Before & After Horses
~ Chris Boles
Long ago The People who lived upon the plains moved villages with dogs. The harness was simple. The leather binding stretched across the dog’s chest, over the shoulders and behind the front paws. Attached to the harness at the shoulders were two lodge poles, thus forming an A-shape with the dog at the top. Larger dogs might tow 40 pounds, although most dogs could only pull an average of 25-35 pounds, thus all items had to be light weight including the small tepees. Due to the heavy weight of a full buffalo hide, it was not unusual that young travois dogs might pull only the poles and the hide of a single buffalo skin.
It was the task of braves to go out and locate the buffalo. When they found a wandering herd, one runner returned to the village to report. Upon the arrival of this runner, the camp made swift work to travel to the herd’s location. Every village had a massive number of working travois dogs which related to the size of the village but fifty dogs or more per village was not uncommon.
The buffalo has always been a very dangerous, unpredictable animal. Its massive head could and sometimes did injure or kill the hunters. It was a risky process for The People. Despite the inherent dangers of the hunt, the People needed buffalo meat for their survival in addition to the hide, bones and sinew. The buffalo provided many essential elements for the village’s survival. Depending upon the location the extraction plans were made. Occasionally, when the herd was scattered and animals were not near one another, it was possible for hunters to kill a sole animal without disturbing others. If it was in the cold wolf snow time, the buffalo was separated delicately, and single ones driven into the deepest of the snow. This made a successful arrow or spear kill easier.
If vegetation was plentiful, the hunting grounds became a favorite for the buffalo, returning from time to time to within a few miles of the original place. When the People discovered the herd’s territory, they built a V-shaped or a round log fence, lined with brush near it where the buffalo might be stampeded into the corral. There, the hunters took only as many buffalo as was needed for survival; the remaining animals were set free. Hunters used another method if the herd was near a high bluff or cliff. In that situation, a very brave young man was chosen to stampede the racing buffalo to the precipice edge where he leapt to the side at the very last micro-second; as the herd first started to trot, then to run, the rear animals pushed harder and harder the middle group and then onto the leaders to run faster. The speed caused a panic right up to where the herd would tumble over the bluff’s rim to their death. Warriors were positioned at the bottom to quickly and humanely end the suffering of injured animals that survived the fall.
Life for The People of the plains was harsh. It was common that The People had to walk many miles for the food of big mountain sheep, mountain goats, and the fast antelope of the plains. Therefore, to cope, a Native hunter developed many and varied survival techniques. For example, the antelope was considered a most curious animal. Capitalizing on that characteristic, the brave would tie a piece of cloth to the top of a light pole and place it near a ditch. He would then hide in the ditch and wait for a breeze. When the wind waved the cloth, the movement caught the attention of the wily antelope, who would approach it within range of the waiting brave and his sharp arrow.
The buffalo offered The People many necessary items and has always remained the favorite food supply resource; it was not, however, the only meat source. Tribes usually set up their villages along or near creek banks where game came for water. The location offered a varied diet and they harvested elk, moose, the mule- and white-tail deer, bear, geese, wild duck, fish caught by hand or nets, turtles and eggs from bird fowl. As was custom, all the food of the village was distributed not only among the camp but also shared with the many working travois dogs.
The natives of the plains occasionally engaged in agriculture ‘before the horse,’ growing tobacco and corn primarily; however, crops were not their main focus of sustenance. Regional tribes included the Blackfeet, Arapaho, Assiniboine, Cheyenne, Comanche, Crow, Gros Ventre, Kiowa, Apache, Plains Cree, Plains Ojibwe, Sarsi, Shoshone, Stoney and Tonkawa. The main source of food always centered around the buffalo and the hunt to obtain them. By choice, the plains natives were not farmers and they did not wish to become farmers.
The Horse Came Slowly To The People…
Coronado brought five hundred and fifty-eight horses with him on his 1539-1542 voyage. Only two of Coronado's horses were mares; it was said the Spanish had a limited view of mares and preferred to always ride stallions.
