Publisher's Synopsis
Combining extensive field research on live herds with the study of historical records, Tom McHugh offers a rare closeup of the buffalo's habits and life cycle, detailing such aspects as mating, calving, stampedes, play, and aggression. In equally fascinating detail he tells how the Plains Indians used the buffalo for food, clothing, and shelter, and endowed it with spirit; how the European settlers viewed it first as an object of awe and then as a source of plunder and how, by nearly exterminating this single species, they destroyed all the Plains cultures. An account of the movement to save the buffalo completes this informative and moving work-the 1972 winner of the Western Writers of America Spur Award in the nonfiction category as well as being voted the year's best western historical book by the National Cowboy Hall of Fame.
