“Hunting the Buffalo” was learned — and likely adapted — by Jimmy Driftwood (James Corbitt Morris, 1907–1998), the Arkansas teacher, fiddler, and songwriter best known for writing “The Battle of New Orleans.” Driftwood said he received the tune from an uncle who had lived in Indian Territory and was half-Cherokee, though he was uncertain of the melody’s ultimate origin. Folklorist Mike Seeger made a field recording of Driftwood performing it and carried the tune into the old-time revival circuit, where it spread as a compelling piece from the Ozark–Cherokee borderlands tradition. A Max Hunter recording from 1969 also survives.
The tune is typically played in BEgb cross-tuning — an E-minor open chord across the strings — which produces parallel thirds and a resonant droning quality distinct from standard-tuned old-time reels. That tuning is integral to the piece rather than a performer preference; arrangements that avoid it lose much of the harmonic character that makes it distinctive. The key of A and the cross-tuned setting place it in the same modal territory as other cross-tuned Appalachian and Ozark pieces, though its specific melodic profile is unlike any other widely played tune in the canon.
A notable recording is Natalie Padilla, Tyler Andal, and Casey Campbell’s from Hell Broke Loose (2023), a contemporary old-time record that brought Driftwood’s Arkansas transmission to a new generation of players. Its inclusion on a 2023 album reflects the tune’s expanding reach beyond the revival-era circles in which Seeger first distributed it.
