| 释义 |
‖ piskun|ˈpɪskən|
Also pishkun.
[ad. Blackfoot pískáni.]
An American Indian trap for buffalo, consisting of two converging lines of rock piles, a V-shaped natural canyon, or a timbered causeway leading to a steep drop, often with an enclosure or corral at the foot, over which the buffalo were stampeded.
1892Scribner's Mag. Sept. 281 In the later days of the pískŭn, the man who brought the buffalo went to them on horseback, riding a white horse. 1892G. B. Grinnell Blackfoot Lodge Tales (1893) 230 The pis′kuns of the Sik′-si-kau, or Blackfoot tribe, differed in some particulars from those constructed by the Bloods and the Piegans, who live further to the south, nearer to the mountains, and so in a country which is rougher and more broken. The Sik′-si-kan built their pis′kuns like the Crees, on level ground and usually near timber. A large pen or corral was made of heavy logs about eight feet high. On the side where the wings of the chute come together, a bridge, or causeway, was built, sloping gently up from the prairie to the walls of the corral, which at this point were cut away to the height of the bridge above the ground,—here about four feet,—so that the animals running up the causeway could jump down into the corral. 1929E. D. Branch Hunting of Buffalo ii. 35 The piskun was surer and safer than the human trap; it was an enclosed pen into which the buffalo were driven. 1943J. K. Howard Montana 23 Often buffalo were driven over cliffs, the ‘buffalo runs’ or ‘pishkuns’ under which Montanans still find rich hoards of arrowheads and other Indian implements. 1949Jrnl. Washington Acad. Sci. XXXIX. 357/2 The North Blackfoot, who hunted to a considerable extent on relatively level ground, built their piskun like that of the Cree Indians in the form of a corral with rising timbered causeway leading up to the entrance of the corral from which there was a sheer drop of about 4 feet into the corral. The Piegan and Blood, living in more broken country nearer the mountains, drove the bison over cliffs. Ibid. 360/1 We can date the last bison drive of the Blackfoot at about the year 1872. This was a full century after Mathew Cocking's first description of the use of the piskun by Indians of the northwestern plains. 1952J. K. Howard Strange Empire 294 Nevertheless some native methods of killing buffalo were wasteful. Such were the piskuns and pounds, use of which, however, was generally abandoned by the Indians some time before the herds disappeared. |