![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
perzephone
So, I've been wracking my poor little brain & searching my poor little soul, trying to either a) come up with a topic for my first history paper, or b) just say "Fuck it!" & take the 0.
Well, I thought up a great paper - a letter from Abraham Lincoln's embalmer/funeral attendant (incidentally, his name was H.P. Callett & he worked for the Brown & Alexander funeral home - that information I got from the Congressional Cemetery historical archives online. There is no historical evidence that the guy actually traveled w/Lincoln's body, but that's why they call it 'creative writing', right?) on the 'death train' to the embalmer's wife (her name was Lydia - also from the Congressional cemetery archives). I originally thought that our 'letter from the past' could be from any person/thing from the dawn of the continent to 1865, & Abe died in 1865... then I read the instructions again & found I only could go up to 1750. Damnit!!! Here I am w/a great, slightly morbid, sort of funny paper and it's useless!
So, basically, I fucked myself. Burnt up a good 3 or 4 hours of research time & writing & rewriting for nothing. And here I am, in front of the 'Net, twiddling my thumbs with nothing. I don't know why it popped into my head, really - the thought that horses were once prehistoric natives to the American continent, and then they vanished at some point from the fossil records, only to reappear w/the Conquistadores. Cortez basically did one thing right in my righteously judgmental eyes - he brought the horse back home.
So I start matching up what I know, being a lover of prehistoric life forms and the American wild horse, aka mestizos, aka mestenos, aka mustangs... Added up to about 2 hrs. of 'Net research this morning, combined w/furious typing... and I started crying. Tears rolling down my cheeks, shuddering bottom lip, runny nose. So lovely, eh? Why do I cry when I write anymore? There is nothing in this paper that should make me cry.
Dear Fellow Americans:
Although I write today as a voice from the present, I have been here since long before you ever came along. I speak for myself and for my people. If you’re on the sunrise side of the Rockies, you may have only seen us in photographs or movies, or read about us in books. If you’re on the sunset side of the great Rocky Mountains, you may have seen us, looking down from a ridge or running across a desert mesa. We were actually here millennia before you were, but not in the shape you know us by today. At that time, we were smaller, looked like dogs, and had bushy fur and many toes on each foot. As your ancestors came south from the snowy wastes to America, many experts believe we went northwest, into the steppes of a land called China, even further south into Asia Minor and Africa. As we traveled, our toes grew into one big hard toe on each foot, and we became taller and broader. We still live there too, closer to our old selves in the brushy manes and dun-striped legs.
When you look at us now, you can see in our colors, our heads, our sure feet the traces of our ancestors. We are not pure or thoroughly bred – we were the best of all our kinds – Iberians, Andalusians, Barbs and Jennets from Spain, Arabians from northern Africa, ponies from Turkey and Romania, all selected for hardiness in arid conditions and adaptability to new situations. We are a common-sense horse and we know the difference between a sage bush blown by the wind and a stalking mountain lion.
My kind was brought to this desert land from another much like it, the hills of Spain, across a mighty expanse of water. A modern poet wrote about how the Horse Latitudes1 were named, but could humans such as yourselves really know what it was like? To be aboard a creaking wooden ship, eating moldy food and drinking tainted water, forced to stand in crowded holds, cramped for weeks, never seeing the sun that nourishes you… well, I guess some humans of that time may have known, captured and brought from their homelands to a strange place on a journey across infinite seas. When we reached those calm places along the tropics of Cancer, sometimes the wind would still for weeks and weeks, and the ship’s Captain had to choose between his crew, his cargo or us. We were always the ones thrown overboard.
Oh, and what a wonder it always was to make landfall, stumbling up some sandy shore, the smell of ocean all around but loving the feel of real earth under our hooves. Noses already smelling fresh water, fresh grass! We were so used to the Spanish folk who rode us, tall fair-faced men in clanking armor, the scent of machine grease, the noise of the gunnery was often heard on the ships, and no longer startled us. The new people we met – they startled us. They smelled nothing like the men we knew – they smelled of vines and something dark and sweet, and they breathed fire! The dark-skinned feather-wearing folk never came close to us – they only pointed, yelled, and ran. On our backs, Cortez, with a few men for good measure, conquered the mighty Aztecs. We were considered terrible monsters, with the head of a dragon, carrying Gods into battle.
