More than a century after the decimation of Oklahoma's bison population, the Kiowa Tribe is bringing back an integral part of their culture and connection to the Creator. In March, the Kiowa community welcomed 10 young buffalo to their homelands in southwest Oklahoma and is already looking to expand the herd.
"Buffalo were very integral in our Sundance religion," Kiowa Chairman Lawrence Spottedbird said. "Although I don't believe we'll ever try to restore the Sundance, the Buffalo was our link in a cycle of life and our link to God."
Brian Hosmer is Professor and Head of the History Department at Oklahoma State University. He said competition among tribes in the area, combined with the growth of settlers and U.S. policies, significantly contributed to the decline of the bison.
"Policy makers in the 1860s came to recognize that the bison are both unbelievably beneficial to these communities, but also their Achilles heel, because if you destroy the bison, you destroy their capacity to take care of themselves," Hosmer said. "So there is a deliberate effort to wipe out the bison."
He noted the industrialization going on at the time, and the expansion of railroads also led to the bison's downfall because they were able to be shipped to the east for food, and their bones could be ground up for fertilizer. Once the buffalo were effectively wiped out in the area, the focus changed from bison to cattle.
Now, another shift in the bison narrative is changing.
The Kiowa Tribe worked with the Intertribal Buffalo Council to get the bison from the City of Denver to their new 120-acre home near the tribe's headquarters in Carnegie last spring.
"It's a restorative process, both culturally and spiritually," Spottedbird said. "The buffalo primarily are going to be for harvesting to distribute to our tribal citizens… and so restoring some of the components that are lost to us as tribal plains, tribal people, and starting to heal our spirits."
The process of welcoming more buffalo is part of a larger plan, Spottedbird calls "The Kiowa Healing Way," to cultivate a healthy community through bringing back parts of their culture that were lost, including their language, bison and potentially horses.
Recently, Kiowa leaders met with the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge to discuss expanding the herd to include 100 buffalo. Spottedbird says to make that happen, they need to put up nine miles of fencing and ensure the buffalo will have access to fresh water and grass on the 2,000 acres of land that will be their new home.
He estimates it will take at least six months to assemble the enclosure. Once that happens and the herd can expand, the buffalo can then be harvested for food.
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