"On the Trail of the Buffalo", also known as "The Buffalo Skinners" or "The Hills of Mexico", is a traditional American folk song in the western music genre. 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]
According to extensive research carried out by Jürgen Kloss in 2010–2012, this song is one of the many variants of John B Freeman's "The Buffalo Song". [4]
"The Buffalo Skinners" is an American folk song which first appeared in John Lomax's Cowboy Songs, and Other Frontier Ballads in 1910. The song tells of crew of men hired in Jacksboro, Texas to go buffalo hunting north of the Pease River :
T'was in the town of 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?" [5]
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. [6]
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. [7]
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" [8] 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 like to go
And spend one summer season in the hills of Mexico?" [9]
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. [10]
The song is quoted by Fermilab News, in an article describing the nuclear research facility's herd of American bison. [12]
"On the Trail of the Buffalo", also known as "The Buffalo Skinners" or "The Hills of Mexico", is a traditional American folk song in the western music genre. 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]
According to extensive research carried out by Jürgen Kloss in 2010–2012, this song is one of the many variants of John B Freeman's "The Buffalo Song". [4]
"The Buffalo Skinners" is an American folk song which first appeared in John Lomax's Cowboy Songs, and Other Frontier Ballads in 1910. The song tells of crew of men hired in Jacksboro, Texas to go buffalo hunting north of the Pease River :
T'was in the town of 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?" [5]
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. [6]
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. [7]
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" [8] 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 like to go
And spend one summer season in the hills of Mexico?" [9]
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. [10]
The song is quoted by Fermilab News, in an article describing the nuclear research facility's herd of American bison. [12]