# Were bison slaughtered en masse for their tongues only? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 4, 2012, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-bison-slaughtered-en-masse-for-their-tongues-only/617791 "2012-04-04T07:41:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-bison-slaughtered-en-masse-for-their-tongues-only/617791/1 "2012-04-04T07:41:02Z")
I was taught in elementary school that it was routine in the 19th century for herds of plains bison to be hunted down and slaughtered, with the hunters taking only the animals’ tongues (considered a culinary delicacy) and leaving the rest of the carcass to rot. I’m wondering if this is true, and if so, how widespread this practice was. That is, was it confined to a few hunters catering to a culinary fad in a particular area, or was it the norm for bison hunters all over North America over a period several decades? Some Googling turns up no shortage of pages repeating the claim (sometimes softened by saying that it was the tongues _and_ hides which were kept) but none of them cite any contemporary sources. Does anyone know of any _contemporary_ reports (records from the hunters themselves, newspaper articles, etc.) describing the practice? ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-bison-slaughtered-en-masse-for-their-tongues-only/617791/2 "2012-04-04T08:26:15Z")
[There are any number of such accounts](http://books.google.com.au/books?id=gEXezCXjeCkC&pg=PA168&lpg=PA168&dq=Sioux+1,400+buffalo+tongues&source=bl&ots=qY2xQ_QdGV&sig=gwnZm8SDBqhuYZmQwXN3xNNF2pk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BQN8T-rzD_DxmAXK05zoCw&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Sioux%201%2C400%20buffalo%20tongues&f=false). What surprises most people is that it was not primarily Europeans engaging on this practice, but the Indians. Tongue was a delicacy for most of the Plains Indians groups, and was the easiest part to remove using stone tools, so once they had access to horses and firearms it was standard practice to kill bison solely for the tongue, livers and abdominal fat and sometimes the hide. Contrary to the myth that Indians made use of every part of the bison, the fact is that once they gained access to horses they usually left a couple of hundred pounds of meat on every carcasse.This practice was so widespread that there were many calls for laws to be introduced to stop the practice. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-bison-slaughtered-en-masse-for-their-tongues-only/617791/3 "2012-04-04T09:35:58Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > [There are any number of such accounts](http://books.google.com.au/books?id=gEXezCXjeCkC&pg=PA168&lpg=PA168&dq=Sioux+1,400+buffalo+tongues&source=bl&ots=qY2xQ_QdGV&sig=gwnZm8SDBqhuYZmQwXN3xNNF2pk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BQN8T-rzD_DxmAXK05zoCw&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Sioux%201%2C400%20buffalo%20tongues&f=false). Thanks for posting this. I had always wondered if this claim was an urban legend, but now I see that there are some first-hand accounts corroborating it. (I wasn’t able to access the book at the URL you provide; I just get a message indicating that it’s unavailable. In case anyone else is having a similar problem, I solved it by removing the “.au” from the domain name.) > [@](#): > > Contrary to the myth that Indians made use of every part of the bison, the fact is that once they gained access to horses they usually left a couple of hundred pounds of meat on every carcasse.This practice was so widespread that there were many calls for laws to be introduced to stop the practice. That last bit is fascinating. Do you know if any such laws were passed anywhere? ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-bison-slaughtered-en-masse-for-their-tongues-only/617791/4 "2012-04-04T14:12:55Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Contrary to the myth that Indians made use of every part of the bison, the fact is that once they gained access to horses they usually left a couple of hundred pounds of meat on every carcasse.This practice was so widespread that there were many calls for laws to be introduced to stop the practice. Well, that’s because you can only take 100 pounds of meat back to the wagon. ---
**Author:** ![caveman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/caveman/32/7242_2.png) [@caveman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caveman)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-bison-slaughtered-en-masse-for-their-tongues-only/617791/5 "2012-04-04T20:47:54Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Well, that’s because you can only take 100 pounds of meat back to the wagon. And that is why I never made it to Oregon. The Plains Indians knew: shooting stuff gratuitously is the best part of the game.