New PBS documentary features Menominee Nation reconnecting with the buffalo

KESHENA – Guy Reiter, whose Menominee name is Anahkwet, is featured at the end of an 18-minute companion documentary to Ken Burns’ “The American Buffalo,” which premiered Oct. 16 on PBS.

Reiter leads an organization, Menīkānaehkem (Menominee Rebuilders), that's focused on rebuilding Menominee community and cultural ways, including trying to reconnect all Menominee people with the buffalo that once roamed freely in what is now Wisconsin.

The companion documentary “Homecoming” highlights the work of the Inter-Tribal Buffalo Council, which helps facilitate the transfer of 200 buffalo to tribal nations each winter.

Last winter, the Menominee Nation received 10 Pesaehkiw (Menominee for "buffalo") from The Nature Conservancy in Illinois as part of the program.

In "Homecoming," Reiter and other Menominee celebrate with a lot of emotion as they received the buffalo and talk about its importance to the tribe.

Bryant Waupoose now helps manage the Menominee herd for Medicine Fish, a nonprofit he founded.

“It wasn’t just the plains Indians, but all Indians have this connection with the buffalo,” Waupoose said.

The Menominee are considered Woodland Indians and the buffalo in the American imagination is largely associated with Western Indians from the plains.

But archeological evidence proves that buffalo once roamed by the hundreds of millions over much of North America, including in Wisconsin, where Menominee have lived for at least 10,000 years.

Waupoose said there’s a lot that people can learn from buffalo, such as how they can help improve the ecosystem.

For example, native prairie grass is dependent on buffalo to graze, crush and fertilize, so it can be revitalized. Buffalo are dependent on prairie grass for sustenance.

Tribal peoples were once dependent on buffalo in much the same way.

“It’s all interrelated,” Waupoose said. “That’s what they’re teaching you. They’re a keystone species.”

The narrator in “The American Buffalo” explains how buffalo co-evolved alongside Indigenous peoples on Turtle Island (North America) for more than 10,000 years.

The American buffalo, which scientists call bison, live up to 20 years and weigh up to 2,000 pounds.

The narrator of the documentary explains how Indigenous peoples used the entire buffalo for all their needs, including food, shelter, tools, clothes and moccasins.

Within a short period in the 19th century, the buffalo was slaughtered by the millions by whites for their hides with carcasses that included up to 800 pounds of meat left to rot.

In the later portion of the 1800s, buffalo slaughter was encouraged — to take away Indigenous peoples’ way of living and force them onto reservations.

This led to the so-called “Indian Wars,” culminating with General George Custer’s defeat at the battle of Little Big Horn.

Despite that victory, the former way of life for Indigenous peoples had disappeared. By 1885, there were fewer than 1,000 buffalo left in the U.S. in small herds.

The documentary explains how Indigenous nations across the U.S. are trying to reconnect with the buffalo. Many nations, including four in Wisconsin, have small herds being managed on their reservations.

This month, Waupoose led a buffalo community harvest event on the reservation that included workshops, demonstrations and buffalo processing. It culminated with a celebration featuring traditional games and a feast.

Frank Vaisvilas is a former Report for America corps member who covers Native American issues in Wisconsin based at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact him at fvaisvilas@gannett.com or 815-260-2262. Follow him on Twitter at @vaisvilas_frank.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: PBS documentaries show Wisconsin tribes reconnecting with buffalo