There is no animal that has meant more to the history, economy, and folklore of this nation than the buffalo. At one time, nearly 60 million buffalo roamed North America from end of the country to the other-wherever grasslands and prairies provided grazing range for the great herds. Driven nearly to extinction from 1870 to 1900 by inane killing sprees, the buffalo has recovered with the help of wildlife conservationists and some federal programs. The bull moose was the symbol for Teddy Roosevelt's Progressive Party, but the buffalo, (bison bison) is the choice of the American Reform Party.

As important as the buffalo was to the frontier and the settlement of the West, it was even more important to the life of many Indian tribes on both sides of the Mississippi. To many tribes, the buffalo was the gift of the Great Spirit, the Master of Life, and provided them with food, clothing, shelter, tools, medicine, and the complete harvest of life. The Lakota Sioux say Ta Tanka came from the sun and brought fertility to women, bravery to men. Its spirit was present in the governing bodies of tribal councils and often evoked in ceremony and religion. Its hump, its horns, its beard, its shaggy head, and its whipping tail were praised in songs and dances.

The buffalo is America's largest land animal-sometimes weighing more than 2000 pounds. This fabled creature is known for its strength, endurance, organization, some unpredictability--and liberty, the freedom to roam. It is a fitting symbol for a new political movement rising from the bones and ashes of the past-a movement destined to spread across the land like the great buffalo herds that once roamed the grasslands, woods, and mountains of America as free citizens in a balanced ecological environment.

Its spirit lives in the buffalo Indian head nickel. It was seen on the state seals of Indiana, Kansas, and Wyoming, on stamps, on the ten-dollar bill, and on the official seal of the Department of the Interior for being the most significant animal in the settlement of the West. It was the emblem of the 10th U.S. Cavalry-the Buffalo Soldiers. And remember-you can't buffalo a buffalo.

A few years ago, a white buffalo was born to a herd on a farm in Wisconsin. It was such a rare creature to behold that is was named Miracle. Indians came from the four directions to bear witness to the rebirth of a sacred ancestor.

We have thus learned from American Indians that everything is reborn-life, breath, thought, hope, buffalo, democracy.