BREAKING BREAD
AMID THE EXPANSIVE GRASSLANDS OF SOUTH DAKOTA , MATTE WILSON AND HIS FA MILY AND FRIENDS ARE USING FOOD TO RECLAIM THEIR NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE, ONE DISH AT A TIME
Daybreak hesitates on the horizon as we make our bone-rattling journey across the prairies. Up ahead is a scene so majestic, even the shock of the 4am wake-up call suddenly loses its sting. Illuminated by the first mellow rays of buttery sunlight, a herd of over 1,000 mighty buffalo roams into view, a little overdressed for South Dakota’s balmy summer climate in thick woolly overcoats and Viking horns.
The odd velvety muzzle nudges a wobbly legged calf, still far too trusting, away from our off-road buggy, which is parked just a short stampede away from the herd. But in general the dusty beasts just eyeball us coolly from under a thick fringe of eyelashes before nonchalantly carrying on with the task at hand — grazing the plains. It’s an epic sight made all the more special by the fact that for many generations, buffalo were sorely absent on the Rosebud Reservation, the ancestorial land of the Sicangu Lakota Oyate tribe — a band of Lakota people.
More than 30 million buffalo were almost hunted to extinction by European and North American settlers in the 19th century, but today, thanks to the trailblazing work of community development corporation Sicangu Co, the animals have returned. The Wolakota Buffalo Range is now home to the largest Native American-owned buffalo herd in the world.
I’ve travelled a couple of hours southeast of Rapid City to meet 30-year-old Matte Wilson, food sovereignty director at Sicangu Co, who was born and raised on the Rosebud Reservation. Reintroducing the buffalo, whom the Sicangu Lakota call their relatives, has revived certain cultural ceremonies, Matte tells me, as we bump along a wiggling dirt track through the wildflower meadows.
“When we do a buffalo harvest, it starts with prayers. The hunter waits patiently and the buffalo sense what we’re asking of them. One will usually step forward and present itself to be hunted,” he says, the smell of sage heavy in the air around us. “We then say a prayer thanking the buffalo for its sacrifice.” Self-taught cook Matte will be serving up one such buffalo offering later today, as part of a community feast in the sun-dappled garden he shares with his neighbours.
