Elk Dogs and SAND and SAGE!



Figure One - Buffalo Hunt by David Mann

My ninth book SAND and SAGE took place in the late 1600s in the southwest and high plains portions of the United States. By the early 1600s, Plains Indian tribes still did not have horses yet. It was not until the Spaniards arrived in the southwest part of the United States that horses became available to the Indians. 

Imagine what it would be like to live an isolated existence like many Plains Indian tribes and to spot a horse for the very first time, or even more unbelievable, see a human riding A horse! Pretend it was you in that situation. How would you react? How would you explain it to other members of your tribe? 

It wouldn't be easy, would it?  

The blue passage below is from my historical fiction novel titled SAND and SAGE. In that part of the book, we meet a young Indian boy named Ouray, and his sweetheart named Haiwee. They belong to a tribe called the Snakes (a.k.a. Shoshone) and are out walking the hills surrounding their village. Ouray and Haiwee discover some very odd animal tracks that neither of them can explain. Those animal tracks started an avalanche of events that changed Ouray and Haiwee's lives forever.

      Did you hear that?” an Indian boy named Ouray asked the girl alongside him.
     “I heard it,” a tall girl named Haiwee replied.

     “Meat, Haiwee!” Ouray bellowed much too loudly. “Follow me!” 

     Ouray nocked an arrow onto the bowstring of his old wooden bow. He crept forward, heading in the direction of the sound. Haiwee followed, giggling at Ouray’s seriousness. 

     “Quiet!” Ouray instructed the girl. Ouray bent over and studied the ground. When Ouray found the tracks, he smiled but the smile quickly darkened into a frown.
     “What is wrong?” Haiwee asked.
     Ouray did not answer. He had never seen such tracks. By the size of them, the beast was huge. Bent over, Ouray followed the tracks until they disappeared across bare rock.
     “I have never seen tracks like these,” he muttered.
     “That does not surprise me,” Haiwee replied. “You are a hunter of rabbits and grasshoppers.”
     Ouray did not appreciate the critique on his hunting prowess. All boys wanted to be hunters of great beasts, not rabbits and grasshoppers. Oftentimes, Haiwee underestimated Ouray’s abilities. He peered over his shoulder and glared at her.
     “What?” she demanded. “Is that not true?”
     “Quiet,” he whispered.
     “Remember the time yo—”
     "Quiet!” Ouray exclaimed. “I cannot think with your constant yap-yap-yapping like an old mother coyote.”
     “You are making more noise than me with your yap-yap-yapping,” Haiwee whispered.
     Ouray knew he had already lost the argument with Haiwee. He always did.
     “I need your help,” he said, changing the subject.
     “Oh,” Haiwee responded with sarcasm, “the great hunter needs help from an old mother coyote.”
     Ouray placed his hand alongside the horse hoofprint on the ground.
     “Look at this,” he said.
     Still in a huff, Haiwee bent her tall frame toward the ground. Her thick red hair fell forward, covering her face. She grabbed her hair and pulled it back into a ponytail. She held her hair with one hand while inspecting the track with her other hand. She traced the outline of the track with her finger.
     “That is an elk,” she declared.
     “Ha! Ha! Ha!” Ouray laughed aloud.
     Haiwee glared at the boy, stopping Ouray’s chuckling dead in its tracks.
     “It is not elk,” he replied politely.
     “How do you know?” Haiwee questioned.

To find out the kind of animal that Ouray and Haiwee discovered,  you will have to read SAND and SAGE. 

I am sure you will enjoy the read! 

 

Figure Two - Photograph of Shoshone Indians in 1871.
Photo by William H. Jackson. 

When did the Snake or Shoshone People encounter horses?    

