DCHP-1 Online

pound ((n.))

• 1a n. Hist. an enclosure or trap into which deer or caribou were driven for slaughtering by the Indians. Also spelled pond.

  See also: deer-pound  

  • 1770  (1911)  [Caribou] walk along them [hunting fences], until they are drawn into the pound. . . .
  • 1824  (1955)  In walking about at this place I saw an Old Pond for ensnaring Reindeer &c & two Winter Encampments.

• 1b n. Hist. an enclosure, corral, or large trap into which the Indians drove buffalo in order to slaughter them.

  See also: buffalo pound  

  • 1772  (1908)  We are preparing to proceed tomorrow, to be in readiness for pounding Buffalo at an Archithinue [Blackfoot] pound.
  • 1776  (1901)  . . . the chief led his hunters to its southern end, where there was a pound or enclosure. The fence was about four feet high, and formed of strong stakes of birch-wood, wattled with smaller branches of the same.
  • 1879  At the Crossing, about nine miles from here, the Crees have made a pound for killing buffalo, but it remains to be seen if it will be a success.
  • 1962  The Indians built a pound, an enclosure surrounded by a four-foot fence made of birch stakes interlaced with branches. An alleyway, funnel-shaped and with a wide mouth, was built in the same way to lead up to the pound.

• 2 n. Hist. a place where Plains Indians slaughtered buffalo by stampeding them over a precipice.

  See also: buffalo jump  

  • c1902  The Indians hunted buffalo by driving them over a precipice where hunters were stationed on each side below, or by luring the herd into a pound or pit by means of an Indian decoy masking under a buffalo-hide.
  • 1792  (1934)  [We saw] an old Blood Indian Pound for buffalo.
  • 1956  (1957)  And what a sight it was to see the squaws rush in with hatchets and knives . . . until the whole pound under the precipice was wet with blood. . . .
  • 1965  As they plunged over the bluff into the pound below, strategically placed marksmen would dispatch them with arrows at close range.

• 3 n. Obs. See 1784 quote.

  • 1784  (1785)  In the salt pile, the fish are spread one upon another, with a layer of salt between. Thus they remain till they have taken salt; and then are carried, and the salt is washed from them by throwing them off from shore in a kind of float called a Pound.