Showing his battle honor, this Native American of the Hidatsa Tribe wears a single golden eagle tail feather in his hair. His braids are wrapped with strips of otter fur and a modest woolen blanket shields his clothing. He stands among the American Buffalo that once roamed the Great Plains. Until the incursion of white people from across the Atlantic, humans and buffaloes co-existed for 10,000 years in a way that was inconceivable to the people of Europe. What had developed across the Great Plains of North America was a culture uniquely linking Native American tribes and the buffalo. This enormous beast that could often weigh more than a ton meant a flourishing life and a rich spiritual connection to the earth. In the last half of the 19th century, white hunters and entrepreneurs supported by the U.S. Army slaughtered the once massive herds. In 1840, as many as 60 million buffalo roamed the grasslands of North America, from Canada to north Texas, an area that covered more than a million square miles; by 1886 fewer than a hundred free-roaming buffalo remained in the United States. This picture honors Native Americans and the spiritual wisdom of sharing the planet peacefully.