Forty Buffalo Are Roaming NYC — and This Is More Than a Parade
We’re Getting Back To Basics in these concrete jungles — only this time the buffalo really are roaming New York City.
A herd of 40 life-size buffalo puppets took over Lower Manhattan on Friday for Return of the Buffalo: Tatanka Owe Akupi, a free two-day public-art spectacle that is far more than an oversized street parade. The work follows the buffalo through city streets with live music, poetry, dance, ceremonies and performances, using their extraordinary return from near extinction as a story of survival, renewal and healing.
The project was created by theater artist Amir Nizar Zuabi in partnership with Elders from the Lenape and Lakota Tribes and is presented by St. Ann’s Warehouse, The Walk Productions and KBH Arts. The buffalo themselves were designed by Ukwanda Puppets of South Africa, with Craig Leo serving as puppetry director.
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Follow the herd.
Return of the Buffalo brings 40 life-size puppets, Native ceremony, performance and public art into the streets of New York.
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Friday’s Lower Manhattan procession began at Bowling Green Park and moved toward Foley Square, stopping at historically significant locations along the way. Native Pride Dancers and Lenape Elders were among those welcoming the herd, while performances and artistic activations unfolded across plazas and public spaces as everyday New Yorkers suddenly found themselves sharing the street with buffalo.
The spectacle is built around a very real historical arc. American buffalo were pushed to the edge of extinction in the 19th century before conservation and tribal restoration efforts helped populations begin recovering. Return of the Buffalo deliberately places that history back in public view, treating the animals not as a novelty prop but as a living symbol tied to Native culture, memory and continuity.
That is what makes the scale of the puppets work. From a distance they read almost like an impossible wildlife sighting inside the city; up close, you can see the people required to make each body move. The illusion never completely hides the human labor behind it — and it does not need to. The point is the gathering.
And the herd is not finished. Today, Saturday, September 19, the project crosses into Downtown Brooklyn for a second procession from 2–4:30 p.m., beginning at Abolitionist Place and ending at Brooklyn Bridge Park. The event remains free and non-ticketed.
Across the two days, the larger artistic lineup includes performers and participants such as Rhiannon Giddens, Laurie Anderson, Rosario Dawson, Susan Sarandon, Native Pride Dancers, Pilobolus Dance Company, Resistance Revival Chorus and others. Rather than dropping one giant installation into a plaza and calling it a day, the project lets the city itself become part of the work.
Images: CBS News New York video.
So yes, dig out where the Big B’s stroll — but the visual oddity is only the doorway into the story. These buffalo are moving through some of the busiest streets in America to remind people how close the real animals came to disappearing, and what their return can represent when history, Native voices and public space all meet in the same place.
CBS News New York’s Dave Carlin caught the Lower Manhattan herd in motion as the first day of the procession moved through the city.
Watch CBS News New York’s Life-Size Buffalo Puppets Report
Dave Carlin reports from Lower Manhattan as the buffalo puppets roam the streets during Return of the Buffalo: Tatanka Owe Akupi.
Source: CBS News New York; St. Ann’s Warehouse; Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.