Juan de Onate brought 7,000 head of livestock to New Mexico when he arrived in 1598. Because his herd included mares as well as stallions, it is likely the start of horse-breeding in America and it became the training ground for Native slaves to gain first-hand experience with horses. Those early Natives were believed to be from the Pueblo, Navajo and Apache Nations. While it was reported the Spaniards tried to keep the skills of horsemanship secret, the Natives recognized early that the horse could play an important role in their community.
The first horse trade in recorded history occurred with an Apache barter to a Wichita Tribe. Practicing extraordinary adeptness at learning the nature of the newly imported animals, the Natives took horses when they escaped the harsh conditions of Spanish slavery. Gradually, herds spread across the lands as more and more tribes discovered how horses expanded their environment and hunting capabilities. Thus the horse was adopted into the People’s culture and their herds increased in numbers.
In the mid 1600’s, the Navajo of New Mexico began steady raids on the Spanish and by 1664 the Apaches of the Great Plains were trading their captive slaves from other tribes to the Spanish for horses. Some documents report the big push came about 1680 when the Pueblo Natives captured thousands of horses and other livestock from the Spanish. These they traded to the Plains Natives. Horses flourished all over the plains with many escaping to run free and become the Mustangs of history.
Documenting how widespread horses were becoming, history claims that the Caddo of eastern Texas had a goodly number of horses in 1690. In addition, French explorer Claude Charles Du Tisne discovered 300 head with the Wichita along the Verdigris River in 1719. However, history seems to suggest that the Rocky Mountain area grew fastest in the expansion of the horse because by the time of Louis and Clark expeditions, the Nez Perce had many horses. It was remarked that at least ten percent of their herd had a particularly distinguishable type of spot marking. The Appaloosa horse was born in America and it was bred by the Nez Perce.
The Blackfeet of Saskatchewan in the northern part of the Great Plains reportedly had horses by 1730 and the Wyoming Shoshone had horses by the early 1700’s.
Horses Change Everything For The People…
As The People now hunted they could move swiftly on sure footed ponies. The People began to build much larger tipis because the horse could carry more weight than the travois dogs. The people developed stories around the horse giving bravery accounts of the horse and rider into the oral traditions of story-telling. “The horse made warriors stronger, better, faster and for the first time, there was pride of ownership.” This never existed among the Lakota prior to obtaining the horses. Lakota have a free giving spirit where each individual’s material possessions would be given willingly if another expressed a desire for some object; this demonstration of generosity included the transfer of a horse as a gift.
It was a pride of ownership. The new role of horses within Native communities was varied. Horses were a form of barter, gifts for brides, gambling stakes, and horse racing stakes. Owning horses became a form of empowerment primarily because horses meant that enemies could be taken and vast distances covered in a single day. Thus, horses became a source of pride and they also meant that more Natives including enemies traveled into one’s own territory, too.
In the Southwest region of the plains near the U.S. border the Comanche created a massive trade network in which they became the primary supplier of horses for the northern Plains, southern prairies, and New Mexico.
Each brave had an average herd of 35 horses which translated to several hundred horses per tribe. The Comanche had a problem with such a large herd because the need for labor was as great as the need for a constant supply of horses for barter. Previously, the Comanche had relied on slave labor. Without the benefit of so many workers, they started to raid for slaves or horses. It is said that while talking ‘trades to the Spanish’ the Comanche were raiding the Spanish at the same time as the trade talks.
The Comanche set up slaving frontiers throughout the southwest to accommodate the need for controlling their horses. At the very location of the slave frontiers, and this was no accident, was also the spot for more horse raids as well. As a frustrated Spanish government interfered and limited the sale of horses, mules or donkeys, the clever Comanche had already looked elsewhere.
In the northern plains the Comanche traded horses as they had for some time and the Spanish everywhere found that they were buying their horses back time and again. The Comanche kept re-raiding and selling back the same Spanish horses. The tribe also did a twist on the Spanish again. Now, the Spanish knew that the Comanche had control over the horse market and the slaves but now they had guns too. The Comanche, working through traders with the French in Louisiana and by others who worked as intermediaries gave them guns in trade and the guns came to The People of the plains.
The Comanche found they had three horse markets: The northern Plains, southern prairies, and New Mexico. In addition they also started to work in agreement with the Wichita Nation. The Comanche built a strong cycle of trades of horses, mules, donkeys for the metal goods, guns, and food such as corn, beans and fruit to add a variety to the diet.
