Have you ever wondered why CU Boulder’s mascot is the Buffalo? Among all the creatures in Colorado, the buffalo is one of the most important for the people and the land itself. The Buffalo have been creatures of our native soil for generations, providing nourishment, material, and life to the indigenous people who inhabited this land. But how much do you actually know about these majestic beasts? These creatures were once essential in maintaining our land and the people who have walked it for Millenia.
The buffalo do more for our environment than we realize. In 2025, Jerod Merkle and Chris Generemia, both members of the University of Wyoming, conducted a study on the prairie surrounding Yellowstone, specifically, its nitrogen levels. Their findings stated, “The bison speed up the nitrogen cycle as they graze, the plants grow as much as they would if they weren’t grazed and, strikingly, are 150 percent more nutritious.”
Now, what is the nitrogen cycle? The nitrogen cycle is when plants naturally absorb nitrogen in the forms of nitrate and ammonia from either soil or water. Then, as bacteria decompose the plant matter, the same chemicals are released into the soil, enriching it further. As the buffalo digest and excrete, they introduce a greater number of the microbes necessary for breaking down plant matter in the environment, further increasing the efficiency of the nitrogen cycle.
At one point, the buffalo was the main source of food and resources for the Ute, Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and countless other Indigenous Americans. They always treated the buffalo as brothers in life. It was a communal gathering every time they killed one of their brothers, and instead of wasting the remains as we do, they used everything, from the bison meat as food, to the use of hide as clothing and lodging materials, to the bones for tools and musical instruments, as well as sinew, the muscle tissue, for making rope, string, and other similar objects.
However, that is not the full importance of the Buffalo as there is a spiritual side as well. To understand that, we must understand a very important figure in The Sioux nation (consisting of Lakota, Dakota and Nakota people) history. That man is Black Elk, born a Lakota tribesman on December 1st, 1863. He was a medicine man and a holy man, someone capable of channeling “the power of the outer world.”
In a piece of one of his visions, he saw a red man that transformed into a buffalo. Afterwards, he saw people standing on the red road (the path to happiness, prosperity, and peace). After that, he went to another elder, Fox Belly, where they performed a specific ceremony: a short but sacred one where they drew the circle of the four quarters (four directions), then drew the red road, which spread from the north to the south, and enlarged bison tracks onto it. They added cups of water at the beginning and end of the road. They dressed up Black Elk in a buffalo skin with horns on his head; then he snorted and acted like a buffalo across the whole village.
He interpreted this portion of the vision as a way of saying he needed the power of the bison. He wrote, “To use the power of the bison, I had to perform that part of the vision for the people to see.” According to Sioux legend, the red road symbolizes our journey through life, the obstacles we face. In Black Elk’s vision, he hoped to share the power of the buffalo. The power to endure, and remain steady, to stay on the path of virtue for his people. For that is what the buffalo is in their eyes: endurance, strength, and virtue.
The buffalo has always been an important part of the plains, the prairie, and its people. In the physical world, they maintain the natural balance of the nitrogen cycle, renewing the soil each time they pass through and nurturing the people who once depended on them solely for their livelihood. They also exist in the spiritual world, where, for Black Elk, they help guide people through life.
