See if you can pick out the males. They weigh twice as much (2,000 pounds!) and have bigger humps. Keep in mind these animals can run at forty miles per hour, too, then imagine Native warriors chasing them down on horseback with lances or bows and arrows—and on foot for centuries before Spanish horses ran wild… This is our country. This is America.
We came across these beasts about five miles east of Cimarron on the return leg of my birthday trip to Capulin volcano. There were almost three dozen in all. Obviously a rancher’s private herd (most had ear tags), since they don’t roam free these days—more’s the pity—but that made no difference. I hit the brakes at sixty miles per hour and pulled to a stop. The presence of the animals was staggering for what they meant to me. The Utes, Comanches, and other tribes considered them sacred signs of the Creator’s plan. They represent prayer and abundance. Last Wednesday morning, it all washed over me. After very carefully approaching the fence some distance from the herd, I took a great many photos before returning to the car, where I sat in the driver’s seat and started to cry. This was about more than buffalo, but very much related. I don’t know if I can ever get that across or whether I should even try.
It has to to with finding the way back. Not historically, but spiritually. (The landscape of New Mexico has much the same effect.) For me, it’s as if my life has come full circle and I’m free again. Don’t let anybody tell you that can’t happen, and leave some markers on the way.
John Hamilton Farr lives at 7,000 feet in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, U.S.A. As New York Times best-selling author James C. Moore tells it, John is “a man attuned to the world who sees it differently than you and I and writes about it with a language and a vision of life that is impossible to ignore.” This JHFARR.COM site is the master writing archive. To email John, please see CONTACT INFO on .png)
The big ones are the males?
I figure!
Truly a great and majestic animal. I would liked to have seen the
thundering herds of the 1800’s.
They don’t spook, either. There’s a place in Colorado where we saw some without any fences between us. I shot photos from behind the car. 🙂
Happy rebirthday John!
Thanks, John. We’ll see!
Long ago the Kiowa gave some buffalo to the Pueblo. They now have a good sized herd. The Taos Pueblo people call them the Vanishing People. The young boys undergoing kiva training eat pre-white man traditional food including the pueblo’s buffalo. You can often see these animals from El Prado, or even closer on El Salto.
Thanks for these details. But I’m wondering if you’ve ever read my first book, Buffalo Lights. 🙂 From “Prologue: The Myth”…
“We were driving home after dark from Taos to San Cristobal the way we usually did, past the Indian lands to the east. As we neared the place where Kathy liked to spot the pueblo’s dark brown buffalo herd at the foot of the mountain, she stared into the deepening gloom and mused, ‘They sure would be easier to see if they’d put lights on them.’
Buffalo lights! How utterly improbable yet somehow plausible in the context of this place. Whether she knew it or not, she had created a nugget of myth that would tie us to the great beasts forever, for neither of us would ever pass that way again without remembering.”
Also the cow’s horns curve in more than the bull’s
Yes, I noticed that!
Great beasts! Beautiful picture! Reminders of my ancestor’s past.
Ain’t they somethin’?
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