Up until around 1730, all the traveling that the Blackfeet did was primarily done on foot and with the use of dogs. They had not yet seen horses. They began to see more and more horses, either wild or used by other tribes. The first horses they saw belonged to their enemy, another Plains People, the Shoshone. The Blackfeet called horses “ponokamita,” or “elk dogs.”
Horses became highly valued by the First nations of the Great Plains. Tribes or communities would have horse-stealing expeditions, in which they would select a skillful thief to capture an enemy’s fleetest pony that had been observed during a previous battle.
Value was also shown when families paid in horses for treating or curing an illness, and as payment for dreamers who made shields.
Ponies were also given away to those who were owed gifts as well as to the needy. An individual’s wealth rose with the number of horses that they were able to accumulate, but they did not keep an abundance of them. The average warrior never had over 6-7 ponies. No warrior held on to a collection of his horses-- the numbers were kept low-- even in times of horse abundance. In contrast, the individual’s prestige and status were judged by the number of ponies that the warrior was able to give away. The People that lived on the Plains, owning property (horses) for property’s sake was unthinkable because its principal value was that it could be shared with others.
Horses were added into The People’s oral stories. Horses were added into the warriors’ songs. Horses were drawn on petroglyphs and upon tipi walls. Horse caricatures were woven into baskets and embellished upon clay pottery. Historically, the horse had an enormous impact on the lives of The People and opened up a world of growth and possibilities.
The Blackfoot war parties might ride for hundreds of miles for a raid. They ventured all the down from the Northern Plains to the deep Southwest for a raid and could be gone as long as a year; but it was always a successful raid in the ‘oral history’ of the tribe. A Blackfoot youth going on his first war party was called silly or a derogatory name. After the raid and the capture of his first horse or if he should kill an enemy, this youth was given a name of honor. Horses became the main focus of the tribes lives as a four-legged being that worked with the The People Blookfoot in hunting the buffalo.
The Nez Perce underwent some drastic changes to their lives when The People obtained horses. The Nez Perce who lived until the horse, as a semi-stationary tribe by being a fishing society. After the horse they left the heavy clay pots behind as they picked up the methods of The Plains People with a tipi to travel in buffalo hunts.
A breed of horse they developed came into prominence. It remains as the third largest breed active on Turtle Island to this very day—the Appaloosa—with remarkable spots it is the result of a selective breeding by the Nez Perce who castrated inferior stallions.
The white man, French traders, learned of this procedure from the Nez Perce. No white man had any knowledge of castration of nor was it used on horses up and until that time. (This was news— later by decades— the white man could see the results and followed the native Nez Perce in this knowledge.)
The Appaloosa horse began with the Nez Perce on Turtle Island and was named it is told for the Palouse River which runs though Northern Idaho; but this was changed by settlers as the Palousey, it was then altered to Appalousey and then to the name these horses carries today as Appaloosa. (This horse went almost into extinction in the 1930’s but was brought back with a breeding program that included the American Quarter Horse and the American Thoroughbred and this too altered the orginal breeds appearence from the grassy-bellied rangey thoroughbred of the orginal Nez Perce to a horse—except for color—that more resembles a quarter horse type of today. And, yet it did save them.)
The Nez Perce had changed with the horse to a very different mobile people from being a fishing tribe to a moving tribe due entirely to the horse. The Peoples Appaloosa had a profound influence upon all at this time. When others seen this horse often with a blanket of white on the rump and dark spots within the white blanket, the horse was called “freckled rump” by both other natives and the white settlers. The People, The Nez Perce are forever interwined with the remarkable coloring of their ponies which they developed but also as a tribe the Northwest Nez Pierce grew into a people with powerful skills in both hunting and the basket craftsmanship.
PART TWO:
THE HORSE AT HUNTING & WAR.
Once The People had the horse: They learned of the gentle ways of training, mastered riding skills, and performed countless sessions of practice with the four-leggeds until they were ready for action.The young boys rode tirelessly to gain in abilities for hunting and war. The boys would learn to ride side-ways, backwards, under the belly of a running horse and to lay-flat to the side of a racing horse to shoot a shortened bow under the horse’s neck. Many boys at play could stand upright on a full-out running pony—whose back was narrow—and never fall off or even waver. When the Lakota started to used the horse they learned to braid up the long mane to keep it out of the way of the bow. They also learned it best to shorten the bow itself for mobility ease creating a faster move to the quiver.
