“The Buffalo Skinners” is a traditional cowboy ballad of the 1870s buffalo hunts on the southern plains. It first appeared in print in John Lomax’s 1910 collection “Cowboy Songs,” and it is thought to descend from an older song, “Canada-I-O.”
The song tells of a crew of men hired in Jacksboro, Texas, for a buffalo hunt north of the Pease River. The lyric recounts the misery of the work — the hides, the heat, the hostile country — and ends with the hands turning on the boss who has cheated them of their pay.
The ballad has been carried by folk and old-time singers across the generations. The version heard here is by Tim O’Brien.
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