This might be part of the answer to the original request by dedlyperil.

'The "Buffalo Gals" or "Lubly Fan" melody is probably the source tune used for most of the texts quoted, although "De Boatman's Dance" may have been used for "Charleston Gals" since the latter's text does not fit "Lubly Fan" very well. But what does the title mean? "Buffalo Gals" and the other "gals" songs are not harmless nonesense numbers. They are not to be read just as humorous invitations to the women in the audience. The word buffalo had some specific meanings, and its appearance in the title of this song is not mere chance. Buffalo sometimes referred to black women, just as yaller gals also identified women of mixed race.' -- William J. Mahr, Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture (University of Illinois Press, 1999, p. 276).

~Masato