The Buffalo

You cannot harm me.

You cannot harm

One who has dreamed a dream like mine,

One who has seen the buffalo in their mighty lodge

And heard them say,

"Arrows cannot harm you now!"

 Sioux/Chippewa chant sung in times of danger to invoke the protective, invincible spirit of the buffalo.

After the Louisiana Purchase was signed in 1803 and during our country’s westward expansion (which lasted from 1803-1890) the Indigenous people of the Americas, or “the savages” as they were commonly called in those days, put up quite a fight. After all, they had been living here for over twenty thousand years before the United States government decided that it wanted all of their land and resources. And that it would use any means to get it.

But those Native Americans were not going to go quietly, that much was clear. Our government fought and fought and fought. And fought some more. When that didn’t seem to be working we started to give the indigenous folks some presents. We gave them food and drink laced with toxins. We poisoned their wells. We presented them with blankets and clothing purposefully infected with all sorts of European diseases to annihilate them. These “gifts” exposed them to measles, influenza, and the like. But it was the smallpox blankets that seemed to work the best at total devastation, wiping out entire tribes after only a few years.

We used poison, biological agents and environmental contaminants on their crops to get rid of them, and yet…too many (apparently) survived and kept on fighting for their land. For their rights. The natives were fast and stealthy and ruthless on horseback. They knew the land and the conditions of that land better than any newly arrived conscript in our war against them. They knew exactly where to attack and exactly where to hide. The American Indian Wars lasted from the 17th century into the early 20th century. Those “natives”, it seemed, were here to stay.

Until, that is, the American military and the federal government joined forces in 1869 and gave the Native Americans an ultimatum. "Give up your way of life. Adopt our way of life. Or be exterminated." The indigenous people who had enjoyed living their way of life for tens of thousands of years responded with an emphatic “No!” So it was decided that if we couldn't kill every Native American out there we would kill all the buffalo instead. We would, it was decided, “starve the Indians out.” As most indigenous tribes depended almost entirely on the buffalo for survival, using them as their primary food source, as well as for their clothing, shoes and shelter (their dwellings were made from buffalo leather) we would simply destroy the buffalo, destroying the tribes in the process, and then do a massive land grab.

William T. Sherman and Phillip Sheridan were the primary architects of the “wipe them all out” policy, a diabolical plan to destroy every living buffalo in North America. Before this plan was set in motion there were approximately 50 million buffalo roaming free through our country. At the end of the campaign there were approximately 500 left. Most of those were shipped to zoos.

And so the West was won! Or, as the comedian Louis C.K. likes to remind us “it’s absolutely amazing what can be accomplished when you refuse to let death, starvation, and human suffering stand in your way.”

Several years ago I had the good fortune to visit Ted Turner’s Flying D. Ranch in Montana for a photo shoot. Ted Turner was committed to re-establishing herds of buffalo and on his 115,000 acre ranch he has several healthy thriving herds. As a fashion photographer I was using the buffalo more as a set piece, a sort of fabulous accessory to the photographs we were taking. For several images I had the model stand in front of them while they placidly grazed. They were generally compliant but a few of the larger males looked pissed off that they were not the main draw. And trust me on this, a large and and obviously peeved male buffalo is not something you want to get too close to. The model had never seen a live buffalo before and truth be told, neither had I. “Go stand right next to them,” I ordered her as I hid behind my camera, keeping a safe distance. The buffalo amazed me. They are prehistoric looking and majestic, each one strong and heavily muscled, with a thick coat and massive head. They are also surprisingly speedy when they want to be.

On the last day of our shoot some very bad weather was coming in fast. Before we could even see it we could feel it in our bones. The wind picked up and its direction changed dramatically. In the frigid gusts was the sharp smell of snow and ice and mayhem. “Storm’s coming - time to pack it up - and hurry,” Chuck (the rancher who had been assigned to our crew to make sure we didn’t get lost on the seemingly endless property) alerted us. And so we did. We threw all our stuff into bags and hurried to our vans, running (in our completely impractical fashion footwear) over the wide windswept plains like a clumsy herd of New York City-bred fashionistas. But not the buffalo. The buffalo did move but it was slow and lumbering and deliberate. What they did shocked me. One and all they maneuvered their massive bulk, not away from the incoming weather but straight into it. Some of them even began to walk, and then trot, directly in the direction that the storm was coming from.

“What are they doing?” I asked Chuck. “They’re gonna get slammed.” At that Chuck simply smiled. “That’s what they do. The cow and sheep and all them run from the storms. First minute they sense that front moving in they run pell-mell for shelter, try to find a tree or copse of bushes or something. But the buffalo run into the storm.”

“Thats weird,” I thought as we sped off to safety, “who runs into a storm?” Back at the ranch, while a blizzard raged spectacularly outside the large arched windows, I settled down in front of a roaring fire and got lost in a rabbit hole of buffalo and their behaviors. Turns out that buffalo are one of the only animals on Planet Earth that will charge directly into a storm. They do this in an effort to get through the adversity of the storm as quickly as possible. When storms rage across the plains, as they often do, it is the cows, not the buffalo, who suffer the worst consequences. Because the cows cannot outrun these storms they run with them, often getting trapped in the storm for much longer periods than the herds of buffalo. By running directly into and then through the storm the buffalo spend less time in the hazardous conditions. This in turn minimizes the herd’s overall time spent in the dangerous weather. Although this method of theirs - charging right on through - requires a lot of energy and is physically intense, the buffalo emerge on the other side of the storm in less time. And much less collective damage is done to the herd overall.

During my deep dive into the wild world of the buffalo I also found out that “Be The Buffalo” is a metaphoric slogan often used in leadership seminars to help people overcome personal adversity.

“We need to face our challenges head on. We need to get through them. If we run away from them they will just catch up with us eventually and bite us in the ass. Be the buffalo!!!” one motivation coach yelled at me from the comfort of his YouTube page.

He has a point. I was never the buffalo when I was actively addicted to drugs and alcohol. I would simply run like a demon away from whatever was bedeviling me at the time. “I’ll just drink and drug this gathering storm away,” I would assure myself. But it never worked. Even if I blacked out and forgot my own personal tornadoes for a few hours, when I woke up they were always there, waiting for me to come to. And then I would have to face them anyway, but now with the additional burden of a shame-laden hangover on top of the initial problem I had been running from in the first place. This un-buffalo-like behavior just made everything worse. And worse. And worse.

Today the buffalo are coming back. And there are new laws being passed to protect and support the indigenous tribes of North America as well. “Too little too late!” many (myself included) will cry. But at least a movement has started which hopefully, with increased awareness, will gain strength and attention as the years pass.

The buffalo survived their trials and tribulations. In some regards the indigenous people of our country have done so too. The many languages of the Native Americans are being taught to their children once again. As are their customs, games, ceremonies and music. Some tribes are even successfully buying back their ancestral territories from the government using government grants and conservation funds.

My astrological sign is Aries, ruled by Mars and governed by fire. The animal which represents this sign is a ram, with big bold horns and a supposedly "fearless" disposition. Like the buffalo, Aries are supposed to be able to "charge on through", using our horns to simply jettison whatever is bothering us out of the way. Now if I can only remember that I am a ram, and if I can "be the buffalo" at the same time I just might be able to survive (and get through quickly) life's many storms.

And hopefully with a minimum of damage.