American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon
By Steven Rinella
Spiegel & Grau; 277 pages
The Gist:
Rinella one-ups his previous book, The Scavenger's Guide to Haute Cuisine (we're talking pigeons, sparrows, raccoons, etc.), by going after the massive and mythical buffalo. "In the spring of 2005," he writes, "the state of Alaska announced that it was issuing twenty-four hunting permits for the Copper River buffalo herd." He and 1,302 other hunters sent in their applications. Rinella won a permit, and off he went, on both a literal and an intellectual expedition, hoping to get one of the creatures in his rifle sights while also exploring the history, misconceptions and science behind the beast.
Highlight Reel:
1. On "buffalo jumps," places where hunters would chase buffalo off the side of a cliff and then reap the rewards at the bottom of the fall: "The Blackfoot term for a buffalo jump is pishkun, which translates roughly to 'deep blood kettle' ... Anyone whose sensitivities are disturbed by modern slaughterhouse practices would be utterly repulsed by the mayhem at the foot of a buffalo jump. In the fall, buffalo suffered compound fractures. Splintered femurs were driven far enough into bodies to puncture stomachs and spill contents. Buffalo landed on other buffalo. Their horns and hooves ripped into each other's hides and flesh. The backs of the buffalo's eyes turned red with blood. Unhurt animals were trapped under the weight of their herd members. Calves wandered about in a daze, bellowing for their mothers. Severely injured buffalo regurgitated food and choked on their tongues."
2. On the grubbiness of buffalo-hide hunters in the 1800s: "Their blankets would get so full of lice and bedbugs that they'd lay them on anthills so that ants could carry away the larvae. The hunters would often eat little else besides buffalo. Beginners, or 'tenderfeet,' would start out eating prime cuts, but within months they suffered nutrient deficiencies that caused their tongues to break out in lesions ... Some hunters seasoned meat with gunpowder for a peppery effect. If they were away from water, they'd open a dead buffalo's stomach and use their fingers to filter out the bits of vegetation while they slurped the watery ooze."
3. On shooting a buffalo: "Killing a large animal inevitably gives me a sense of sorrow. I know it will hit me before it does, the way you go to bed drunk knowing you'll be hungover in the morning. It hurts as I run my fingers through the tangled mane of the buffalo's neck. The animal feels so solid, so substantive ... Seeing the dead buffalo, I feel an amalgamation of many things: thankfulness for the meat, an appreciation for the animal's beauty, a regard for the history of the species and, yes, a touch of guilt. Any one of those feelings would be a passing sensation, but together they make me feel emotionally swollen."
The Lowdown:
When a book opens with a paean to the wonderful smell of burning buffalo dung — "At times I've dipped my face into the smoke and picked up the odors of cinnamon and cloves, dried straw and pumpkins" — you know it's going to be a dirty read. But there's really no other way to talk about hunting, and Rinella's tale of tracking buffalo in Alaska is alluringly visceral in its description. His multichapter description of killing, skinning and chopping up a buffalo cow is alternately stomach-turning and riveting. It's easy to understand the allure of hunting, of respecting and living off the land, under Rinella's unsentimental tutelage.
The Verdict: Read