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Tribe mourns loss of rare white buffalo
Posted: May 04, 2012 7:52 PM PDT Updated: May 04, 2012 8:17 PM PDT
By Melissa Daigle - email



HUNT COUNTY (KYTX) -- A rare white buffalo is butchered and skinned on a ranch in Hunt County, Texas. The white buffalo is sacred to Native Americans, and the Lakota Tribe is deeply saddened by the brutality in the death of the calf they call Lightning Medicine Cloud.

"My people, my brothers, my sisters are hurt by what happened here on this ranch."

Arby Little Soldier is the ranch owner and member of the Lakota Tribe in Greenville. A white buffalo is something he'd been wishing for ever since he opened the ranch. Then finally one day...

"May 12, 2011, the white buffalo arrived."

Arby Little Soldier says he spotted the white buffalo with binoculars and couldn't believe his eyes. He says there's a one in 10 million chance a buffalo will be born with white fur.

They named him Lightning Medicine Cloud. He was just weeks shy of his first birthday, May 12, a spiritually significant day the tribe still intends to commemorate on their ranch.

But now the celebration turns into a memorial without the guest of honor -- killed sometime last week. Those at Lakota Ranch found the calf's mother killed too.

The Hunt County Sheriff's Office is investigating the crime with help from the Texas Rangers, The U.S. Department of the Interior, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

There's a reason they didn't want him to have his first birthday.

But for now, no one knows. And questions about Lightning Medicine Cloud's mysterious death are left unanswered.

Lightning Medicine Cloud's father, Struck by Lightning, is buried here in this ranch. Now the special calf and his mother lay beside him.

There are plans to build a walkway to the resting place so people can visit the site and pay their respects.

Arby Little Soldier says Lightning Medicine Cloud and his mother died during one of his few trips off the ranch.

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