The Summary of "The Buffalo Dance"

The Buffalo Dance is all about two people, Neosho and Chanuka. They are two different people from two different tribes that are enemies. But Chanuka doesn't think that they should be fighting, so he asks for the reasoning of this. The Chief says that they are enemies just because that their ancestors hated them. Chanuka doesn't agree with this, so he just goes wandering into no man's land. While he is traveling, he comes upon another boy, Neosho. But Neosho was badly hurt. He was badly hurt with what Chanuka thought was a broken arm, so he took Neosho with him and took care of him. Then, he let Neosho go after five days. Since Neosho was from a different tribe, Chanuka was going to wait until Neosho was fully healthy to kill him.

Chanuka is gone for eleven days so he thinks he is going to get in trouble. But The Chief, however, sees a desire in him, so he is going to send Chanuka on a spy mission against the Dakotas to find out if they had a successful buffalo hunt. He gets there and figures out that they have plenty of food. Chanuka has all the evidence he needs, but he wants to get something to show that he was actually there, so he searches for something to bring back. While looking he finds out that there are some people from the Dakota that are near him and he realizes that he is in trouble.

Chanuka knows that if he would get caught, he would be pretty much dead. So he has to hide until Neosho finds out that he is there. Then, so Chanuka doesn't get discovered, he and Neosho switch moccasins. Then, Chanuka has to perform the Buffalo Dance to survive. Thanks to Neosho's act of friendship, he was able to get Chanuka away from there alive.

The Comparison of Chanuka and Neosho

Although Chanuka and Neosho come from different cultures, they are friends at heart. For example, Chanuka and Neosho have different moccasins. Neosho has big feet, so his moccasins are very big on Chanuka. Also, unlike Chanuka's moccasins, Neosho's are very full of design and color while Chanuka's moccasins are very plain. This isn't the only thing that they have in common, though.

Chanuka and Neosho are both in Indian Tribes as well. Both Chanuka and Neosho have been in Indian Tribes for their entire lives, but Chanuka is in the Dakota and Neosho is in the Ojibway. However, these tribes are very different. The Ojibway is surrounded by woods and forest while the Dakota is mostly surrounded by plains, so he is very used to being around farms and cattle. The worst thing is that these two tribes are at war.

Finally, The Dakota and the Ojibway are both hunting tribes, which means that they hunt for most of their food. But they hunt different animals. For example, since Neosho's tribe, the Ojibway live in woods and forest land, the Ojibway mainly hunt buffalo. But on the other hand, since the Dakota is mostly surrounded by plains, their aren't many trees. Because of this, the Dakota mainly hunt moose.