On the Trail of the Buffalo

"The Buffalo Skinners" The Hills of Mexico, "On the Trail of the Buffalo"
Music by	traditional
Language	English

"The Buffalo Skinners" ("The Hills of Mexico") is a traditional American folk song. It tells the story of an 1873 buffalo hunt on the southern plains.^[1] 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.^[2] It is thought to be based on the song Canaday-I-O.^[3]

"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?"^[4]

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.^[5]

The last verse ends with:

Go home to our wives and sweethearts, tell others not to go,

For God's forsaken the buffalo range and the damned old buffalo.^[6]

"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"^[7] 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?"^[8]

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.^[9]

Recordings

• Woody Guthrie The Early Years (Tradition FS-204)
• Cisco Houston Folk Song and Minstrelsy (Vanguard RL-7624, released 1963)
• Jim Kweskin Relax Your Mind 1966
• Bob Dylan recorded a variant, known as "The Hills of Mexico", during the 1967 Basement Tape sessions, but never officially released
• John Renbourn Faro Annie, 1971
• Harry Tuft on The Continuing Tradition Volume 1: Ballads" Folk-Legacy Records 1981
• Mosquito Cupid's Fist 1994
• Sid Selvidge "Twice-Told Tales" 1994
• Rich Lerner Trails and Bridges 1995
• Ramblin' Jack Elliot South Coast 1995
• Tim O'Brien (musician), Fiddler's Green, 2005
• Gob Iron Death Songs for the Living, 2006
• Ricky Skaggs & Bruce Hornsby 2007

Cultural references

The song is quoted by Fermilab News, in an article describing the nuclear research facility's herd of American bison.^[10]

See also

• Cowman (profession)

References

1. ^ Carr, Prairie Nights to Neon Lights, p. 10: " "The Buffalo Skinners" tells of a buffalo hunting trip from Jacksboro to West Texas in 1873."
2. ^ Liner notes The Continuing Tradition,Volume 1. Folk-Legacy 1981
3. ^ "Buffalo Skinners: Lyrics". http://www.ciscohouston.com/lyrics/buffalo_skinners.shtml. Retrieved 2008-02-09. 
4. ^ Lomax, Cowboy Songs, and Other Frontier Ballads, p. 158.
5. ^ Lomax, Cowboy Songs, and Other Frontier Ballads, p. 160.
6. ^ Lomax, Cowboy Songs, and Other Frontier Ballads, p. 161.
7. ^ 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."
8. ^ Webb, "Miscellany of Texas Folk-LOre", p. 57.
9. ^ Webb, "Miscellany of Texas Folk-LOre", p. 58.
10. ^ "Fermilab News". http://www.fnal.gov/pub/ferminews/Ferminews99-10-01.pdf. Retrieved 2008-02-09. 

Bibliography

• Carr, Joe; Alan Munde. Prairie Nights to Neon Lights: The Story of Country Music in West Texas. Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press (1996).
• Lomax, John A., M.A. Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads. New York: The MacMillan Company (1918).
• Waltz, Robert B; David G. Engle. "Boggy Creek" or "The Hills of Mexico". The Traditional Ballad Index: An Annotated Bibliography of the Folk Songs of the English-Speaking World. Hosted by California State University, Fresno, Folklore, 2007.
• Waltz, Robert B; David G. Engle. "The Buffalo Skinners". The Traditional Ballad Index: An Annotated Bibliography of the Folk Songs of the English-Speaking World. Hosted by California State University, Fresno, Folklore, 2007.
• Webb, W.P. "Miscellany of Texas Folk-LOre" Coffee in the Gourd, pp. 47-63, J. Frank Dobie (ed.). Austin: Texas Folklore Society (1923).