The big complaint the Indians at Evansville and Terrehaute had, according to DeSoto, was the impossibility of living very far up the Mississippi because there were entirely too many buffalo wandering about.
I think that was written down about 1541, and the horse had not yet reached Indians in the Wabash Valley.
We (Hoosiers) have a buffalo (American bison) on our state seal!
Many of our roads are expanded buffalo trails.