Blood Memory: The Tragic Decline and Improbable Resurrection of the American Buffalo

Producer Duncan and documentary filmmaker Burns (The Dust Bowl) present an elegiac complement to their PBS series, The American Buffalo. The authors highlight how Indigenous people lived with, revered, and used buffalo for food and shelter for thousands of years before the establishment of the first British colonies in North America: “It became a relationship so immediate and personal, I think, that they had to formulate an idea of the buffalo being equal to them in many ways,” says Kiowa poet N. Scott Momaday. Duncan and Burns argue that U.S. government officials looked approvingly on the carnage wrought by buffalo hunters in the second half of the 19th century because they believed that it would force Native Americans to remain on reservations and take up farming. Conservation efforts brought the species back from the brink of extinction (a Smithsonian taxidermist estimated that by 1889, only 541 buffalo remained in the U.S.), the authors write, noting the InterTribal Buffalo Council has since 1991 relocated buffalo herds from Yellowstone to 80 tribes across the U.S. The enlightening interviews place a welcome emphasis on Native American perspectives, and the lavish photography demonstrates both the buffalo’s majesty and the horrific scale of their slaughter. This will bring readers to tears, then fill them with hope. Photos. (Nov.)