Head Smashed in buffalo jump

We saw quite a lot of things while we were there. We tasted a 'Blackfoot' bread, that was fried in oil. It was very light, and fluffy, and served with jam. We all loved it and got the recipe.
2 cup flour
2 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
It is made by making a flat circle of dough, with a thinner area in the middle and was about 3 inches wide. We are going to try it one day with whole wheat flour and see if it tastes good as a treat.


After that we went to a puppet show and learned some 'Blackfoot' words. The kids learned dog... which sounded like 'kneetoe'. Horse was spoken to mean ELK-DOG because the Blackfoot thought that they looked like Elk, but could do the work of a dog. (Dogs were pack animals, and worked very hard.)

We also saw a puppet play about a legend of the god "Napi" that created all the animals. He gave his warm robe to a rock, because it was too hot to carry, and then took it back. So the rock got angry and followed him. Many animals tried to help him, but were unable to stop the rock. It was a good story too!

The next picture is the view from the front of the interpretive center. It is a gorgeous look of the prairie! We love the big sky, open fields, and just that huge open space. (and the lack of snow!)

Then there is a picture of the cliff.
All the clans would gather here once a year to hunt the buffalo. This was before guns. The tribes would place brush and rocks in piles along miles into the prairie, that would create a funnel driving the buffalo to narrow lanes and then right off the cliff. The buffalo had very bad eye site, and would take the brush and rocks and walls, and would not see the cliff until they fell over it.

The Name Head Smashed In comes from a boy who decide to watch the buffalo fall over the cliff from below, the hunt was more then normal that year, and the buffalo carcases landed on him, and the name became ... head smashed in (Yuck!). Good excuse to listen to parents next time.. eh?

There is a huge cliff inside with buffalo on top, and under it shows how archaeologists excavate the area.

We have been studying ancient languages and nomads in history. This fit in well to some of the displays we saw. Here is a large calender that was created to keep track of major events in time. Things like small pox, police coming, berries left on the trees all winter, and the last symbol was all the buffalo gone.

This last picture represents the coats that the Eurpeon's wanted. Millions of buffalo were killed, just for their fur. Others were killed for sport. People would see them out the train windows and would see how many they could shoot as the went by a herd.

Millions and Millions of buffalo, we lost. Finally a society was created to preserve that last remaining 1000 buffalo.

This prevented them from becoming extinct, but did not prevent the many Native Americans from starving!

It was a very educational and fun day!