Indian Tricks or Indigenous Wisdom: Natural Horsemanship by any name
Natural horsemanship often gets dismissed by those who try to claim there is nothing natural about riding horses. Of course, this is the most convenient fallacy a horse or mule owner can fall back to. If there is already “nothing natural” about our relationship with horses, why not use the eight-inch shank? Why not tie the chin to the chest? Why not tighten the noseband? Why not keep the horse stalled all day?
Believing that the human-horse relationship is unnatural only primes the mind to blindly accept and repeat abuses.
Instead I insist - there is EVERYTHING natural about the human-horse relationship. The very fact that we exist at a place and time when we are riding and using horses is evidence enough of that. If you need anything more just consider that human-horse relationships have existed since time immemorial. While it is now widely accepted that horses originated in the Americas and only migrated into Asia and Europe during the Pleistocene extinction (many still consider the Mongolian people the original horsemen), the creation stories of many plains tribes indicate that horses, along with deer, buffalo, and elk, have always existed on Turtle Island.
Apache myths tell that horses are a gift from the Creator infused with supernatural powers. Certain versions of the Lakota Wind Cave story tell of horses emerging alongside man. Even the Lakota word for horse - Sun’ka Wakan (sacred or holy dog) - is a nod to the intrinsic relationship between human and horse. Here is a list of horse colors along with their assigned meanings for humans. Need I go on?
Horsemanship is inherently natural. It only becomes “unnatural” the moment we refuse to honor the horse as a relative deserving of dignity, reciprocity, and loving-kindness.
A final note on boarding schools and U.S.-backed wild horse extinction projects:
Keith Braveheart (Lakota artist and director of the film “We are a Horse Nation”) claims the relationship with the horse changed with the introduction of boarding schools in the late 1800s. “The cowboys were ‘breaking’ horses, and it became a time when we were being broken ourselves,” he said in an article for Indian Country Today. Federal Indian Boarding Schools were founded in order to eliminate native lifeways and indoctrinate native youth with Christian values. Around the same time of the creation of these schools and of reservations, the U.S. government ordered native ponies be rounded up and destroyed in order to more fully extinguish indigenous cultural identity.
So it is sadly still printed in textbooks: horses were introduced to the Americas in the late 1400s by Europeans… the creators of all things “right” and “civilized.”
All of life is a process of unlearning and relearning - sometimes one hundred times over. When it comes to the language I use in relationship training, I not only consider the harshness of a word as it stands on its own: “breaking, making, taking…” but I also consider the historical context and feelings that coincide with the use of such words. No - I do not break. I gentle myself first, and first I go with the horse. Then, the horse goes with me. Then, as two beings on our own lives’ journeys, we go together.
That is the ultimate wisdom.
Investigations since 2021 have so far found that the federal Indian boarding school system consisted of 408 federal schools across 37 states, including 21 schools in Alaska and 7 schools in Hawaii. The investigation also identified burial sites at approximately 53 different schools across the system. This number is expected to increase. If you feel so called, please consider donating to Sacred Healing Circle here. Sacred Healing Circle is a partner of Sacred Way Sanctuary and a non-profit dedicated to healing indigenous communities through traditional practices.
In writing this post I referenced this article recently posted in the Native Sun News. A part 2 should be published very soon!
And just for fun - check out this bareback and bridleless first ride executed by a Monogolian horse tamer.
