becker and his wrangling crew.

As a volunteer steadied (read: cuddled) each patient, the veterinarian drew blood and tissue, while Becker, a biologist for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes, slipped serialized bands around the swans’ necks to prepare them for release a few miles west of the center. There, the gawky brood would have a chance to join a prospering wild population that was locally extinct mere decades ago.

By the 20th century, feather collectors and subsistence hunters had killed most of the breeding Trumpeter Swans around the Rocky Mountains. Conversion of wetland habitat for agriculture accelerated the species’ decline until the mid-1900s, after which a regional reintroduction plan kicked into action. With a long history of wildlife-reintroduction programs on their land (Peregrine Falcons, northern leopard frogs, and others), the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes were inspired to help the birds, so in the late 1990s they banned swan hunting and brought in cygnets from Oregon and Canada. But when the new recruits didn’t fly back from their Idaho wintering grounds, it was clear that a more hands-on strategy was needed.

Cue the vet visits and swan tag. With funding from wildlife agencies, Becker and the tribes launched a captive-breeding program at the Montana Waterfowl Foundation. When the first incubator chicks hatched in 2001, there were no wild pairs on the reservation. But through care, persistence, and a little assistance from surrogate parents, the project was able to release 34 birds after a year. About 400 more have followed since, lending to the sprawling flock that Becker keeps watch over. 

Success and all, one of the program's biggest hurdles was that "much of the traditional knowledge on [the species] was lost when it was on the brink of extinction,” says Janene Lichtenberg, a former biologist with the tribes and current board member with the Mission Mountain Audubon Society. This was in part propelled by the assimilation of indigenous people at the turn of the last century, she adds. Children were forced to enroll in boarding schools, and as a result, weren't able to learn the natural history of the reservation firsthand. But the same kind of exchange faded across different generations of swans as well, Lichtenberg says. "Connections among older and younger birds are important for passing on information among generations such as migration routes, wintering areas, and food sources,” she explains.

With the steady release and re-entrenchment of the birds, that knowledge is being relearned, however. Every spring, the wild Trumpeter population swells a little more after a seasoned set of individuals returns from migration. Today, nearly 200 swans make camp from March to December in Flathead's carefully tended wetlands. Region-wide, the population numbers in the thousands.

The species’ growing presence is ecologically pivotal, Lichtenberg says. On the reservation, the swans drive away destructive geese, dig up aquatic plants with their feet, and deposit nutrients into the habitat. But Kari Eneas, a young wildlife biologist with the tribes, also sees the Trumpeters as an opportunity to connect with the land—and her culture—on a deeper level. Working with the reintroduction program, she says, taught her "a great deal about conservation and the importance of living intentionally." Moreover, it showed her that even a small, localized effort could have visible results. “You can’t drive through the valley corridor without spotting the large white birds bobbing in a wetland pothole,” Eneas says.

Others in the area have taken notice of the tribes’ success, too. “Landowners quickly began reaching out to learn more about what they could do to improve their ponds to attract or keep Trumpeter Swans,” Litchenberg says. “It's truly an inspiring story of environmental restoration by the tribes,” adds Jim Rogers, president of Mission Mountain Audubon Society, which has volunteered with the releases and helped garner awareness. “It serves as a reminder of what we can do given the cooperation of various agencies and dedication of sufficient resources.”

The road to recovery has posed some modern challenges. Since 2002, powerline collisions have claimed at least 27 swans (mortalities have slowed since the utility company (added flight markers), and discarded lead shot has turned up in a dead bird. Still, Becker thinks the population is stable enough to curb captive breeding. Time will tell if his latest class of cygnets fly back home next spring. But at least he knows that the fate of the local Trumpeters no longer rests on their