Officials investigate slaying of rare white buffalo
BY MARTY SABOTA
msabota@star-telegram.com
Texas Rangers and the Hunt County Sheriff's Department are investigating the deaths this week of a rare white buffalo calf, considered sacred by its Lakota Sioux owner, and its mother.
Ranch owner Arby Little Soldier reported finding the white buffalo, named Lightning Medicine Cloud, dead Monday, just shy of its first birthday.
The buffalo's mother, named Buffalo Woman, was also found dead the next day on the ranch near Greenville.
The calf's father, Ben, was killed April 3 when he was struck by lightning during the storms that spawned several tornadoes.
"To lose all three in a month is really terrible," Hunt County Sheriff Randy Meeks said Friday night.
Last year, thousands of people attended a naming ceremony at the ranch to celebrate the calf's birth on May 12. Meeks spoke at the event.
Little Soldier issued a statement Friday that the white buffalo "was brought in by God, but taken out by hands of evil people."
Lightning Medicine Cloud's first birthday was going to be celebrated at a pow-wow May 11-12 at the ranch.
Little Soldier said the scholarship pow-wow will go on as scheduled but now will be a memorial to the animal.
According to Lakota Sioux lore, the goddess of peace once appeared in the form of a white buffalo calf.
This white buffalo, which was not an albino, was born during a thunderstorm, Little Soldier has said. The calf was named Lightning Medicine Cloud in recognition of the circumstances of his arrival.
The birth of a white buffalo is a one-in-several-million occurrence and fills a centuries-old American Indian prophecy, he said.
According to Little Soldier's website, the white buffalo has long been sacred to the Lakota and other Plains tribes.
"They believe that man's survival as a people depends on heeding the white buffalo's sacred message, which urges man to live with the understanding that all living beings are linked and interdependent," he said.
"The white buffalo is considered a warning by the Lakota, but it is also a chance for all people to collectively focus their energy on the peaceful, healthy, harmonious world that the buffalo is urging us to create."
According to KXAS/Channel 5, the calf was found mutilated and skinned.
Meeks declined to discuss details of deaths of the two buffalo, other than that "it was pretty bad." They were buried on the property.
Little Soldier has offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever is responsible for the deaths.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Hunt County Sheriff's Department at 903-453-6800 and ask for either Sheriff Randy Meeks or Lt. Tommy Grandfield.
Greenville is about 75 miles east of Fort Worth.
This report includes material from The Associated Press and the Star-Telegram archives.
Read more here:
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