Lyr Add: The Buffalo Hunt

Subject: Lyr Add: THE BUFFALO HUNT
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 07 Jul 06 - 09:28 PM

THE BUFFALO HUNT
Pierre Falcon- attrib. Agnes Laut

Now list to the song of the buffalo hunt,
Which I, Pierre, the rhymester, chant of the brave!
We are Bois-Brûlés, Freemen of the plains,
We choose our chief! We are no man's slave!

Up, riders, up, ere the early mist
Ascends to salute the rising sun!
Up, rangers up, ere the buffalo herds
Sniff morning air for the hunter's gun!

They lie in their lairs of dank spear-grass,
Down in the gorge, where the prairie dips,
We've followed their tracks through the sucking ooze,
Where our bronchos sank to their steaming hips.

We've followed their tracks from the rolling plain
Through slime-green sloughs to a sedgy ravine,
Where the cattail spikes of the marsh-grown flags
Stand half as high as the billowy green.

The spear-grass touched our saddle-bows,
The blade-points pricked to the broncho's neck;
But we followed the tracks like hounds on scent
Till our horses reared with a sudden check.

The scouts dash back with a shout, "They are found!"
Great fur-maned heads are thrust through the reeds,
A forest of horns, a crunching of stems,
Reined sheer on their haunches are terrified steeds!

Get you gone to the squaws at the tents, old men,
The cart-lines safely encircle the camp!
Now, braves of the plain, brace your saddle-girths!
Quick! Load guns, for our horses champ!

A tossing of horns, a pawing of hoofs,
But the hunters utter never a word,
As the stealthy panther creeps on his prey,
So move we in silence against the herd.

With arrows ready and triggers cocked,
We round them nearer the valley bank;
They pause in defiance, then start with alarm
At the ominous sound of a gun-barrel's clank.

A wave from our captain, out bursts a wild shout,
A crash of shots from our breaking ranks,
And the herd stampedes with a thunderous boom
While we drive our spurs into quivering flanks.

The arrows hiss like a shower of snakes,
The bullets puff in a smoky gust,
Out fly loose reins from the broncho's bits
And hunters ride on in a whirl of dust.

The bellowing bulls rush blind with fear
Through river and marsh, while trampled dead
Soon bridge a safe ford for the plunging herd;
Earth rocks like a sea 'neath their mighty tread.

A rip of the sharp-curved sickle-horns,
A hunter falls to the blood-soaked ground!
He is gored and tossed and trampled down;
On dashes the furious beast with a bound.

When over sky-line hulks the last great form
And the rumbling thunder of their hoofs' beat, beat,
Dies like an echo in distant hills,
Back ride the hunters chanting their feat.

Now, old men and wives, come you out with the carts!
There's meat against hunger and fur against cold!
Gather full store for the pemmican bags,
Garner the booty of warriors bold.

So list ye the song of the Bois-Brûlés,
Of their glorious deeds in the days of old,
And this is the tale of the buffalo hunt
Which I, Pierre, the rhymester, have proudly told.

With music, adapted from "Cécilia" by Jean Klink, R. T. M. Taken from Agnes Laut, 1900, "Lords of the North," Ryerson Press, and printed with explanation and history in M. A. MacLeod, 1960, "Songs of Old Manitoba," pp. 16-22, Ryerson Press.

Explanation is needed for this song.
Pierre Falcon, "Bard of the Prairie Métis," was born in 1793 at a North West Compant post in the area of the Swan and Assiniboine River valleys. He received his education at La Prairie (now in Quebec) and in 1808 at age 15 became a clerk for the North West Company. He married and served in the area of Fort Tremblant, also farming 30 acres at Grantown (now St. François Xavier).
He composed a number of poems, setting some to known airs. Many have been lost.

He is believed to have composed "The Buffalo Hunt" at Grantown, in the 1820's-1830's. MacLeod, a Red River historian, states that there is "strong reason" to believe that Miss Laut obtained Falcon's original French song from an old Méis, and "preferred to translate into her ornate English Pierre's simple French song of the buffalo hunt". Martial Allard, an authority on Pierre Falcon's life and work, considers the greater part of the song is sufficiently like Falcon's work to be his composition.

The buffalo hunts of the time of the Red River Settlement (in present-day Manitoba) were against herds of many thousands, and included priests, wives to cook, hired butchers and suppliers with carts of supplies, some from Minnesota; the hunts were carried out by large, well-organized parties of 1000 or more. In 1840, the Red River Settlement sent 1210 carts to the spring hunt. The herds ranged from the eastern Woodlands to the Foothills of the Rockies, and from the Saskatchewan River on the north to the Missouri River on the south.
Hunters, equipped by the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Garry, gathered at White Horse Plain and camped around Grantown to organize and prepare for months away from home. In early June, the hunters and brigades of carts set off.
The Council of the Hunt was elected, usually during a stopover at Pembina Crossing. "John Norqual, an early native-born Premier of Manitoba, wrote that on this stop "officers, or captains, were chosen, men detailed for duty- guards, scouts, etc., rules and regulations laid down and proclaimed for the whole party."" They had to protect themselves and their supplies from the Sioux. Cuthbert Grant, Pierre Falcon's brother in law, was President of the hunt for a period, many of his Métis were officers of the Red River Hunt, "the most highly organized hunting expedition in the world."
Class distinctions were preserved- the Métis, English half-breeds and Indians had "separate camps in which their daily life functioned."
During the actual hunt, each man dropped an article to mark his kills before moving on, coming back after the hunt to claim his kills.
After the hunt, the women (some hired for their skill) skin and dress the animals, prepare the meat and pemmican and the hides for clothes.