This is a non-commercial, independent website, owned and written by Nancy Kerson, for the benefit of actual and potential adopters of BLM Mustangs and Burros and similar animals.
DVD or VHS (2-DVD or 2-VHS set) almost 3 hours of instruction!
$39.95 plus $5 shipping/handling = $44.95 total
Lesley Neuman: The First Touch Gentling Your Mustang $45.00
Lesley works with 3 wild horses at a BLM adoption, and very clearly explains what is happening, what she is doing, & what she sees in each horse as it progresses. Study this video and you can learn "pressure and release" gentling techniques to gentle your own new mustang!
Help for Burro adopters! Crystal Ward Donkey Training
All the basics of gentling, handling, and training. A MUST for new burro adopters! Good for domestic donkeys, too!
When the Spanish explorers brought horses to the continent, the horses were returning home. When given the opportunity, the horses simply took up residence in the landscape their ancestors had helped to form.
"The original horses brought to America from Spain were relatively unselected*. These first came to the Caribbean islands, where populations were increased before export to the mainland. In the case of North America the most common source of horses was Mexico as even the populations in the southeastern USA were imported from Mexico rather than the Caribbean. The North American horses ultimately came from this somewhat non-selected base."
- from NORTH AMERICAN COLONIAL SPANISH HORSE Part I, History and Type by D. Phillip Sponenberg, DVM, Ph.D *(In other words, a wide cross-section of breed types, size, coloring, etc. that were available at the time.)
Horses were essential for transportation during the European exploration, colonization, and ultimate conquest of American continent. When demand for horses exceeded European supplies, the Spanish set up breeding farms in the Carribbean and central Mexico, using conquered native people as slaves to care for the horses. In this way, the Indian people learned horsemanship and although they were initially forbidden to own a horse, they did eventually acquire them. By the mid 1700's, many native groups had developed their own breeding operations and actively traded horses with other native groups, and in this way horses spread throughout the continent.
Below are some examples of cave drawings found in the Rocky Mountain/Great Basin areas of the United States, depicting people on horseback
Canyon de Cehlly, Arizona
Arches National Park, Utah
Canyonlands National Park, Utah
The picture above is a pictograph discovered in Anubis Cave Number Two in Colorado from the book In Plain Sight Old World Records in Ancient America, by Gloria Farley 1994
Lona Patton sent me these photos (left, with detail above) of a cave pictograph located in a remote area of Wyoming.
France began bringing sending horses to Quebec as early as 1665. These were large, heavily-muscled work horses related to today's Canadian and Percheron breeds. The French in Canada generally maintained good trade relations with the native people, and the Northern Indian tribes quickly acquired horses from the French.
Horses from England began arriving in New England in 1629.
For a well-researched timeline of horses in American starting with Columbus, See http://www.redoaktree.org/indianhorse/history1.htm According to this document, as early as 1620 there are records of Native Americans in the Southwest escaping from Spanish oppression - and taking horses with them.
This theory is attractive to romanticists, as well as wild horse advocates, who recognize that if horses could be proven to be anative species, the wild horse's legal status would imrpove markedly. The theory also makes a certain intuitive sense. Granted, people are highly adaptable, and when something new comes onto the scene - let's say, for example, electricity, the internal combustion engine, the telephone, the computer and cellphones - life can change rapidly. Still, it does seem remarkable that Native people could have developed such a widespread and highly skilled horse culture in just 60 years!
Two compelling arguments in support of the Native American position include:
(1) the fact that the Dakota vocabulary includes far more horse-related words and sophisticated horse-related concepts than would be normal for a culture that only recently acquired the animal, and
(2) excerpts from the diary of Louis-Joseph LaVerendrie, a French explorer who visited "The People of the Horse" in Wyoming in 1642, almost 40 years before the Pueblo Uprising of 1680, which is normally considered the beginnings of both wild herds and Native American possession of horses:
Here is an excerpt from a research paper by Clare Henderson of Laval University in Quebec:
"Between 1984 and 1987, this writer conducted extensive research on the prairies to retrace the itinerary of Louis-Joseph LaVerendrie, who left a village site near Bismark, North Dakota, on 23 July, 1642, in an attempt to find the "People of the Horse." He traveled 20 days, guided by two Mandans, and on 11 August (1642), he reached the "Mountain of the People of the Horse" where he waited 5 weeks for their arrival. (Note by Webmaster: This account also appears in the book Among Wild Horses: A Portrait of the Pryor Mountain Mustangs By Lynne Pomeranz, Rhonda Massingham, and Hope Ryden)
Note: What is interesting is that this account occured almost 40 years before the Great Pueblo Revolt of 1680, which most histoprians consider the beginning of Native American possession of horses, and it happened in a geographic region far removed from the Pueblos of the Southwest. Yet these Indians were already well-known in these Northern areas for having horses, and being skilled horsemen.
In trying to locate this campsite, this writer used LaVerendrie's maps and diaries, as well as other documentation and interviewed numerous Elders and old ranchers. Eventually the site was located in Wyoming, and all of the people he met and traveled with were found to be Lakotas.
According to the Lakota Elders, the aboriginal pony had the following characteristics: It was small, about 13 hands, it had a "strait" back necessitating a different type of saddle from European horses, and wider nostrils with larger lungs so that its endurance was proverbial. This account described two distinct types, or breeds: One had a long mane, and shaggy (curly) hair, while the other had a "singed (roached?) mane." This description is consistent with the Tarpan and the Polish Przewalski horses, as well as various breeds of modern equus caballus, such as the Icelandic Fjord, for the roached mane, and any other modern horse for the long mane. It also is possible the writer was describing American Curly horses.
The Norwegian Fjord Horse has a naturally roached mane, and although there is a scant body of evidence that the Vikings may have brought horses to America, which the native people could have acquired, it is possible...
Curly Mustang from Black Rock HMA in Nevada, adopted by Angie Gaines The Curly Horse has the shaggy, curly hair coat described in the LaVerendrie account. Curly horses in America were known to the Native Americans. The Crow & Sioux both had Curly horses. -The North American Curly Horse
Frederick Wilhelm, Prince of Wurtemberg, a widely respected naturalist, traveled along the Mississippi and up the Missouri in 1823. Prince Wilhelm had studied zoology, botany and related sciences under Dr. Lebret, himself a student of Jussieux, Cavier and Gay-Lussac. An English translation of his diary, titled First Journey to North America in the years 1822 to 1823, was published in 1938 by the South Dakota Historical Society. His memoirs show that he was a keen observer of the fauna and flora wherever he traveled, and it was interesting to note his remarks on the Indian pony's characteristics:
"I interrupt my discourse, to say a few words concerning the horses of the Indians…At a cursory glance one might mistake them for horses from the steppes of eastern Europe. The long manes, long necks, strong bodies and strait back make them appear like the horses of Poland…On the whole the horses of the Indians are very enduring..."(So. Dak. Hist. Soc., XIX:378).
He explained this curious phenomena (sic) by postulating that the Indian pony had descended from the Spanish horses, but that it has "degenerated," so that "They now resemble the parent (Spanish) stock very little."
copyright 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 Nancy Kerson, all rights reserved - I'm happy to share, just need to be asked and have credit given where due.
Disclaimer: Horses are inherently dangerous. Use the information contained within this website at your own risk.
Some Native people dispute this theory, saying that they always had horses. See "
