My Grandpa would always weave stories of the past for me touching adventures which were mundane which were enticing as they could no longer be touched in a modern age.There was the time my Great Grandfather met Buffalo Bill Cody and shared his lunch with him on the prairie. There was the time he was cultivating with horses and a lever fell down and knocked him out and there was the time a horse buyer came and purchased a bronco and tied a rope around the wild horse's jaw and led it away like an obedient dog.
This Indian method has always intrigued me as my Grandpa puzzled over it in never having asked the wrangler just what he threw for a noose over this bronco's jaw.
I actually found a reference to this in artist George Catlin's description in 1840 of Indians running horses in a most unique method, which was not as cruel as the bronc buster of Teddy Roosevelt's time in the Dakotas which involved bucking a horse out three times and turning them over as "broke".
The net result was those horses always bucked and tried to kill cowboys who destroyed their connective tissues and became broken down old men early.
I was fascinated by the horse psychology involved as the Indians were beasts like Mexicans to horses, but in this "breaking" method they were more in tune with the horse than the cowboys.
The old adage on the plains was a white man would ride a horse until it dropped. The Mexican would take that horse and beat it to ride it another week, and the Indian would come along and whip it to ride another month out of a dead horse.
The basis in the Indian method was to run these Spanish Barbs or what were "mustangs", put a lasso over their neck, choke them off, and then jump off their horse, running along, until the horse basically passed out and fell down.
While in this oxygen deprived state, the Indian would come forward put on hobbles to the front feet, and then loosen the rope to revive the horse, and put that infamous loop over the jaw to control the horse in what was coming, at which point the fight would be one in literally using fatigue to dominate the horse.
The lathered horse would be controlled not to injure itself in going over backwards of breaking a leg. As exhaustion set in, the Indian would come forward, touch the nose and eyes with their hands, and eventually blow into the horses nostrils, which would literally finish the process.
These wild mustangs would then be dominated and subdued, to either be rode or led back to camp, to apparently never be a problem again.
I have had cattle choked off, but never had this reaction from them. I did though run a calf to exhaustion once which was a maverick, and upon flipping it on a fence it ran into, the calf did run along like a dog beside my pickup back to the corral as it was dominated.
My methods in training a horse are long with my range horses in like all animals, I never break them as that destroys the spirit in them. I prefer for them to learn their limits while choosing to behave to protect me.
I had a friend in school whose family got 3 mustangs years ago in that adopt a horse BLM scam, and those horses literally climbed the walls, and were sold for slaughter, as nothing could be done with them. Now I wonder if this Indian method of exhausting a horse quickly in an hour, and breathing into them would do exactly as Indians or plainsmen did in a literal Stockholm Syndrome for equines.
None of this though really answers completely the original loop which is placed around a horses jaw to obtain this type of obedience, and my concern would be the breaking of a jaw while a wild horse plunges.
I though am getting closer in the descriptions of the War Bridle.
I have had two horses a mother and son, who I could and did ride with just a lariat or even a piece of twine string. It is quite satisfying to be on a horse and control them with a rope around their neck. This is what I have intended with my range stock as we make headway which is slow.
One mare is not ever going to be one I can really trust, but I do have a strawberry roan who is so interested in me, that she shows up while I fix fence, lay on the ground and studies me protectively.
In that I am her's and she drives off the other mare.
I still roll my eyes as I watch these two clowns play in bucking at each other in not wanting any part of this, but it is part of the education in they can be who they are, but realize they will protect me when I am on their back.
I will continue my search, and ponder refinements of what I "suppose" might be the answer, to the mysterious jaw noose of the old west.
The dynamics though are not that mysterious as logic would be a slide knot, with a "knot" under the back of the jaw to provide discomfort to convince a wild horse to obey in discomfort to non discomfort in following.It is the same principles of the bridle without bit as the three sensitive areas are the bridge of the nose, under the jaw and the gum inside the mouth.
Oh well Catlin speaks and the Staked Plains hold their tales so no need to get the bulge on.
agtG
The usual mode of taking the wild horses, is, by throwing the laso, whilst pursuing them at full speed, and dropping a noose over their necks, by which their speed is soon checked, and they are "choked down." The laso is a thong of rawhide, some ten or fifteen yards in length, twisted or braided, with a noose fixed at the end of it; which, when the coil of the laso is thrown out, drops with great certainty over the neck of the animal, which is soon conquered.
The Indian, when he starts for a wild horse, mounts one of the fleetest he can get, and coiling his laso on his arm, starts off under the "full whip", till he can enter the band, when he soon gets it over the neck of one of the number; when he instantly dismounts, leaving his own horse, and runs as fast as he can, letting the laso pass out gradually and carefully through his hands, until the horse falls for want of breath, and lies helpless on the ground; at which time the Indian advances slowly towards the horse's head, keeping his laso tight upon its neck, until he fastens a pair of hobbles on the animal's two forefeet, and also loosens the laso (giving the horse chance to breathe), and gives it a noose around the under jaw, by which he gets great power over the affrighted animal, which is rearing and plunging when it gets breath; and by which, as he advances, hand over hand, towards the horse's nose, he is able to hold it down and prevent it from throwing itself over on its back, at the hazard of its limbs.
By this means he gradually advances, until he is able to place his hand on the animal's nose, and over its eyes; and at length to breathe in its nostrils, when it soon becomes docile and conquered; so that he has little else to do than to remove the hobbles from its feet, and lead or ride it into camp.
This ''breaking down" or taming, however, is not without the most desperate trial on the part of the horse, which rears and plunges in every possible way to effect its escape, until its power is exhausted, and it becomes covered with foam; and at last yields to the power of man, and becomes his willing slave for the rest of its life.
By this very rigid treatment, the poor animal seems to be so completely conquered, that it makes no further struggle for its freedom; but submits quietly ever after, and is led or rode away with very little difficulty.
Great care is taken, however, in this and in subsequent treatment, not to subdue the spirit of the animal, which is carefully preserved and kept up, although they use them with great severity; being, generally speaking, cruel masters.
PS: In typical Catlin liberalism, he actually shot a horse in the neck with a gun to stun it as the experts did, missed and killed the animal.
The same Catlin judging what is and what is not Obama kinder and gentler caught venomous creatures, pitted them against each other for wagers and the animals killed each other.
What is and what is not cruel in the hands of a liberal distributing their actions as justice?