About two centuries later, with the native people used to us, and using us when they could for travel and work, the Spanish who brought us here were not so lucky. They had moved northward, into what you now call ‘New Mexico’, ‘Texas’ and ‘California’. In New Mexico, in the 1600’s there was a time of terrible drought. Although the natives loved the Sun as a God, He was harsh and cruel to them in those years. When there is no water, there is no food. We suffered along with the Spanish and the native humans, most of who were treated worse than we were. We need vast amounts of water to live, and for the most part, it was those small dark folk of the land who made sure we had enough, even as they died in the irrigation fields. By waging war and setting themselves free of the Spanish colonials and missions, they set us free, too. We were free to spread out, heading northward again to escape the drought and worn out fields, into the plains and mountains.
Like the Spanish before them, the Pueblo, Apache and Comanche tribes used us to ride to war, terrifying the enemy. We also went to hunt the mighty buffalo, and we traveled everywhere, discovering new horizons, revolutionizing an entire nation of people as we went. Before us, the native people of this land relied on their own feet to move them from place to place, limited in distance by the elderly and young among their people. They had no belongings because they had to abandon what they could not carry. They had no land to till, because no human could drag a plow through hardpan prairie soil. They had dogs, and called us big dogs – the dogs could carry some things on travois’s and in baskets, but we carried the People.
Without us, would you be here today? Probably. But would you be the same person you are today? In you runs some of our spirit. When you think of the ‘Wild West’, do you see cowboys and ‘Indians’ fighting on foot, or are they mounted? When you think of ‘Custer’s Last Stand’, is he actually standing, or is he astride a cavalry horse awaiting his destiny? Even Mexico and South America has us at the heart of its horse cultures2, the Gauchos, Charros and Llaneros, nomadic herdsmen following the cattle from one seasonal pasture to another. You can hunt us with helicopters, you can round us up and sell us to rendering plants, you can fence us in or fence us out, but remember – we are all native children of America.
Affectionately yours,
The American Wild Horse
________________________________________________________________________
1) The Columbia Encyclopedia online, 6th edition, © 2001- 2005 (notes on the horse latitudes): Columbia Encyclopedia
History of the American Wild Horse © 2000 - 2006 Nancy Kerson: mustangs4us.com
Notes on the Pueblo revolts of 1680: Revolt of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Otermín's Attempted Reconquest, 1680-1682 [volume 9--excerpt] Remember the Pueblo!
An Entire Frontier in Flames (The regional implications of the Pueblo Revolt 1680-1696)
By John P. Schmal | Web Published 10.7.2004 Remember the Pueblo again!
2) American Horse Cultures This page was last modified 17:18, 30 January 2006.: Modern Nomads
Well, I thought up a great paper - a letter from Abraham Lincoln's embalmer/funeral attendant (incidentally, his name was H.P. Callett & he worked for the Brown & Alexander funeral home - that information I got from the Congressional Cemetery historical archives online. There is no historical evidence that the guy actually traveled w/Lincoln's body, but that's why they call it 'creative writing', right?) on the 'death train' to the embalmer's wife (her name was Lydia - also from the Congressional cemetery archives). I originally thought that our 'letter from the past' could be from any person/thing from the dawn of the continent to 1865, & Abe died in 1865... then I read the instructions again & found I only could go up to 1750. Damnit!!! Here I am w/a great, slightly morbid, sort of funny paper and it's useless!
So, basically, I fucked myself. Burnt up a good 3 or 4 hours of research time & writing & rewriting for nothing. And here I am, in front of the 'Net, twiddling my thumbs with nothing. I don't know why it popped into my head, really - the thought that horses were once prehistoric natives to the American continent, and then they vanished at some point from the fossil records, only to reappear w/the Conquistadores. Cortez basically did one thing right in my righteously judgmental eyes - he brought the horse back home.
So I start matching up what I know, being a lover of prehistoric life forms and the American wild horse, aka mestizos, aka mestenos, aka mustangs... Added up to about 2 hrs. of 'Net research this morning, combined w/furious typing... and I started crying. Tears rolling down my cheeks, shuddering bottom lip, runny nose. So lovely, eh? Why do I cry when I write anymore? There is nothing in this paper that should make me cry.
Dear Fellow Americans:
Although I write today as a voice from the present, I have been here since long before you ever came along. I speak for myself and for my people. If you’re on the sunrise side of the Rockies, you may have only seen us in photographs or movies, or read about us in books. If you’re on the sunset side of the great Rocky Mountains, you may have seen us, looking down from a ridge or running across a desert mesa. We were actually here millennia before you were, but not in the shape you know us by today. At that time, we were smaller, looked like dogs, and had bushy fur and many toes on each foot. As your ancestors came south from the snowy wastes to America, many experts believe we went northwest, into the steppes of a land called China, even further south into Asia Minor and Africa. As we traveled, our toes grew into one big hard toe on each foot, and we became taller and broader. We still live there too, closer to our old selves in the brushy manes and dun-striped legs.
