On the Trail of the Buffalo

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"On the Trail of the Buffalo"
also known as The Buffalo Skinners or The Hills of Mexico
Music by traditional
Written after 1883 ?
Language English
Original artist Woody Guthrie
Recorded by Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston, Jim Kweskin, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, Ricky Skaggs and Bruce Hornsby
Performed by Bob Dylan

On the Trail of the Buffalo , also known as The Buffalo Skinners or The Hills of Mexico is a traditional American folk song. It tells the story of cowboys recruited for a buffalo hunt, who murder their recruiter in revenge for not being paid. The Woody Guthrie lyrics mention the spring of '83 (1883). According to Fannie Eckstorm, 1873 is correct, as the year that professional buffalo hunters from Dodge City first entered the northern part of the Texas panhandle.[1] It is thought to be based on the song Canaday-I-O.[2]

Contents

[edit] "The Buffalo Skinners"

"The Buffalo Skinners" is an American folk song which first appeared in John Lomax's Cowboy Songs, and Other Frontier Ballads in 1918. The song tells of crew of men hired in Jacksboro, Texas to go buffalo hunting north of the Pease River :

It happened in Jacksboro in the spring of seventy-three,
A man by the name of Crego came stepping up to me,
Saying, "How do you do, young fellow, and how would you like to go
And spend one summer pleasantly on the range of the buffalo?"[3]

The song goes through many verses telling a humorous tale of the trials and tribulations they find on the hunt. The next to the last verse tells of how the trip ended:

The season being near over, old Crego he did say
The crowd had been extravagant, was in debt to him that day,—
We coaxed him and we begged him and still it was no go,—
We left old Crego's bones to bleach on the range of the buffalo.[4]

[edit] "Boggus Creek"

Another early variant called "Boggus Creek", collected by W.P. Webb, was first published in 1923. Webb considered it a variant to "The Buffalo Skinners"[5] In "Boggus Creek" a group of cowboys are hired at the now abandoned cowtown at Fort Griffin, Texas, to work cattle in New Mexico:

As I rode in the town of Fort Griffin in the spring of '83
An old Texas cowman came riding up to me,
Saying, "how do you do, young fellow, and how would you line to go
And spend one summer season in the hills of Mexico?"[6]

In this variant, no one is killed but the song ends the same way, except instead of warning others about the "range of the buffalo" it says:

Go home to wives and sweethearts, tell other not to go
To the god-forsaken country of old New Mexico.[7]

[edit] Recordings

[edit] Cultural References

The song is quoted by Fermilab News, in an article describing the nuclear research facility's herd of American bison.[8]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Liner notes The Continuing Tradition,Volume 1. Folk-Legacy 1981
  2. ^ Buffalo Skinners: Lyrics. Retrieved on 2008-02-09.
  3. ^ Lomax, Cowboy Songs, and Other Frontier Ballads, p. 158.
  4. ^ Lomax, Cowboy Songs, and Other Frontier Ballads, p. 160.
  5. ^ Webb, "Miscellany of Texas Folk-Lore", pp. 55-56: "These given here have been obtained st first hand from the cowmen. They are interesting as variants to the songs collect by Mr. Lomax and others."
  6. ^ Webb, "Miscellany of Texas Folk-LOre", p. 57.
  7. ^ Webb, "Miscellany of Texas Folk-LOre", p. 58.
  8. ^ Fermilab News. Retrieved on 2008-02-09.

[edit] Bibliography



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