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Tim Ray’s bison features the lyrics to a song by Buffy Sainte-Marie.

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Now that the buffalo’s gone

by Buffy Sainte-Marie

Can you remember the times
When you have held your head high
And told all your friends of your Indian claim
Proud good lady and proud good man
Your great-great grandfather from Indian blood sprang
And you feel in your heart for these ones

O it’s written in books and in song
That we’ve been mistreated and wronged
Well over and over I’ve heard the same words
From you good lady and you good man
Well listen to me if you care where we stand
And you feel in you’re a part of these ones.

When a war between nations is lost
The loser we know pays the cost.
But even when Germany fell to your hand
Consider dear lady, consider dear man
You left them their pride and you left them their land
And what have you done to these ones?

Has a change come about Uncle Sam?
Or are you still taking our lands
A treaty forever George Washington signed
He did dear lady, he did dear man
But the treaty’s being broken by Kinzua Dam
And what will you do for these ones?

Oh it’s all in the past you can say
But its still going on here today
The government now wants the Iroquois land
That of the Inuit & the Cheyenne
It’s here and it’s now you must help us dear man
Now that the buffalo’s gone

Copyright Gypsy Boy Music 1965

Verses one and three are on the left side, verses four and five are on the right side. Verse two was omitted for the sake of symmetry.

Information about Ms. Ste Marie may be found at www.creative-native.com.

The chord sequence for the song is (in D) DA/C#m/GD/AD/GD/EA.

I was born in Indian Head, Saskatchewan in 1940, grew up in Regina, went to University in Winnipeg, and came to the United States for graduate study at the University of Arkansas. In 1970 I was hired at Moorhead State University and taught there until 1996. I have been making abstract paintings, and occasionally prints, since the mid-sixties. I have exhibited widely but concentrated in Fargo-Moorhead, Minneapolis-St Paul and Winnipeg.

On the one hand, this project has been repeated so often with so little variation, that one cannot be blamed for saying “Oh, no. Not again” On the other hand, these projects are enormously popular, easily out-drawing even the most important museum exhibitions. So even though it is corny, trite, and represents a feeble effort to raise cliché to the level of kitsch, one must participate. Otherwise, if one simply opts out, he doesn’t get to make these statements.

As soon as I saw the herd of bison, appearing like a huge flock of gray fiberglass ghosts, Buffy Sainte-Marie’s lyric “Now that the Buffalo’s Gone” stuck in my head and wouldn’t leave. I decided to letter four of her five verses (four for the sake of symmetry) on the beast as the most direct way of pointing out the tragedy of the slaughter and its effect on native people. Some believe that the decline in Bison numbers began when natives got firearms and began taking excess numbers of animals. A darker view has the European insurgents wiping out the animals to starve the Indians onto reservations. Was it just stupidity, or did we have an ulterior motive? Will this piece make people think about our grandparents’ genocidal motives?

After that, there wasn’t much for me to do. I added what I thought might pass for prairie grasses and sprayed on the cerulean blue of the North Dakota License plate.

Herd About The Prairie: A Virtual Art Stampede is sponsored by the Lake Agassiz Arts Council and showcases the work of local and regional artists with support from businesses and individuals in the central Red River Valley.

2006 © Lake Agassiz Arts Council, All Rights Reserved.