This short companion featurette to Butcher’s Crossing highlights the work that Defenders of Wildlife is doing to make up for atrocities of the past by helping Tribes bring back their buffalo. Learn more:
https://defenders.org/wildlife/bison
Video Transcript:
Ervin:
The buffalo, the iinnii, they’re a brother to us. Our lives are one in the same.
Gabe:
Butcher’s Crossing is the journey of a young idealistic man in search of meaning and purpose in his life. And in that journey he sees great beauty of nature but he also sees how ambition can be both a powerful but incredibly destructive force.
This is a movie about what happened to the American buffalo and not too many places in America that have buffalo
The Blackfeet Tribe had this big herd we felt that was the the most ideal thing to do – was work with the the Blackfeet Tribe. They have been such great collaborators and just great people we’ve got a lot of our crew members that are part of the Tribe and it’s just really meaningful because you know what happened to the buffalo and what happened to the native population and to not do that would be not right.
Nicolas:
The thinking was that the Native Americans were living off the buffalo – kill the buffalo, therefore you kill the Native Americans. I saw Miller as a kind of a secret agent of that cause.
Chamois:
I think Butcher’s Crossing the movie really lends itself to having that audience realize that this happened in the past we’ve hopefully turned the corner and we’re making up for those atrocities of the past by helping Tribes bring back their buffalo.
Ervin:
The story of Butcher’s Crossing to me is about the devastation not only to the buffalo but to us as Tribal people. So films like Butcher’s Crossing could really help people to actually see the devastation, the wrongs, and even shows I guess our history of the things that were done to us, the unjust things that were done to us maybe it could help us with the healing that needs to happen with the feelings that we’ve had with all the devastation that’s been put towards us.
Throughout all of the years that I’ve been doing things with buffalo all of the connections throughout the years working with people, bringing people together and even bringing us together right here.
It wasn’t me that made that happen. it was the buffalo that made all of that happen.
