buffalo pound

{{Short description|Hunting device used by native peoples of North America to entrap and slaughter American bison}}

File:Royal_Alberta_Museum_(8724641368).jpg]]

The buffalo pound was a hunting device constructed by native peoples of the North American plains for the purpose of entrapping and slaughtering American bison, also known as buffalo. It consisted of a circular corral at the terminus of a flared chute through which buffalo were herded and thereby trapped. David Mandelbaum's The Plains Cree contains diagrams and a complete description of the construction and use of such a pound.{{cite book

| last = Mandelbaum

| first = David G.

| title = The Plains Cree: An Ethnographic, Historical, and Comparative Study

| publisher = Aims Pr Inc.

| year= 1940

| location = New York

| url =

| doi =

| isbn = 978-0-404-15626-8

}}

In 1758, explorer and fur trader Joseph Smith was the first European to record the use of a buffalo pound while travelling to the Assiniboine River.{{cite book|last1=Ray|first1=Arthur|title=Indians in the Fur Trade: Their Role as Trappers, Hunters|date=1998|publisher=University of Toronto Press|location=Toronto|pages=249|isbn=9780802079800|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WHpucb-sXQUC&q=%22A+journal+of+the+most+remarkable+observations%22|accessdate=12 July 2014}}

The common Cree name "Poundmaker", refers to someone who makes buffalo pounds.