As the horse continued to be a part of the lives of The People certain horses were selected for specific areas. The very fast horse that could move out on pressure of the riders foot, ankle, knee pressure and the horse that ‘paid attention to the rider’ might become a Buffalo Horse. If the horse trained to run with no rein contact, could wheel, keep pace with another, and run effortlessly under leg cues might make a Buffalo Horse. This was an honor for the horse and its rider to obtain.
The Buffalo Horse was prized because it ran freely with no fear of the massive bison. The horse had learned to trust the rider. (Horses are a fear herd animal and to run with the huge bison without the desire to run away which is the horse's natural instinct, took the training of a skillful native and a horse that ‘listens to its rider.’)
The horse was under control with the riders legs and the rider in turn felt the muscles of the horse thru his seat bones on the barebacked horse. The rider knew by feel what his horse was doing without having to rein or watch his mount. There was a wonderful coordination and rapport between the Buffalo Horse and his rider. This match-up allowed the brave freedom to use his weapons. They moved as one and flowed as birds in the air to the suddle movements of the buffalo where they were matching speeding stride for stride. The horse ebbed and flowed with the buffalo, turning as the bison turned, increasing speed as it moved in a panic, and moved the Native rider in close for the perfect lance or arrow shot.
The finest horses were the Buffalo horses. They held great value. While the buffalo and horse were such a major part of the lives of The People this horse held some of the highest value that The People could offer.
On the other hand the horse rode on raids had to have a very quiet disposition. The importance of a successful raid would be impared if the horse was a noisemaker by a horse that nickered constantly,or snorted, or stumbled over every stone. A reliable horse was not developed or trained for the raids. This horse was one that ‘just was’ born of the right deposition. The mare could not be in heat and the stallion could not want to mate with every mare that crossed his trail or mares that were tethered behind the enemies tepis.
Silence and stealth were needed for a successful raid. While these horses did know the homegrounds and returned to them with or without a rider with a natural kind of ‘homing’ they would run right in with strange horses once set free for the home tipi area; thus they led the new horses to their new home country.
Native ponies wore no metal shoes. After a time the natives noticed certain traits of horses such as lameness. A horse with a dark hoof did not develop hoof ailments or cracks as often as a horse with white hooves. The dun pony was strong with a very tough hoof. The Appaloosa and paint pony were a natural in many conditions, winter or summer, in camoflage as the varied markings broke-up their sightings. The bay horse was a color that was next to impossible to breed out of the descendents and it was a common but plain color according to the Lakota. A great deal of importance was played by color to The People. They grew to believe in two special markings on specific coloring the
These are the most famous natural horse color markings and they appear in all breeds of the native horses paint, mustangs and Appaloosa breeds. The true
A horse of great preference is the War Bonnet horse. This is similar to the
The legend and myths started with this type of horse to include the belief that ‘no warrior would be hurt while on the back of a
These beliefs also included that game would be found even in the most sparse of lands when a
The tribes found that the
The People rode bareback. The only exceptions came in the 1800’s when the women used bone saddles. Some had used the Mexican saddles, and later-on native women used a wooden saddle tree they covered in wet strips of rawhide that tightened as it dried. The women would decorate the saddle with pride into the beadwork, silver concho’s, and leather fringe.
The Navaho women were skilled at weaving blankets, rugs and saddle blankets and it is told that it was a Native woman that taught a lonesome ‘cowboy’ how to weave horsehair into a bridle. The knots are called ‘hitches’ and became quite elebrate. The bridles took years to finish. Later conchos of silver and fancy hitches placed the completed bridles worthy of many silver dollars.(Today prisons in the west are the sites of such bridle makings. The bridles still sell today for a great deal of money.)
The horse changed The People forever as did the coming of the white man but one is remembered with continued fondness and the other—too often— for the wrongs they performed. Never has a massive group of different people been changed so greatly as those that lived when the horse came to The People.
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