In Pursuit of the White Buffalo

Sioux hunters pursue a rare white buffalo, its robe considered “big medicine” to be passed reverently from generation to generation and could command the price of 10 to 15 horses. Estimates based on hide trader’s records indicate that a white bison occurred only once in every five million animals. Plains Indians trained their best horses to hunt buffalo. But the white buffalo was elusive, often seeming sheltered by the rest of the herd as if the others had an instinctive sense that its color made it somehow special. These Sioux hunters may be close but the outcome is far from certain.