DCHP-3

piskun

[< Algonk.: Blackfoot pis'kun deep blood kettle]
Hist.
DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

Entry from the DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

This entry may contain outdated or offensive information, terms, and examples.

n.

a type of buffalo jump surrounded by steep cliffs, used by Plains Indians in slaughtering buffalo.

Quotations

1928
Place-names of Alberta--Jumping Pond, west of Calgary, should properly, of course, be Jumping Pound. The Blackfoot original, Nimapiskan, contains the root form, piskan.
1950
Then came the Stone-Hearts killing us with great sicknesses . . . shutting us up on reserves, like bulls in a piskun. . . .
1952
The piskun was a communal enterprise and the buffalo thus slain were distributed equally.