buffalo robe

{{Short description|Buffalo hides used by Plains Indians}}

File:Hó-ra-tó-a, a Brave.jpg, Fort Union 1832.]]

A buffalo robe is a cured buffalo hide, with the hair left on. They were used as blankets, saddles or as trade items by the Native Americans who inhabited the vast grasslands of the Interior Plains.{{cite book|author=William Waterston|title=A Cyclopaedia of Commerce, Mercantile Law, Finance, Commercial Geography, and Navigation|url=https://archive.org/details/acyclopaediacom00wategoog|year=1863|publisher=H.G. Bohn|pages=[https://archive.org/details/acyclopaediacom00wategoog/page/n154 142]–144}} Some were painted with pictographs or winter counts that depict important events such as epidemics, famines and battles.{{cite web

| title =Pictograph Robes of the Plains First Nations

| url =http://www.glenbow.org/exhibitions/online/robes/srobe.htm

| accessdate =2014-02-11

| url-status =dead

| archiveurl =https://web.archive.org/web/20130412111916/http://glenbow.org/exhibitions/online/robes/srobe.htm

| archivedate =2013-04-12

}}

From the 1840s to the 1870s, the great demand for buffalo robes in the commercial centers of Montréal, New York, Saint Paul, and Saint Louis was a major factor that led to the near extinction of the species. The robes were used as blankets and padding in carriages and sleighs and were made into buffalo coats.{{cite book|author=John Welsted|title=The Geography of Manitoba: Its Land and Its People|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IQKLCbdJ0GQC&pg=PA90|date=1 January 1996|publisher=Univ. of Manitoba Press|isbn=978-0-88755-375-2|page=89}}

Only hides taken in winter between November and March when the furs are in their prime were suitable for buffalo robes.

The summer hides were used to make coverings for tipis and moccasins and had little value to traders.