Chapters 7.21
7.21- Pronghorn
Aeryn A. Whiting , University of Guelph, Canada
Suggested citation for this chapter.
Whiting,A.A. (2022) Mammals. In The Student Encyclopedia of Canadian Indigenous Foods. Editor, M.N. Raizada, University of Guelph, Canada. http://www.firstnationsfoods.org/
Introduction
The pronghorn (Antilocapra americana), also known as the American antelope, is a hoofed and horned mammal found in herds across the central and western areas of North America’s prairies (Humphries & Kuhlein, n.d.). They have historically been an important or supplementary food source for many Indigenous groups of the Great Plains (Humphries & Kuhlein, n.d.), but two of the groups which depended on pronghorn the most for food and clothing were the Blackfoot and the Assiniboine peoples of Canada (Humphries & Kuhlein, n.d.; Denig, 2000). Though traditional hunting of pronghorns for subsistence living is not prevalent today, there is a long history leading up to the present-day practice of hunting the animal for sport and using the game meat (O’Gara, 2004a).
Description
Pronghorn resemble both the true antelopes of Africa and goats, but are technically neither and actually belong to their own taxonomic family Antilocapridae (Lubinski & Herren, 2000). They have a tan-coloured back and flanks, while their belly is white (Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management, 2001). They have a dark patch on their face, and a white rump patch that flares out to signal danger to other members of the herd (Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management, 2001). Horns are always present in males and sometimes even females (Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management, 2001). The horn grows as a protrusion from the skull and is made of bone; the outer part is made of dense, brittle hair and is shed and regrown annually (Hall, 1981).
Pronghorn are the second fastest land mammal on Earth, after the cheetah (Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management, 2001). Their top speed is 100 km/h, which means they can run as fast as a car driving on a country highway (Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management, 2001). For this reason, they have sometimes been nicknamed prairie ghosts (O’Brien & Liebert, 2014), due to their tendency to disappear as soon as they spot a predator. They also have extremely good eyesight and can sight predators from several kilometres away (Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management, 2001).
Geography
Pronghorn are prairie-dwelling mammals (Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management, 2001). In Canada, they live only in the southernmost parts of Alberta and Saskatchewan (Humphries & Kuhlein, n.d.). Their natural range extends across North America, as shown by the green highlighted area of the map below.
Association with Indigenous people
Many Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains traditionally consumed pronghorn meat, though some of them only ate it to a small degree as a supplementary food source (Humphries & Kuhlein, n.d.). Two groups who particularly depended on it as a food and clothing source were the Assiniboine (Denig, 2000) and the Blackfoot peoples (Humphries & Kuhlein, n.d.).
Nutrition and Clothing
Pronghorn provides nutritional value mainly through its meat and marrow fat (O’Brien & Liebert, 2014), but traditionally it was frequently hunted for its skins. On average, the amount of meat per carcass is about eleven pounds (O’Brien & Liebert, 2014). The average energy from the meat is a total of almost 69000 kcal, while the average energy from the marrow was only about 530 kcal (O’Brien & Liebert, 2014). Most of this energy is from the meat and marrow on the hind legs (O’Brien & Liebert, 2014).
Pronghorn hides were used for light summer clothing by both the Blackfoot (Ewers, 1958) and the Assiniboine (Denig, 2000). Hides were highly prized by the Blackfoot for this purpose (Ewers, 1958).
Traditional Hunting
The following is one of the methods which the Blackfoot traditionally used to hunt pronghorns. First, they would construct a very long chute out on the prairie, using rocks or bushes (Grinnell, 1962). At the end of the chute, they would make deep pits and cover them with thin poles, which were covered with grass and dirt to disguise them as the ground (Grinnell, 1962). Some hunters would hide behind the rock piles, while the other hunters would scare the pronghorns into running in the direction of the chute (Grinnell, 1962). This way, they would be funnelled into the trap, with more hunters jumping out of the rock pile to scare them and keep them running (Grinnell, 1962). The pronghorn would run right to the end of the chute and fall into the pit, where they could easily be killed (Grinnell, 1962). If the Blackfoot hunter chose to stalk their game, then they might wear a hat of antelope skin and horns to mimic the animal (Grinnell, 1962).
