Tuesday, March 23, 2010

One with nature: 1793

Every step you travel you meet with heads and carcases of dead buffaloes. When an Indian has a mind to kill many of them, he mounts his horse, with bow and a case containing several scores of arrows: he throws the reins loose about the horse's neck, who knows by constant practice his rider's intention, and gallops with all his speed through the middle of the herd of buffaloes. The Indian shoots as he goes along, until he expends his last arrow, then returns to pick up his prey, and from such as he finds dead he cuts out the tongue and the lump on the back, which he carries away with him; the rest of the carcase he leaves to wolves and other ravenous animals.
--From The Bee, or literary intelligencer--

 There goes another idealized image, right in the garbage can!

1 comment:

Pete said...

No way, Jason. Everyone knows Native Americans have been, and always will be, stewards of the earth. The movie Avatar has proven it so. Not this contemporaneous eyewitness account written by some white European.