News - Native American tradition

At Buffalo Days, owned and operated by Albert and Minga Hoerauf, tales from the past are told to groups day in and day out around a campfire inside an authentic, homemade tipi.

The family’s tradition of tipi making and story telling began more than 40 years ago, by accident, Albert said. The Hoeraufs moved from Texas to New York with their three young children in order to experience a new atmosphere. They made their first tipi out of canvas and wood using a

Singer sewing machine in order to go camping in a traditional sense. In fact, they spent two years camping traditionally by living solely out of the tipi and hunting live game for food.

“While we can’t fully live as the Natives did, we certainly can try. Theirs is knowledge from long ago, but it is still knowledge we can use,” Albert said.

It wasn’t just the tipi that fascinated the Hoerauf family. It was the entire Native American Culture. While Albert is of European descent, Minga is of the Comanche tribe and introduced Albert to the culture.

In the days of hunting and living in tipis, white men would come into contact with Natives while they were hunting or trading beaver pelts.

“These stories are fascinating and they are a part of history,” he said. “We should never forget history.”

Albert worries that history is being lost as generations pass on; however, he has made it his purpose to keep the history alive, beginning with the tipi. It takes the couple about two weeks to make a custom tipi today with an industrial sewing machine, canvas and wood.

“We started selling the tipis by accident,” Albert said. “People saw ours and would stop by to look at it. We finally woke up and realized we should make tipis to make a living.”

In the days when Natives lived in tipis, it was the job of the women to make and set them up as the tribes moved from place to place following the buffalo herds.

“They needed something that was easy to carry and set up. They were constantly moving around, so women set up camp while the men hunted,” Albert said.

During his fireside chats with school groups and others, Albert dresses the part of a white beaver hunter and hat maker and tells stories of the magic that Native Americans seem to possess.

“All of the Native people were very close to the earth. Today I’m afraid we are losing that so I try to keep the traditions,” he said. “You have to believe in their traditions, though.”

Inside the Hoerauf tipi, magic happens, Albert said. Years ago, a young boy named Oliver visited Buffalo Days and shortly after doctors discovered that he had leukemia. It was Oliver’s request to go back to Buffalo Days because there was a feeling inside the tipi that he could not explain, but he thought it might help.

“Oliver knew that there was magic in this tipi. After his trip back, his cancer went into remission and he is now about 25 years old,” Albert said. “He believed that the magic worked.”