Buffalo Jake: A Reflection

In the 18th century, the American buffalo dominated one of the largest grasslands in the world, a “moving multitude” that “darkened the whole plains," in the words of Lewis and Clark, who were some of the first white easterners to encounter a herd in 1804. Some estimate that between 30 and 75 million buffalo roamed North America’s expansive prairie, as far east as Pittsburgh and as far west as Oregon; from near the Arctic Circle and all the way down to Mexico. The animal sustained the Indigenous inhabitants of the Great Plains for generations, the Lakota, Comanche, Cheyenne and dozens of other tribes hunted and used every part of the buffalo, revering the animal as a sacred giver of life.

Over the course of the 19th century, the vision of a continental United States was realized as the nation manifested its destiny across the Plains, through the Rockies and clear to the Pacific. The buffalo, like many other once abundant American resources, were systematically consumed and eliminated. With the buffalo nearly destroyed, now white men could more easily control the Indians (confined to their ever shrinking reservations) and tie America’s disparate parts together into a more cohesive union. A union bound together with the iron of the railroads and a somewhat shared belief in this Imagined Community called the United States of America--though who that community belonged to, and who comprised its citizenry were still being debated. Finally, by the end of the 19th century, those tens of millions of herds dwindled to little more than a few thousand in the wild, slipping from ubiquitous life source (or nuisance to some), and unrivaled lord of the Plains, to little more than memory and myth.

On January 6th, 2021, a “QAnon Shaman” going by the name Jake Angeli, and a moving multitude of rioters, stormed the United States Capitol, invading American democracy’s holiest of holies. Among the most striking and remarked-upon of the riot images that immediately circled the globe were those showing Angeli (an actor by trade), in his unforgettable costume: a crown of buffalo horns set in a fur, double-tailed coonskin cap with hanging feathers tied up in beaded leather, simple tan slacks, a silver chain necklace, black gloves, megaphone, and a red backpack. Angeli’s well-built, hairy chest was bare, revealing an odd assortment of black ink tribal tattoos on his torso, shoulders and arms. His face, painted to mimic the stars and stripes of the american flag he carried on his sharpened spear, was more attractive than the others in the mob--perhaps this has helped him grace so many newspaper covers and social feeds. Looking like some mix between a Cheyenne Dog Soldier and a Coachella Music Festival attendee, Buffalo Jake Angeli et al broke into the Senate Chamber and climbed the rostrum, a seat at which every Vice President of these United States has sat since the construction of the current senate chamber in the flammable moments just before the American Civil War in 1859. From this hallowed perch, Buffalo Jake let out a war cry, announcing himself and his fellow insurrectionists not just to the Senate, but to the entire world.

I continue to try and make sense of what I saw and what happened at the Capitol last Wednesday afternoon, and have yet to form a coherent singular takeaway. For now, I am left with only questions. The image of Buffalo Jake letting out his war cry from the Senate rostrum remains seared in my mind, in all its savage, camp Americanism. Did Jake wear his buffalo crown knowing the tragic history of these creatures? Was he drawing some parallel between the once mighty buffalo and the plight of downwardly mobile white men in this country? Have the hunters become the hunted in his mind? Only Buffalo Jake knew why he was wearing what he was, but the images of this bad actor in the Senate pose uncomfortable questions about why so many (mostly white) people came to the Capitol and participated in this deadly insurrection. They seem to see themselves as taking back a country that they are losing. A country that is changing in many ways for the better, but is also leaving some citizens behind.

Over the course of the 20th and 21st centuries, the U.S. government has worked to protect buffalo herds, and bring them back from the brink of extinction. I think it is very wrong to suggest that white Americans are somehow “going extinct” but, as the U.S. government had to step in to save the buffalo from the white man, what should that same government do with that group that destroyed the masters of the plains, and now seem to have their eyes set on a new target?

Ryder O'Dell works in art and advertising and is based in New York City.

Instagram: @dj_strongjaw