The Bison is the spirit keeper of the northern direction of the medicine wheel.
In First Nations culture the Bison is a sacred being that sustains life. All parts of the bison were used, but its meat was a main food source and its fur and hide were used for shelter and clothing-basically the Bison represented survival.
So important were the Bison to the existence to aboriginal peoples, that settlers systematically slaughtered them to near-extinction in an effort to starve all those who held the Bison sacred.