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The bison was late to this year’s harvest at Haskell. In the meantime, folks built camaraderie before Haskell community members dressed the animal with skill and speed born of last year’s harvest.
The harvest, which was open to Native and non-Native people, kicked off about four hours late this Saturday. Many people who convened early stuck around to chit-chat, snack on hackberries plucked from the trees and throw an impromptu picnic.
When the bison, donated by the Osage Nation, arrived, the Haskell community faced no challenges in handling the animal within the limited daytime hours remaining.
Berbon Hamilton, Osage Nation, is a Haskell alumnus who facilitated the bison handoff from his tribe. He said the animal came from the Osage Nation’s 10,000-acre bison preserve, which hosts about 300 bovines.
The Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho (CNA) Tribes donated the bison for Haskell’s first on-site harvest last year. Rachel Lackey, citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and Haskell’s USDA Extension Program Coordinator, said that the Osage Nation was able to guide the crowd’s approach to harvesting.
“Haskell has so many different representing tribes, and as you know, we’re not a monolith,” Lackey said. “So while we try to be as respectful for everyone as possible, unfortunately, because of the differentiations, you’re not going to appease everybody … we’re gonna have it up to the (donating) tribe and whatever cultural tradition they follow, we will follow in suit.”
For example, Lackey said members of the CNA tribes took edible pieces of the bison’s organs, ground them and served them during last year’s cookout. Beyond that, Hamilton said that the use of this year’s animal was primarily up to Haskell students since the bison was a donation.
According to Hamilton, many traditional Osage practices surrounding a bison harvest were lost when the animals were thought to be extinct in the late 1800s.
“Whatever they did back then, we don’t know,” he said. “Nobody knows. They died with those older people. We get by. We get by and we adapt, like the bison have.”
With Hamilton’s guidance, the gathered intertribal community tailored their approach for the occasion.
The bison was thanked and his life was recognized with songs and ceremony. Once his body was brought to the powwow grounds, he was hoisted aloft using a crane mechanism. Folks immediately got to work processing the hide, meat and organs.
Aiyanna Tanyan, Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, is a Haskell undergraduate studying tribal management and a paid student researcher at the university’s greenhouse.
For Tanyan, who worked the havest, the ability to educate and connect to practices that have nourished Indigenous peoples for centuries was nearly indescribable.
“I’m appreciative for people wanting to learn, and I think that’s what it’s all about, is for people to learn about the cultural significance of the bison,” she said. “And then, being able to come here and see how it’s done in a respectful way and not in a harmful way, especially towards the animal. We plan to utilize every single piece of the bison, whether that’s for food and for medicinal, traditional, cultural reasons.”
‘This is kind of a regaining of self-determination’
Ashley White, Cherokee Western, is studying Indigenous and American Indian Studies at Haskell. She works on food sovereignty alongside Tanyan at the greenhouse, growing wisdom and produce side by side.
White’s labor has yielded nourishing options like cucumbers, Cherokee wax beans, multiple tomato varieties, strawberries, kale, pumpkins, lettuce and spinach, which she aims to distribute to her peers on campus. The bison harvest offered an opportunity to expand her knowledge of food sovereignty and Indigenous foodways.
“It just kind of reinforces that self-determination that we have and that we used to have prior to the United States government coming in and culling everything and making us dependent on them through the different things that they put on us,” she said. “This is kind of a regaining of that self-determination, so that we can go back and take these ways on again and be able to nourish ourselves and know where our food came from.”
Mackie Moore, Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and interim president of Haskell, said that Haskell hosts many gatherings on food processing and foraging.
“Those are important things that Dr. Dan Wildcat (Tsoyaha Yuchi member of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma, Haskell instructor) always talks about, like, the world needs to come back to some of our Indigenous ways and our Indigenous philosophies of leadership and politics,” Moore said. “I think that’s true, but at the forefront of it, I think it’s some stuff that we could do on a personal level, whether it’s our own food, growing our own stuff, harvesting our own stuff and eating better.”
Moore said that Indigenous diets changed drastically due to Western civilization and colonization. He found value in traditional food practices that focus on what the planet offers to address the spirit, mind and body. Although he didn’t feel that it was realistic to achieve fully self-sustainable agriculture on campus, they could avoid buying any summer crops such as spinach and lettuce.
The bison filled the bellies of attendees who enjoyed preparations of the meat at the Sunday cookout. Tanyan said that both years, folks were shocked that the food was free.
“It’s not meant for profit,” she said. “It’s not. It’s really just coming together, doing these things together and then sharing a meal together at the end of the day.”
‘We’re doing this at a place that historically was meant to erase the culture’
As an educator, Moore saw the harvest as a critical, in-the-field learning opportunity for students to reconstitute Indigenous knowledge and bring it back to their tribes and families.
“Education, I think is important because it doesn’t just take place in the classroom,” he said. “This is real-life stuff that our people have been doing forever. And so, it’s skills that not everybody’s been taught or knows.”
Brandon Kelly, Navajo, said that round one in 2024 was a learning curve for many folks. Last year, it took four hours to remove the hide, and Kelly counted about seven holes. Armed with know-how and a hoist system, harvesters worked on the bison with obvious deftness, pulling the hide from the meat of the bison and making assured cuts. This year, the hide removal took one hour and led to only three holes.
“We do this a lot back home with sheep, so it’s basically same process for me as a sheep,” Kelly said. He felt that it was important for his Haskell peers to grow their knowledge of these skills.
The hide was fresh off the animal when Kelly and his peers stretched and began fleshing it. Kelly used a tool shaped from a deer knuckle bone, while others used knives to remove the animal’s fat and tissue from the skin. To produce rawhide last year, it took about a month of multiple people working four to five hours a day.
Haskell instructor Jimmy Beason II, Citizen of the Osage Nation, was not involved in procuring the bison, but brought his kids to the harvest as a moment of teaching and cultural continuity. For him, the bison harvest on campus was a symbol of resilience and education.
“The history of Haskell was one of a place of erasure, right?” he said. “And then through the sheer perseverance of our people, we were able to maintain and keep those ways alive.
“So the fact that we’re doing this at a place that, historically, was meant to erase the culture — but now it’s a place where we can embrace the culture and learn about it — I think it really speaks to our spirit of our people, the will continue to do these things, our connection to it.”
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Wulfe Wulfemeyer (they/them), reporter and news editor, has worked with The Lawrence Times since May 2025. They can be reached at wulfe@lawrencekstimes.com.
Read their complete bio here. Read their work for the Times here.
Molly Adams (she/her), photo editor, has worked with The Lawrence Times since May 2022. She can be reached at molly@lawrencekstimes.com.
Check out more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
More coverage — Haskell Indian Nations University:
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