Dances with Wolves

Wind In His Hair expresses an interest in Dunbar’s beautiful Army tunic, especially its shiny buttons. Dunbar removes the shirt and offers it to Wind In His Hair, who promptly doffs his pipe-bone breastplate and gives it to Dunbar in return. Each believes he has gotten the better part of the deal. Dunbar begins wearing the breastplate all the time, even at Fort Sedgewick, as his transformation from Army soldier to Comanche warrior continues. The breastplate is made from the foot bones of buffalo; it looks magnificent, shines whitely in moonlight, and makes Dunbar feel proud to wear it. 

In 1863, buffalo surge across the Plains in the tens of millions, as they always have, a “great, living blanket of buffalo” (164), grazing on the abundant prairie grasses and moving from one rich field of forage to the next. Out of these herds the Comanche make culls, and the animals’ meat, hides, and even bones and sinews provide the nomads with most of their resources, the only major exceptions being horses and rifles. Comanche life thus centers on the buffalo, which shape the life and culture of the people who hunt them.