 Expert
Posts: 3782
    
Location: Gainesville, TX | Okay, this time last year I thought about making some posts about interesting horse history. I am finally getting around to some of my new research for that book and thought I would make a nice little informative post.
The Horse's Earliest Role in Myth--Animism
So depending on your view of the world, whether through evolution or creationism, people's first recorded reactions to horses seem to be part of a tribal animistic mythos (everything has a spirit) where the horse as a meat animal was revered in the same way a buffalo or bear might be, and emulation and praise for its defining characteristics, its speed and strength, would ceremonially be celebrated and likely absorbed by consuming its flesh.
Celebration of the horse in this way first appears in cave paintings around 30,000 BC, the most noteworthy of which can be found in the Lascaux caves of France. In fact the horse is the most prominent animal figures among the 2000 found in the caves. 394 of them are horses. The next most common is the stag at 90. So roughly 20 percent of these early images are of horses and the next closest, a deer, is only at 4.5%. (http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/lascaux/)
The Horse's Role in Western Myth
The horse would go on to play a more important role in Western mythology though. It would become part of such classic myths as those of Poseidon, the patron and creator of horses, according to Greek mythology. In this legend, Poseidon creates horses to impress the goddess of Spring, Demeter, who demands he create the most beautiful animal the world has ever seen. Another story says he was competing with Athena to have the city of Cecropia named after him. The challenge was to create the most useful things for humans. Poseidon made the horse and Athena the olive tree. Athena won and Cecropia became Athens. Any one familiar with Greek mythology also knows that Poseidon is said to be the creator of Pegasus as well. An interesting legend Aristotle relates is that in order to get pregnant, mares would turn their tails to the west and the west wind, or Zephirus, would impregnate them. Thus horses were daughters and sons of the west wind. This legend helped me name one of my own mares.
The horse was so important to warrior cultures like the Anglo-Saxons and Scythians, that they were buried with them. There are war bridles in the Anglo-Saxon monument from Sutton Hoo and a war chariot, and one Scythian warrior king was buried with more than 400 horses.
Later in Europe, Christians regarded the horse as so important/holy that the medieval catholic church had a ban on eating them, called hippophagy, because the Vikings and pagans of Northern Europe were known for doing it. Our American disgust for eating horse meats comes from this earlier religious ban.
The Horse's Mythical Role in the Middle East
Horses would actually play very little role in the religions of the Middle East for quite some time. In Sumeria and Egypt, there was little grass to feed many horses and so early domestication did not involve horses and thus horses do not play a significant role in these mythos. However, when the Hyksos, from western Asia, invaded Egypt around 1600 BC, they conquered through the use of chariots. Some Canaanites (and later Israelites) had migrated to Egypt just before this and would bring back the technology and methods of domestication to Palestine later (thus leading to the various appearance of horses in biblical literature). As Egyptian mythology developed from this time, Astarte became their goddess of the horse and chariot.
One particularly influential epic, the Shahnameh or Book of Kings, tells the story of one Persian king, Rostam and his horse Rakhsh, and his taming of it, similar to the taming of Bucephalus by Alexander the Great.
In the bible, the horse first appears as important in the oldest written book, the book of Job (dated based on its use of a much more archaic (i.e. older) form of Hebrew), particularly in chapter 39. The fact that they were first exposed to the horse as a war machine in Egypt is obvious.
19 Hast thou given the horse strength?
Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?
20 Canst thou make him afraid as a grasshopper?
The glory of his nostrils is terrible.
21 He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength:
He goeth on to meet the armed men.
22 He mocketh at fear, and is not affrighted;
Neither turneth he back from the sword.
23 The quiver rattleth against him,
The glittering spear and the shield.
24 He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage:
Neither believeth he that it is the sound of the trumpet.
25 He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha;
And he smelleth the battle afar off,
The thunder of the captains, and the shouting.
The horsewould become particularly important in the Middle East through the development of the religion of Islam. Ishmael, a son of Abraham and said to be the ancient father of Muslim peoples of the Middle East, witnessed the gift of horses from the midst of a whirlwind formed by the archangel Gabriel. Ishmael would claim of the horse that, "it drinks the wind." The Arabian breed itself is supposed to be descended from the five most perfect mares of the horse herd belonging to Mohammed. In the legend, Mohammed wished to test his horse's obedience so he denied them water for three days. On the third days he opened the gate to their corral to allow them to drink. They raced towards water. He then blew a horn which they had all been trained to know was a call to war. All the other horses still ran to drink but five mares, still thirsty, stopped and heeded the call and returned to him. The Al Khamsa and its five families, Kehilan, Seglawi, Abeyan, Hamdani and Habdan descend from these mares. This story led to the first keeping of pedigree records too so you can blame our specialized breeding on Mohammed.
