The Indian and the Horse - Essay Example

THE INDIAN AND THE HORSE The term "Indian" refers to the native inhabitants of the American continent prior to the European discovery and subsequent colonization in the fifteenth century. These people are thought to be descendents of Siberians who embarked on the continent via sea and land routes and gradually diversified into culturally different groups. Most of these native tribes lead a nomadic life but many settled down into permanent village establishments and were primarily farmers. These colonies developed into political communities with a city-like infrastructure and state -level societies (Wikepedia). The arrival of Europeans greatly impacted the native societies and cultures and brought about a sea change in their lifestyles. Along with slavery, cultural intolerance, fatal diseases and inhuman practices, the Europeans and Spaniards introduced the horse to these Native Americans. Mexico was the primary source of horses' for North America as were the populations of southeastern USA. Although the modern variety of horses had originally evolved in America three million years ago, they had been wiped out during the Ice Age along with many other species when there had been a drastic change in North American habitat. Hunting by paleo-Indians also contributed to their extinction. Colonial Spanish Horses (as they came to be called), were brought to America by Spanish Conquistadors and hold immense significance in the history of the New World and the cultural revolution that took place following European colonization. "The horse returned to North America when explorers Cortes and DeSoto came mounted on magnificent Barbs from Morocco, Sorraia from Portugal and Andalusians from Spain" (History 1492-1620 The Spanish Colonial Period).To start with, these horses were a source of strength for the Spaniards and facilitated conquer of many a native civilization (D. Phillip Sponenberg). The natives were not accustomed to such large animals and were initially terrified; moreover, the Spanish government policy forbade native Indians to own or use horses. Many natives had their first encounter with these animals as slaves and workers on Spanish ranchos where they eventually got acquainted and learnt how to train, use and control them (History 1620-1800 The Indian Horse Period). Many North American Indians acquired and learnt horse riding and handling from Indians from the southwest through trade relations. In the late seventeenth century, the Pueblo Rebellion caused the Spanish to flee New Mexico and leaving many of their horses behind which turned out to be very advantageous for the Pueblo Indians (History 1620-1800 The Indian Horse Period). The Ute Indians the Comanche were inter-related and the later probably supplied the former with their horses. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Comanche had earned a notorious reputation among the Spanish in New Mexico because of their horse stealing raids on Spanish rancheros. The Comanche allowed the Spanish stay in Texas to help them raise horses (Eddins, Ned). "The Comanche became the epitome of the Plains Indian Horse Culture. There was a saying in Texas that "The white man will ride the Mustang until he is played out - the Mexican will take him and ride him another day until he thinks he is tired - the Comanche will get on him and ride him to where he is going" (Frank Dobie). Within a few decades after acquiring horses, many military leaders considered the Comanche as the finest light cavalry in the world" (Eddins, Ned). Comanche warriors mediated the horse trade between Indian tribes and French settlements east of the Mississippi in a major way. In this way, horse trade eventually spread out of the southwest towards north to the Shoshone and from them to the Nez Perce, Flatheads, and the Crow; north and east to the Kiowa and Pawnee and then to the cousins of the Pawnee, the Arikara (Eddins, Ned). Indians not only acquired horses from the Spanish, the warriors emulated the Spanish in terms of handling, riding, and use of equipment. From the Arikara, the horses spread to the Missouri River villages of the Mandan and Hidatsa followed by the Sioux and the Cheyenne (Eddins, Ned). Decades before explorers and fur traders reached the Missouri River villages, an extensive Indian trade network existed between the Indian tribes that extended from the Plains to the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Before 1807, the trade between Indians and fur traders was carried out through trade fairs held at the permanent villages of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara on the Missouri River. From the trade fairs held at the Missouri River villages horses spread to the Cree and Assiniboine in Canada (Eddins, Ned). "The re-introduction of the horse, however, had a profound impact on Native American cultures in the Great Plains of North America. This new mode of travel made it possible for some tribes to greatly expand their territories, exchange goods with neighboring tribes and to more easily capture game" (Wikepedia). As horses became popular items of trade, Indians became less dependant on fur traders. They also became self dependant in terms of horse related issues and more often than not, they proved to be better at handling and riding than the Europeans. "Blackfoot efforts in breeding horses were directed toward producing one or more of three qualities in the offspring. These qualities were a particular color, size, and speed" (Ewers). Ewers also stated that most men were too poor or too careless to devote much thought or time to stallion selection. Although the Indian nomads still continued to be hunters and gatherers, their lifestyle underwent a dramatic transformation in terms of travel, ease and efficiency. "It was the Spanish horse that made it possible for the American Indians to move onto the Plains and become truly nomadic" (Eddins, Ned). The horses came to be considered individual property rather than that of the tribe and gradually became a prime criterion for caste and classification of an individual's socio-economic status. A person's status in the society was determined by the number of horses he owned and also decided as to how many wives he could afford and his social privileges. Surplus horses were traded off in exchange of iron goods from the fur traders in Hudson's Bay, North West, and Rocky Mountain. Horses were also used as a medium of giving out loans to villagers during times of crisis or for hunting buffaloes was perceived as an evidence of the camp leaders' generosity. , "Probably the most distinctive new trait of the Horse Culture Period was social rather than material in nature. The adaptation of horses to the Plains Indian economy brought about a change from a relatively classless society to a society composed of three classes..."