by Reza Cristián

It’s a bright sunny Texas day as I head to the ranch owned by Lucille Contreras, Chief Executive Officer of The Texas Tribal Buffalo Project founded in 2019. Lucille invited myself and my team to see where the buffalo live and to talk more about the important work she is building there and across the state. As we arrive just an hour outside of Austin, we are greeted by two beautiful herding dogs Homie and Little Bro immediately.  

Lucille, a Lipan Apache Band of Texas member, created The Texas Tribal Buffalo Project as a non-profit organization committed to healing the generational trauma of Lipan Apache descendants and other Native nations. Lucille started this project to help reconnect Indigenous communities to the land and bring back such a vital animal that historically has provided so much in the past. 

“I feel the buffalo are medicine and I know that if we are good caretakers to buffalo then we in turn are taken care of by the buffalo, mentally, physically and spiritually,” said Lucille Contreras. 

It is the buffalo that provided everything from food, housing, nourishment, spirituality, art and culture. Now after Lucille has lived on her ranch for over two years she is building this all back with the buffalo that live with her. Right now, she is entering a great time in Texas for her project with amazing opportunities to provide and heal the Texas Indigenous communities to each other.

After getting to meet Lucille for the first time, you can see how much she cares for the buffalo and is so intrigued by how they live. Her passion is infectious as she takes us out on an UTV to get up close and personal with the animals. Lucille told us that a baby buffalo was just born a day prior to our arrival and how grown they are already. Lucille feels guided by her ancestors and the power by Native prayer, which is offerings to land. 

One of the main focus points of the project is that Lucille is currently leading grant decolonizing data to gather this information across the state on food, education, and housing. The disconnection of Texas Indigenous communities to the land, food and culture has caused generational trauma, which Lucille hopes to rebuild with bringing the buffalo back to this land. 

As she continues to build on this, Lucille is building on great partnerships with organizations with a local Farm to School Network, a non-profit helping increase access to local food and nutrition education to improve children’s health. By entering this relationship with them, Lucille can supply ground buffalo meat and curriculum to schools.

“We hope next year to be able to do our own processing with the USDA certified facility using mobile units at our ranch and in the process looking for additional land for the buffalo,” said Contreras

For Lucille, she is just getting started, with lots of great opportunities in the near future. She hopes she can spread the buffalo out to other Texas Indigenous communities by either selling meat or teaching them buffalo care so they increase buffalo range across the state. 

“Currently, I'm excited about both Texas Indigenous education as well as grazing management, a more traditional ecological knowledge regarding buffalo caretaking of the land.”

The buffalo ranch and project she is building is for everyone. She hopes to bring people to meet the buffalo, invite folks to stay where she has built a tiny home for non-profit orgs to rent out on Airbnb. Other future arrangements that she hopes for is to invite Native chefs to collaborate on buffalo meat meals and allow them to have a place for these chefs to do teachings on traditional Native cooking.

The big question for allies on how to support is providing land back. Lucille has reached out to people who are 4th or 5th generation Texan and no longer live in the state. For these Texans who’s families still have ownership of land in the state, she invites them to give their ranches back to Indigenous communities. These land donations will help build out more buffalo ranches and land bases for tribal gatherings.  

On top of this, another way for the state of Texas to support these communities is by actually designating Texas Indigenous Peoples Day. 

The Texas Tribal Buffalo Project is creating a safe space for Indigenous peoples to keep their Native teachings in the state of Texas. With the climate crisis affecting our state from winter storms to scorching hot summers, it is Indigenous knowledge that will help keep Texas alive during the crisis as well as across the globe.  For thousands of years, Native Americans have relied heavily on the buffalo for survival, using every part for food, clothes, tools and so much more. The buffalo isn’t just an animal, but such an integral part of this land and the Indigenous people that take care of it.

Photographer: Jinni J.

Videographer: Philip Aiken