There is little to say about horses role in strictly African mythos. It exists but another equid, the zebra, plays a larger role. Certainly horses survived some in North Africa and Egypt but after one goes south past a certain point the Tsetse fly carries a parasite, trypanosomiasis, that kills domestic horses very quickly, often by the time they are 4 or 5. Thus horses played a fairly limited role both in warfare and religion in central and Southern Africa.
The Horse's Mythical Role in Asia
Horses were first domesticated in Asia, and the only remaining true wild horse, the Pzrewalski's horse are from that area. Certainly the Mongols are still regarded as one of the most influential and accomplished horse people of the world. They maintain a tribal shamanistic religion where horses play a central role. Items are blessed with mares milk. Horses are sacrificed to appease the spirits. They do still eat horses. Many of their most classic poems deal with a lost foal looking for its mother. It is interesting to note that in Mongolian epics, unlike in Western epics, it is the horses who claim demigod status, not the heroes. They are of divine origin.
Of course the Chinese have the year of the Horse as part of their Zodiac. Since the Chinese have a mainly ancestral religious tradition, horses appear as characters in stories about ancestors primarily. There are several powerful supernatural types like the Longma, who is like a cross between a pegasus and dragon. A white horse is a powerful symbol in Buddhist thought and symbolizes control over the will.
Horses Mythic Role in the Americas
Evolutionary history states that horses actually originated in the Americas and then later died out here and those that crossed the landbridge were those who remained. However native cultures adapted the horse to their myths and legends to, inserting them into their creation myths even. To quote a Navajo myth:
"The Sun-God, Johano-ai, starts each morning from his home in the east and rides across the skies to his home in the west. He carries with him his shining gold disk, the sun. He has five horses--a horse of turquoise, one of white shell, one of pearly shell, one of red shell, and one of coal.
The skies are blue and the weather is fair, the Sun-God rides his horse of turquoise, or the one of white shell, or the one of pearly shell. But when the heavens are dark with storm, he mounts the red horse or the horse of coal.
Beneath the hoofs of the horses are spread precious hides of all kinds and also beautiful blankets, carefully woven and richly decorated. In the days gone by, the Dine (Navajo) wove rich blankets, said to have been found first in the home of the Sun-God.
He lets his horses graze on flower blossoms, and drink from mingled waters. These are holy waters of all kinds--spring water, snow water, hail water, water from the four corners of the world. The Dine (Navajo) use such waters in their ceremonies.
When any horse of the Sun-God trots or runs, he raises not dust, but pitistchi. It is glittering grains of mineral, such as are used in religious ceremonies. When a horse rolls and shakes himself, shining grains of sand fly from him. When he runs, not dust, but the sacred pollen offered to the Sun-God is all about him. Then he looks like a mist. The Dine (Navajo) say that the mist on the horizon is the pollen that has been offered to the gods."
Or another lovely one of the Pawnee and the beginning of spotted horses:
"There was a village, and the men decided to go on a warpath. So these men started, and they journeyed for several days toward the south. They came to a thickly wooded country. They found wild horses, and among them was a spotted pony.
One man caught the spotted pony and took care of it. He took it home, and instructed his wife to look after it, as if it were their chief. This she did, and, further, she liked the horse very much. She took it where there was good grass. In the winter time she cut young cottonwood shoots for it, so that the horse was always fat. In the night, if it was stormy, she pulled a lot of dry grass, and when she put the blanket over the horse and tied it up, she stuffed the grass under the blanket, so the horse never got cold. It was always fine and sleek.
One summer evening she went to where she had tied the horse, and she met a fine-looking man, who had on a buffalo robe with a spotted horse pictured on it. She liked him; he smelt finely.
She followed him until they came to where the horse had been, and the man said, "You went with me. It is I who was a horse."
She was glad, for she liked the horse. For several years they were together, and the woman gave birth, and it was a spotted pony. When the pony was born, the woman found she had a tail like that of a horse. She also had long hair. When the colt sucked, the woman stood up.
For several years they roamed about, and had more ponies, all spotted. At home the man mourned for his lost wife. He could not make out why should go off.
People went on a hunt many years afterward, and they came across these spotted ponies. People did not care to attack them, for among them was a strange looking animal. But, as they came across them now and then, they decided to catch them. They were hard to catch, but at last they caught them, all but the woman, for she could run fast; but as they caught her children, she gave in and was caught.
People said, "This is the woman who was lost."
And some said, "No, it is not."
Her husband was sent for, and he recognized her. He took his bow and arrows out and shot her dead, for he did not like to see her with the horse's tail. The other spotted ponies were kept, and as they increased, they were spotted. So the people had many spotted ponies."
There is a wonderful book of Native Culture for children, called "Sky Dogs" that talks about the introduction of the horse to native peoples.
I hope you have enjoyed some of these interesting facts!
|
Folks on-line