(Ewers) "The horse herds within a tribe could be increased through: war parties, breeding, and trade. The only one of these open to a young man was the war party. The vast majority of war parties were to steal horse, not fight an enemy. The methods warriors had previously used for stealing another tribes women, or taking prisoners to be used as or sold as slaves, were applied to the taking of horses" ( Eddins, Ned). Before horses came into the scenario, women and dogs were used to carry out camp movement which was not a very efficient system as it restricted shelter and the amount of belongings to be carried along. Horses could be easily trained to carry far heavier weights at a time although they restricted the choice of camping areas as they demanded a decent area for grazing and large amount of stored food during the colder months. Living out in the open pastures, placed the villagers at a higher risk of inter-tribe attack and warfare and attacks by the US cavalry (Eddins, Ned). Some Indian tribes into the mid-1800s used the surround method of hunting buffaloes (Ewers) while others chased the herd and drove them to jump off a cliff. In both methods of hunting, horses proved to be an asset because they could kill more buffaloes with lesser effort and time. The "buffalo horse" was considered a treasure among warriors. "A buffalo horse was trained to run beside the buffalo during a hunt. Without these specially trained horses, it was hard for warriors to provide enough meat for an entire village. The highly valued buffalo horses were kept inside the lodge at night or picketed nearby. For many tribes the highest war honor was to take a picketed buffalo horse from an enemy village" (Eddins, Ned). As tribes learnt and realized the many advantages and uses of horses, their dependence on horses grew manifold and so did their requirement. It took many years for a tribe to attain enough horses to suit their requirement. "Of the true nomadic tribes only the Comanche, Kiowa, and Crow had enough horses throughout most of the horse period" (Haines). Haines states that it took eight to ten horses to satisfy the needs of each family (Eddins, Ned). After a small pox epidemic brought along by the Europeans hit the Natives in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, many horses were "orphaned" and took to wilderness. They became difficult to capture and tame and hence held little materialistic and utilitarian value. In his book, The Horse in Blackfoot Indian Culture, John Ewers' Indian informants stated that the Black feet never tried to catch wild horses, and the only tribe that they had heard of occasionally doing it were the Kiowa (Eddins, Ned). The introduction of horses into the Indian culture had a huge influence on the lifestyle, society and culture. The horse increased tribal mobility, enlarged hunting ranges, and provided competitive advantage with other tribes that did not own horses. Horses were bred and trained to perform tasks that were once accomplished by humans and by other domestic animals, and they completely transformed the Natives' interaction with the local (and perhaps regional) environment and even the U.S. military. For some tribes, horses defined their identity while for others they were a mark of prestige and honor. "In short, the introduction of the horse was the introduction of a major technological change for Indian tribes - a technological change that altered the human-ecological equation over a vast portion of the North American continent. The new horse-based technology created an enormous demand for a continuing supply of horses, a demand that could only be met through raiding the stock of neighboring tribes. Horses thus became a cause of war as well as transforming the methods by which war was waged." Although the Plains Indian remained nomadic hunter-gatherers, their lifestyle changed when they were "forced to give up their hunting grounds and live on reservations. It is ironic that once on reservations, the horses that had served the Indians so well had to be replaced with ones big enough to pull a plow"(Eddins, Ned). "Although the European-introduced horse was the catalyst that sparked these changes, in Ewers' view the changes were largely internally driven. He assigns major agency to Blackfoot people themselves, asserting that American fur traders and the advancing frontier did not have a significant impact upon them until after the establishment of an American Fur Company post in their territory in 1831. This is a study of culture change but not of acculturation"(Green, Candace) Bibliography: Spanish Colonial Horse and the Plains Indian Culture: by O. Ned Eddins *The Indian Horse article was written by O. Ned Eddins of Afton, Wyoming. Permission is given for material from this site to be used for school research papers.http://www.redoaktree.org/indianhorse/index.htm Indigenous peoples of the Americas:From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia John Ewers, The horse in black foot Indian culture: Introduction by Candace S. Greene: October 12, 2001 http://home.comcast.net/sylvanarrow/native_americans.htm Blackfeet Crafts. U.S. Indian Service. Indian Handicrafts Series, No. 9, 1944. The Blackfeet: Raiders on the Northwestern Plains. University of Oklahoma Press: Norman,1958. Introduction to the Bison Books edition. Changing Military Patterns on the Great Plains, by F. R. Secoy, 1992. Hair Pipes in Plains Indian Adornment. Bulletin (Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology). 164. 4, pp. 29-85, pls. 13-37. (1957). Digital Edition. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Libraries, 1996. Goldfrank, Esther: Changing Configuration in the Social Organization of the Blackfoot Tribe During the Reserve Period (The Blood of Alberta, Canada). Monographs of the American Ethnological Society, No. 8, 1945 Mishkin, Bernard: Rank and Warfare Among the Plains Indians. Monographs of the American Ethnological Society, No. 3, 1940. Richardson, Jane: Law and Status Among the Kiowa Indians. Monographs of the American Ethnological Society, No. 1940,. Secoy, Frank R.:Changing Military Patterns of the Great Plains. Monographs of the American Ethnological Society, No, 1953. http://www.sil.si.edu/DigitalCollections/BAE/Bulletin159/intro.htm Dobie, J. Frank. The Mustang, Castle Books. Edison, New Jersey. 1934. Ewers, John C. The Horse in Blackfoot Indian Culture: With Comparative Material from Other Western Tribes. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. 1985. Haines, Francis. The Plains Indians. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company. 1976. Hyde, George E. Indians of the High Plains. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman Oklahoma. 1986. Jablow, Joseph. The Cheyenne in Plains Indian Trade Relations 1795-1840. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska. 1994. Roe, Frank G. The Indian and the Horse. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press. 1968. P. Jean Nelson. The Plains Cree and the Horse, Journal of Indigenous Thought. Regina: SIFC-Department of Indian Studies (1998). Internet Sites: D. Phillip Sponenberg Spanish Mustangs from Conquistador Magazine. www.conquistador.com/mustang.html. http://www.thefurtrapper.com/indian_horse.htm www.imh.org/imh/bw/flcrack.html http://www.horseweb.com/desertheritagebreeds/update.htm Read More