Bison Bison…Buffalo’s Real Name 

•June 5, 2024•

by Janet Roney

As my grandmother unfolded the dark hairy blanket trimmed in red and black she had pulled down from the shelf in her cedar closet, bits and tufts of loose hair swirled in the sunlight coming through her window.  

“Take a good look at it,” she said. “Someday soon, robes like this may be all that’s left of buffalo. Your great uncle Clem sent me this from Oklahoma Territory back in the 1890s.”    

I don’t know what happened to that old buffalo robe, but we all do know what happened to the vast herds of American bison, a.k.a. buffalo, out west. Their slaughter and near extermination from the Great Plains west of the Mississippi is a sad chapter in American history.  

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