The Land Is a Teacher

During the 1500s, Bison roamed freely across North America, maintaining sophisticated migration patterns and shaping the ecosystems of the Great Plains. Their numbers were once estimated between 30 and 60 million. With this presence, they played a central role in the land’s health—cultivating native grasses, maintaining soil balance, and supporting countless species. But this harmony was violently disrupted. The persecution against Bison—intended to starve tribes of both physical resources and cultural presence—dwindled their numbers to less than a few hundred. They were driven into isolated pockets in remote mountainscapes and national parks, pushed to the margins just as Indigenous peoples were pushed onto reservations.

Today, as Indigenous-led Bison restoration efforts gain momentum, we are confronted not just by ecological loss but by a landscape crowded with physical and political obstructions. State lines, fences, highways, cattle guards—all cut through the Bison’s ancestral grazing routes. These human-made boundaries, born of settler ideologies, sever not only migration corridors but the relationship between bison, land, and people. Tribal nations like the Cheyenne and Arapaho, and others through the InterTribal Buffalo Council, are not only reviving the Bison—they are also doing the hard work of carving out space where kinship can be restored and ecological health reclaimed.

This movement holds deep significance for me as a Native scholar and Chahta(Choctaw) tribal member. The parallel between the historical trauma of Native peoples and the violent disruption of the Bison’s lifeways is impossible to ignore. Our relationships were reciprocal. The loss of those bonds left a wound that continues to ache, but the work of Bison restoration is an act of healing. It’s not just about bringing the Bison back—it’s about restoring a way of life, a way of thinking, and a way of being in the right relation with land.

Yet, even as we do this work, we face modern systems that perpetuate harm. Current Bison management practices encourage us to mimic cattle operations: feedlot systems that confine, medicate, and commodify Bison in ways that violate their nature. These practices create stress, illness, parasite overload, and degrade the very land we claim to steward. These aren’t random or accidental outcomes—they are the result of systems designed around extraction and profit, systems that have never served Indigenous land or people.

At the core of this harm is separation. The fragmentation of land limits Bison movement, preventing the natural cycles that allow prairies to rest and regenerate. This makes holistic Bison management very difficult and discourages Tribal nations from embracing Bison as a pathway to food sovereignty. It pushes communities instead toward dependency on the modern commodity system, distancing us from our traditions and from the land.

But the land is still speaking.

The landscape, to me, is not a passive canvas shaped by human will. It is a teacher, a being with agency, memory, and voice. It reflects our actions back to us with honesty, not cruelty. It shifts and morphs in response to what we do and how we live. When the Bison were slaughtered to near extinction, it wasn’t just them that disappeared—it was the balance. With them went many species of native birds, small mammals, and the plains chickens. Predator-prey relationships became unstable. Native grasses withered. River cane vanished. Flooding increased. The ecosystem, like a chain missing its links, could no longer function.

This landscape is a basin of kinship, and like all kin, it asks for care. When we fail to give that care, it shows us. Not out of vengeance, but as a lesson. The land doesn’t forget. It does not need to. It simply becomes what we make of it.

When I look at landscapes today, I see mirrors. I see what we’ve done, and I see what’s possible. The wetlands of Louisiana, for example, are disappearing rapidly—not because they are weak, but because they’ve been misused. Coastal excavation and altered hydrology have eroded the very species that once protected the land from hurricanes. The natural defenses are gone. And what does the land do? It shows us: “When you do not protect me, I cannot protect you.”

These are the lessons. They are everywhere. In the grasslands. In the wetlands. In the scars of overgrazed pastures and the silence left behind when a species disappears.

But the beauty of the land as a teacher is that it never stops teaching. It doesn’t give up on us. Even now, it shows us the path forward—through reciprocity, restoration, and remembrance. It reminds us that stewardship must come before use. That health must come before profit. That relationship must be restored if we are to survive.

In the face of these realities, the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes are actively listening to the land and building a different kind of future. Through the Cheyenne and Arapaho Bison Project, we are working to develop a Bison system that reflects reciprocity and respect—not just for the animal, but for the land and the people it sustains. Operating across fragmented land parcels, our project navigates the legacy of allotment, leases, and imposed infrastructure, but we are creating a management system that embraces movement and seasonality, allowing prairies to rest and regenerate.

We are also building a holistic meat program that doesn’t mimic industrial extraction, but instead nourishes the tribal community. We set aside bulls each year for the Sundance and other ceremonial uses, recognizing the spiritual role the Bison plays and the cycle it supports.

Our approach is not to reject the commodity system outright but to reshape how we participate in it. We aim to build infrastructure that works in alignment with ecological principles and cultural values. We are proving that it is possible to create a profitable, scalable system that is not extractive—that gives back to the soil, the herd, the land, and the people. In doing so, we are creating a path for others to follow—one that prioritizes healing, responsibility, and kinship.

The land has always been changing, with and without us. But how it changes because of us is something we are responsible for. The landscape is not coincidental—it is intentional, and it is full of meaning. Our lessons are being taught right in front of us. We just have to listen.

The land is a teacher. We are the students. And the landscape is a reflection of our learning, our choices, and our stories.