Mandan Village Life

Corn Husking Story

Blackfeet Men and Women

Hunting Buffalo

Blackfeet War Party

Hunting Buffalo

Just as groups of women took responsibility for farming or gathering roots and other foodstuffs, it was the job of the men to hunt and obtain meat for their villages.

At their most elaborate, hunting parties would create traps for large animals or would move systematically through the woods, driving small game towards a second group prepared to fire on them. But even in winter, groups of men would travel together for efficiency and safety.

This scene of buffalo hunters was painted by Captain Seth Eastman (1809–1875), a West Point graduate who served in the United States army throughout the West. Henry Rowe Schoolcraft’s study of American Indian life was commissioned by the United States Congress.

Seth Eastman. “Hunting Buffalo in Winter,” prepared to illustrate Henry Rowe Schoolcraft’s Historical and statistical information respecting the history, condition and prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States, Watercolor, 1853.