[THUNDER]
NARRATOR: Rain comes to the prairies,
slaking the parched ground, and creating a sea of grass.
[RAIN]
In the past, rain brought a time of plenty for the buffalo.
And for the many tribes of Plains Indians
that depended on the migrating herds.
- There were no boundaries.
Where the buffalo went, we went.
And it provided for us in so many ways.
They were the main source of food.
And then the hides were used for clothing, lodges,
the bones were tools, weapons.
We depended on this animal so much
that it became a spiritual connection.
There's something in your heart that
tells you this is our brother, this is our family.
NARRATOR: That sacred relationship
was reinforced by dances and ceremonies.
A painted buffalo skull carried prayers
to draw the wandering herds close to the village and offer
thanks for a successful hunt.
But this sacred bond between buffalo and the Indians,
along with a world they shared, was under threat.
Within a few decades, in the second half
of the 19th century, the herds would be gone.
William Hornaday documented this disaster
in a book published in 1889 called The Extermination
of the American Bison, in which he wrote,
the primary cause of the buffaloes' extermination
was the descent of civilization, with all its elements
of destructiveness upon the whole of the country inhabited
by that animal.