Informational Content-The Bison

By: Christine Miskonoodinkwe Smith

Informational Content- The Bison:

Christine Miskonoodinkwe Smith

The Bison and the Seven Grandfather Teachings

The Bison, who come from two oxlike grazing animals and are commonly known as the buffalo or the Plains Buffalo play an important role within the Seven Grandfather Teachings of First Nations people in Canada. Bison are considered sacred and are linked to the Seven Grandfather Teachings. When a First Nations person thinks of the teaching of “Respect,” it is immediately thought that “Respect is the gift from the Buffalo. In all life, respect is the first and foremost. Respect for yourself and respect will be bestowed (i.e. treat your body with respect and it will look after itself; treat it with poison and it will destroy itself).”

Despite where our teachings come from, in the Indigenous worldview “we all share the same concepts” of the Seven Grandfather Teachings- which is “abiding by a moral respect for all living things.”

Bison are native to North America and to the European bison. It is originally believed that at one point in history, there was an estimated 50 million bison that roamed over North America when European people arrived, but that number was drastically reduced to the overabundance of hunting.

Sometimes, people can mix up what the American bison looks like but due to their size, they have a pronounced hump at their shoulders and have a very broad head. These distinctions make them very different, especially if you were to see a bison standing beside a domestic cattle or oxen because the bison are also larger in size.

The bison also has interesting characteristics that make them stand out from your average domestic cattle and/or oxen, because due to the large size of their heads, and the pure weight of it, bison can only carry their heads low and cannot raise their head to shoulder level.

Another interesting fact about the bison is that they have 14 ribs, whereas cattle have 13 ribs. Their fur is coarse and shaggy and dark brown in colour. Their hair grows especially long on the head, neck and shoulders and forms a beard on their chin. The bison sport short upcurved horns and are considered large powerful animals. Never get out of your car and try to go near one! They will run you down faster than you can shake your head!

The bison, despite their size are very agile and fast, and though they have a heavy type of walk, they have been known to clock speeds of 65km (40 miles) per hour.

Bison live in small groups or bands which consist of one or more females and several generations of their offspring. Adult males tend to live at the edge of the group or band and are known to create their own band. Bison have short seasonal migrations and only move a few hundred kilometres southward in the winter and then back north when the weather warms up.

You would never guess that with the size of the bison, that they eat grass and herbs and will sometimes eat twigs and leaves.

 

(this is just an example of further writing I can do-educational content writing. It can also be more developed than this.)