When you look at us now, you can see in our colors, our heads, our sure feet the traces of our ancestors. We are not pure or thoroughly bred – we were the best of all our kinds – Iberians, Andalusians, Barbs and Jennets from Spain, Arabians from northern Africa, ponies from Turkey and Romania, all selected for hardiness in arid conditions and adaptability to new situations. We are a common-sense horse and we know the difference between a sage bush blown by the wind and a stalking mountain lion.
My kind was brought to this desert land from another much like it, the hills of Spain, across a mighty expanse of water. A modern poet wrote about how the Horse Latitudes1 were named, but could humans such as yourselves really know what it was like? To be aboard a creaking wooden ship, eating moldy food and drinking tainted water, forced to stand in crowded holds, cramped for weeks, never seeing the sun that nourishes you… well, I guess some humans of that time may have known, captured and brought from their homelands to a strange place on a journey across infinite seas. When we reached those calm places along the tropics of Cancer, sometimes the wind would still for weeks and weeks, and the ship’s Captain had to choose between his crew, his cargo or us. We were always the ones thrown overboard.
Oh, and what a wonder it always was to make landfall, stumbling up some sandy shore, the smell of ocean all around but loving the feel of real earth under our hooves. Noses already smelling fresh water, fresh grass! We were so used to the Spanish folk who rode us, tall fair-faced men in clanking armor, the scent of machine grease, the noise of the gunnery was often heard on the ships, and no longer startled us. The new people we met – they startled us. They smelled nothing like the men we knew – they smelled of vines and something dark and sweet, and they breathed fire! The dark-skinned feather-wearing folk never came close to us – they only pointed, yelled, and ran. On our backs, Cortez, with a few men for good measure, conquered the mighty Aztecs. We were considered terrible monsters, with the head of a dragon, carrying Gods into battle.
About two centuries later, with the native people used to us, and using us when they could for travel and work, the Spanish who brought us here were not so lucky. They had moved northward, into what you now call ‘New Mexico’, ‘Texas’ and ‘California’. In New Mexico, in the 1600’s there was a time of terrible drought. Although the natives loved the Sun as a God, He was harsh and cruel to them in those years. When there is no water, there is no food. We suffered along with the Spanish and the native humans, most of who were treated worse than we were. We need vast amounts of water to live, and for the most part, it was those small dark folk of the land who made sure we had enough, even as they died in the irrigation fields. By waging war and setting themselves free of the Spanish colonials and missions, they set us free, too. We were free to spread out, heading northward again to escape the drought and worn out fields, into the plains and mountains.
Like the Spanish before them, the Pueblo, Apache and Comanche tribes used us to ride to war, terrifying the enemy. We also went to hunt the mighty buffalo, and we traveled everywhere, discovering new horizons, revolutionizing an entire nation of people as we went. Before us, the native people of this land relied on their own feet to move them from place to place, limited in distance by the elderly and young among their people. They had no belongings because they had to abandon what they could not carry. They had no land to till, because no human could drag a plow through hardpan prairie soil. They had dogs, and called us big dogs – the dogs could carry some things on travois’s and in baskets, but we carried the People.
Without us, would you be here today? Probably. But would you be the same person you are today? In you runs some of our spirit. When you think of the ‘Wild West’, do you see cowboys and ‘Indians’ fighting on foot, or are they mounted? When you think of ‘Custer’s Last Stand’, is he actually standing, or is he astride a cavalry horse awaiting his destiny? Even Mexico and South America has us at the heart of its horse cultures2, the Gauchos, Charros and Llaneros, nomadic herdsmen following the cattle from one seasonal pasture to another. You can hunt us with helicopters, you can round us up and sell us to rendering plants, you can fence us in or fence us out, but remember – we are all native children of America.
Affectionately yours,
The American Wild Horse
________________________________________________________________________
1) The Columbia Encyclopedia online, 6th edition, © 2001- 2005 (notes on the horse latitudes): Columbia Encyclopedia
History of the American Wild Horse © 2000 - 2006 Nancy Kerson: mustangs4us.com
Notes on the Pueblo revolts of 1680: Revolt of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Otermín's Attempted Reconquest, 1680-1682 [volume 9--excerpt] Remember the Pueblo!
An Entire Frontier in Flames (The regional implications of the Pueblo Revolt 1680-1696)
By John P. Schmal | Web Published 10.7.2004 Remember the Pueblo again!
2) American Horse Cultures This page was last modified 17:18, 30 January 2006.: Modern Nomads
