{"id":350452,"date":"2026-09-18T19:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T19:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/350452\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T19:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T19:20:10","slug":"a-herd-of-40-life-size-bison-puppets-will-stampede-through-new-york-this-weekend-to-honor-indigenous-history-and-resilience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/350452\/","title":{"rendered":"A Herd of 40 Life-Size Bison Puppets Will Stampede Through New York This Weekend to Honor Indigenous History and Resilience"},"content":{"rendered":"

The massive bovines, each maneuvered by three puppeteers, will roam through Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn<\/p>\n

\"Christian<\/p>\n

\n

Christian Thorsberg<\/a><\/p>\n

| Daily Correspondent<\/p>\n

September 18, 2026 2:44 p.m.<\/p>\n

\"Bison<\/p>\n

Each bison is controlled by three puppeteers, who spent days learning choreographed movements and commands.\u00a0
\n Teddy Wolff<\/p>\n

Dozens of life-size bison puppets\u2014made this summer with steel, plywood, burlap and paper\u2014will roam the streets of New York City this weekend as part of a free art spectacle that honors both the mammal and the Indigenous communities who have revered and stewarded their herds since time immemorial. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The two-day public exhibition, \u201cReturn of the Buffalo: Tatanka Owe Akupi<\/a>,\u201d celebrates the animal\u2019s journey from near extinction<\/a> in the late 19th century to its gradual repopulation across the American prairie. The event, whose Lakota name translates roughly to \u201cTrail of the Buffalo,\u201d will feature two separate routes, one through Lower Manhattan and another through Brooklyn. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Poetry readings, live music, ceremonies and dancing will complement the roving stampede and contextualize the bison\u2019s role in American and pre-American history.<\/p>\n

Quick fact: Buffalo or bison?<\/p>\n

Although the terms are often considered interchangeable, buffalo and bison are distinct<\/a>\u00a0animals. Old World buffalo (Cape<\/a> and water<\/a> buffalo) are native to Africa and Asia, and bison are found in North America and Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe land that we call America today has been here for far more than 250 years, and this production memorializes that,\u201d Amir Nizar Zuabi, the event\u2019s creator, says in a statement. \u201cThe United States presents great hope, promise and potential, as well as a history of destruction and loss. In this moment, we have a civic duty to come together as a community of global citizens to usher in a new chapter in America\u2019s history, one that learns from its past, with empathy and respect for the land and all humans living on it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The event will begin this evening in front of the National Museum of the American Indian<\/a> with a performance by elders from the Lenape and Lakota tribes. As the herd roams, it will make more than a dozen stops<\/a> alongside civic and cultural leaders at historic locations. Actors Sam Waterston, Rosario Dawson and Susan Sarandon are among the more well-known celebrities joining in the walks. Members of different tribes will share knowledge and stories with observers. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Bison<\/p>\n

The puppets were designed in South Africa and built this summer in New York City.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ant Strack<\/p>\n

The stars of the event are the 40 life-size bison, each operated by three volunteer puppeteers: two inside, controlling the rear legs and head\u2014which weighs 40 pounds alone\u2014and one outside, serving as the bison\u2019s eyes. Each bison\u2019s movements were carefully choreographed over days of training, with particular emphasis on how to move and breathe both as an individual and as part of the herd. Several commands, such as \u201cgallop\u201d and \u201cregroup,\u201d will be issued in Xhosa and Arabic, the native languages of the event\u2019s creators. A total of 150 performers will steer the performance. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not every day you get to be part of an entire herd of bison and charge through the streets of New York and bring awareness to, you know, the meaning of it all,\u201d Craig Leo, the event\u2019s puppetry director, tells the\u00a0New York Times<\/a>\u2019 Laura Collins-Hughes. \u201cSo it happens once in your life.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"In<\/p>\n

Each bison puppet weighs roughly 80 pounds and is made from a combination of\u00a0steel, plywood, burlap and paper.<\/p>\n

Ant Strack<\/p>\n

The puppets were designed by the South American company Ukwanda Puppets\u2014which has built puppets for \u201cThe Herds<\/a>,\u201d another traveling public art exhibition\u2014and constructed in New York City, at St. Ann\u2019s Warehouse. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Indigenous leaders were heavily involved in creating the bison, the exhibition\u2019s choreography and the weekend\u2019s resonant messaging. The story of Great Plains bison and tribes go hand in hand: In the mid-1800s, both were thriving across the American prairie. But, as John Thomas, a Lenape elder of the Delaware Tribe of Indians, tells amNY\u2019s <\/a>Renee DeLorenzo, \u201cyou kill a buffalo, you kill an Indian.\u201d Violence<\/a> wrought by colonial settlers and hunters pushed Indigenous people, their culture and the animal they relied on to the brink of extinction.<\/p>\n

Once numbered in the tens of millions<\/a>, fewer than 1,000 bison remained by the 1890s. Today, roughly 500,000<\/a> live across the United States. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are inviting New Yorkers to reflect and appreciate nature, our land, and our power to heal and renew,\u201d Susan Feldman, the artistic director of St. Ann\u2019s Warehouse, says in a statement. \u201cThe story of the American buffalo reminds us of the near extinction of a majestic creature, and it acknowledges a magnificent human effort to rewild them. It represents the worst of us and the best of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The massive bovines, each maneuvered by three puppeteers, will roam through Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn Christian Thorsberg |…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350453,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10],"class_list":["post-350452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}