"Back in the day, when the Lakota were strong people, there was no such thing as a fat Indian."
Twice this week we've had buffalo for dinner, the first time up at La Fonda in Santa Fe during the IAIA scholarship dinner and auction, and then last night just because we could do so -- with a steak from the market.
I have to confess, we like buffalo meat. Not only does it taste better than beef, it is seemingly much "cleaner" as well. Some of the Pueblos around here are breeding and raising buffalo with the intention of returning more of them to the range. Given the number of cattle that are currently range-raised in this area, returning buffalo to the high plains should be a no brainer -- though I'm not altogether sure the high plains of New Mexico were buffalo range back in the day. If they weren't they should have been. Or they might have been. Or they could have been.
I'm sure some of the ranchers in these parts would get a bit tense if someone started running buffalo instead of cattle on their range. There is a heavy weight of myth and fancy to overcome, after all. Buffalo were exterminated as pests in the 19th century, but more than that, they were seen as devil-beasts, scary creatures that couldn't be tamed. And they were food and clothing and shelter for the Indians. Which was even scarier.
