Cowe, their flesh being very good foode, their hides good lether, their fleeces very usefull, being a kind of wolle, as fine as the wolle of the Bearer, and the Salvages doe make garments thereof."
Professor Allen quotes a number of authorities who have recorded statements in regard to the manufacture of belts, garters, scarfs, sacks, etc., from buffalo wool by various tribes of Indians.[1] He also calls attention to the only determined efforts ever made by white men on a liberal scale for the utilization of buffalo "wool” and its manufacture into cloth, an account of which appears in Ross's "Red River Settlement," pp. 69–72. In 1821 some of the more enterprising of the Red River (British) colonists conceived the idea of making fortunes out of the manufacture of woolen goods from the fleece of the buffalo, and for that purpose organized the Buffalo Wool Company, the principal object of which was declared to be “to provide a substitute for wool, which substitute was to be the wool of the wild buffalo, which was to be collected in the plains and manufactured both for the use of the colonists and for export.” A large number of skilled workmen of various kinds were procured from England, and also a plant of machinery and materials. When too late, it was found that the supply of buffalo wool obtainable was utterly insufficient, the raw wool costing the company 1s. 6d. per pound, and cloth which it cost the company £2 10s. per yard to produce was worth only 4s. 6d. per yard in England. The historian states that universal drunkenness on the part of all concerned aided very materially in bringing about the total failure of the enterprise in a very short time.
While it is possible to manufacture the fine, woolly fur of the bison into cloth or knitted garments, provided a sufficient supply of the raw material could be obtained (which is and always has been impossible), nothing could be more visionary than an attempt to thus produce salable garments at a profit.
Articles of wearing apparel made of buffalo's Lair are interesting as curiosities, for their rarity makes them so, but that is the only end they can ever serve so long as there is a sheep living.
In the National Museum, in the section of animal products, there is displayed a pair of stockings made in Canada from the finest buffalo wool, from the body of the animal. They are thick, heavy, and full of the coarse, straight hairs, which it seems can never be entirely separated from the fine wool. In general texture they are as coarse as the coarsest sheep's wool would produce.
With the above are also displayed a rope-like lariat, made by the Comanche Indians, and a smaller braided lasso, seemingly a sample more than a full-grown lariat, made by the Otoe Indians of Nebraska. Both of the above are made of the long, dark-brown hair of the head and shoulders, and in spite of the fact that they have been twisted as
- ↑ The American Bison, p. 197.