In their book, The Shoshones: Sentinels of the Rockies, Trenholm and Carley described a mid-eighteenth-century story about Shoshone warriors showing up for battle in the Blackfoot tribe's country. According to the testimony of Blackfoot warriors, the Shoshone warriors were riding strange animals as 'swift as deer'. During the course of the battle, the Blackfoot warriors isolated and killed a Shoshone warrior and the animal he was riding.  The Blackfoot warriors were astonished at the horse's great size and at first, they called it a 'big dog', after the only domesticated animal they were familiar with. Later, the Blackfoot tribe referred to horses as 'stags that lost their horns' or 'elk dogs'.

In 2002, Peter Faris wrote an article in the Southwestern Lore journal about a Blackfoot warrior named Shaved Head who first saw horses in the early 1700s in the camp of an enemy. Shaved Head referred to those animals in his tongue as 'big dogs' or 'elk that have lost their horns'. Shaved Head and other Blackfoot warriors captured a few horses and took them to their village. At first, no one in the village knew what to do with the animals until one ingenious soul hooked up a dog travois to one of the horses and the rest became history.

Figure Three - Julia Tuell took this photograph on the Northern
Cheyenne Indian reservation in 1906.

I once read that the three things that dramatically changed the lives of Plains Indians were 1). the bow and arrow, and 2). horses, and 3). firearms. I cannot argue with that list. 

There is absolutely no way I can prove it, but out of all three items, I believe that the introduction of horses made the most positive impact on the lives of the Plains Indian tribes. Horses allowed the nomadic Plains Indian tribes to move faster and carry more possessions between camps. As beasts of burden, horses were more powerful and efficient than dogs. As a result, tribal dwellings grew in size  Riding horseback gave Plains Indian hunters a distinct advantage in hunting bison. No longer did the Plains Indians have to find ways to trap or sneak up on bison herds. The Plains Indians could now keep up with the bison herds which translated into more kills which meant less hunger and more prosperity. Horses could now keep up with every prey animal on the plains, excluding pronghorns. It only took the Plains Indians a few decades with horses to become arguably the greatest horsemen that history ever knew.

Last, but not least, horses improved the odds the Plains Indians held against the encroachment of Europeans from the east. Unfortunately, we know how that eventually worked out for the Plains Indian tribes.    

Read SAND and SAGE for the rest of the story!

Available at Amazon.com.

Wild Horses - Living Artifacts from our Great Past!

CLICK TO VIEW ALL JOHN BRADFORD BRANNEY BOOKS

My latest book WHEN LEAVES CHANGE COLOR is about the introduction of horses to the Plains Indians in the late 17th Century. I dedicated the book to the wild horse herds in North America. When I wrote WHEN LEAVES CHANGE COLOR I wanted to portray the majesty and nobility of America's wild horse herds. Whenever I travel across the desert basins of southwestern Wyoming I always try to take a detour off the highways to see if I can capture a glimpse at the splendor and beauty of America's last wild horse herds. Even with the modern world encroaching on their environment from almost every direction, the wild horses maintain their nobility and desire to remain free. These proud creatures represent a living and breathing historical link to our country's past. When these wild horse herds are finally gone, America will lose yet another link to the country's greater past.

Wild horses in the Washakie Basin of Wyoming.
Photograph by John Bradford Branney. 

At the beginning of the 20th Century, there were approximately one million wild horses in the western United States. Over the last one hundred years plus, poachers, mustangers, developers, ranchers, energy companies and the federal government have cut deeply into the wild horse herds. Today, there are less than twenty-five thousand wild horses left and their environment and lifestyle continues to be attacked. The cattlemen and sheep ranchers want what is left of the meager desert rangeland while the oil men and miners want what is buried under the surface of the desert. Wild horses must also compete with antelope, deer, and elk. The ironic part is when newspaper articles blame wild horses for the destruction of the desert rangelands.

Wild horses along Powder Rim in Wyoming. Photograph by John Bradford Branney.  

What can we do about it? Write your congressman! Adopt a wild horse if you have the land! If we do nothing, within the next few decades, the wild horse herds will disappear from North America and the indomitable spirit of the wild horses will become only a memory.


Wild horses along the Wyoming - Colorado border north of Craig, Colorado.
Photo by John Bradford Branney.