This version of a traditional Assiniboine method of hunting pronghorn shows a different method of hunting where the hunter uses no traps but carefully stalks the animal with a gun (Denig, 2000). The hunter disguises themself with a wolf skin laid over their back, and circles around very carefully, crawling on their belly with their gun, until they are downwind of the animal (Denig, 2000). The whole process can take a couple of hours (Denig, 2000). Then they will slowly inch forward, crawling the whole time, until they are within shooting range, then attempt to shoot the pronghorn while still lying on the ground (Denig, 2000).
A variation on the preceding would be to use the pronghorn’s characteristic curiosity against it (Denig, 2000). A hunter might tie some cloth to a pole and raise it or lower it every few minutes, to attract the pronghorn’s attention and tempt it to circle into the range of the hunter’s weapon (Denig, 2000). The hunter must be especially careful with this method though, as if the pronghorn recognizes the shape of a human it will bolt (Denig, 2000). This is where the wearing of a wolfskin disguise is essential, as the camouflage will trick the pronghorn (Denig, 2000).
In the winter, another way to hunt pronghorn is to pursue them on snowshoes in a gully with deep snowdrifts, which the floundering and panicking pronghorn cannot easily escape from (Denig 2000). This is an efficient way to catch a large number of pronghorn at once (Denig, 2000).
Traditional Cooking Methods
Pronghorn meat was boiled in metal kettles, often made of copper, tin, or brass, by the Assiniboine and Blackfoot peoples (Humphries & Kuhlein, n.d.). Another way of cooking pronghorn meat was to skewer it, place the skewer so that it poked out of the ground at an angle over the cooking fire, and periodically rotate it to ensure even cooking of the meat (Humphries & Kuhlein, n.d.).
A commonly used way of cooking pronghorn was to smoke the meat for several days or dry it in the sun, and then make it into pemmican (McCabe et al., 2011). Pemmican was a form of dried meat that could keep for several years (McCabe et al., 2011), and thus provided a good source of protein for a very long time.
Indigenous Pronghorn Myths
Pronghorn were traditionally an important source of food for both the Assiniboine and the Blackfoot peoples and were thus in a number of their myths and rituals. The Blackfoot tell the story of how pronghorn were created, and they are mentioned in a certain healing ritual (Grinnell, 1962).
The Assiniboine people tell a story about a young man who could run fast enough to successfully chase and catch a pronghorn (Kennedy, 1961). This tale emphasises the fantastic speed of the pronghorn on the open plain.
References
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2.Denig, E. T. (2000). The Assiniboine (J. N. B. Hewitt, Ed.). Canadian Plains Research Center, University of Regina.
3.Ewers, J. C. (1958). The Blackfeet: Raiders on the northwestern plains. University of Oklahoma Press.
4.Grinnell, G. B. (1962). Blackfoot lodge tales: The story of a prairie people. University of Nebraska Press Lincoln.
5.Hall, E. R. (1981). The mammals of North America (Vol. 2). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
6.Humphries, M. M., Kuhlein, H. V. (n.d.). Traditional Animal Foods of Indigenous Peoples of Northern North America. http://traditionalanimalfoods.org/mammals/hoofed/page.aspx?id=6550
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8.Kennedy, M. S. (1961). The Assiniboines. University of Oklahoma Press.
9.Lubinski, P. M., Herren, V. (2000). An introduction to pronghorn biology, ethnography and archaeology. Plains Anthropologist, 45(174), 3-11. https://doi.org/10.1080/2052546.2000.11932019
10.McCabe, R. E., Reeves, H. M., & O’Gara, B. W. (2011). Prairie Ghost: Pronghorn and human interaction in early America. University Press of Colorado.
11.University of Minnesota Veterinary Anatomy Museum. (n.d.). Pronghorn antelope skull [Photograph]. http://vanat.cvm.umn.edu/museum/pages/PronhornSkull1.html
12.Native Land Digital. (2022). Assiniboine territories [Map]. Native Land Digital. https://native-land.ca/maps/territories/assiniboine/
13.NatureWorks, (n.d.). Pronghorn - antilocapra americana [Image]. NatureWorks. https://nhpbs.org/natureworks/pronghorn.htm
14.O’Brien, T., Liebert, T. A. (2014). Quantifying the energetic returns for pronghorn: a food utility index of meat and marrow. Journal of Archaeological Science, 46, 384-92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2014.03.024
15.O’Gara, B. W. (2004a). From Exploitation to Conservation. In R. E. McCabe (Ed.), Pronghorn : ecology and management (pp. 41-74). University Press of Colorado.
16.Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management. (2001). Natural neighbours: Selected mammals of Saskatchewan. Canadian Plains Research Center, University of Regina.