As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
One of the greatest detriments of a lost world is that there are not video recordings of the American Indian in their wild state. We have glimpses in George Caitlin's paintings in the important period where the aboriginals were evolving from exposure from Vikings and Phoenicians, to their last transformation by Americans.
The Indians did not transform from Spanish, English or French exposure in a great extent, but changed a great deal from exposure to Americans. It was the horse which changed the Plains tribes from the Spanish, but the Spanish culture did not transform the Indians. In fact, the terrorists of the Plains transformed most who made contact with them, even the Americans left behind their English failings in learning to deal with the plains tribes.
If you pay attention to Caitlan's renditions of the 1840's, you see the Comanche in pure form. They had long limber spears which they used to jab buffalo to death or opponents. They had bows and arrows, but the Comanche wore the wool buffalo cap with horns. The feather head dress did not appear until the end of the Comanche nation which came from the Cheyenne or the northern tribes.
Below you can see the classic maneuver of a warrior throwing themselves off the side of their horse for protection. With their buffalo hide shield, they were a fantastic close combat machine.
With the advent of firearms, bows and arrows at 30 yards became the chosen weapon in the latter years, but the Comanche long spear was a fantastic weapon against buffalo or foot bound Indians like the Tonkawa or Apache.
This though is not about combat, but about the Comanche tank or their trucks which where their Spanish horses. No one has a history of how the Comanche figured out how to break horses, and break they did. They used the same horrid shock therapy against human captives, who were beaten, tortured, gang raped and terrified into submission. Horses were treated better, but the Comanche took a wild dangerous animal, and the first step was to run it into the ground, or terrify the horse, rope it and then choke it off.
The horse once it fell down, and was passed out to the point of death, was released from the rope choke. Upon reviving the first thing the Comanche did was to breathe into the horses nostrils, and then run their hands all over the horse as it recovered to it's feet. Once there, the Indian had a riding rig in the mouth, and rode off on the horse completely under the control of the Indian.
Horses are unique animals and quite violent. There seems to be though a reality they respond to being terrified, subdued, choked out to being helpless, and in that broken moment, their "fear" is the scent breathed into their sense, and their brain then registers their terror has become their savior. Save a horse at that point and they apparently for the most part of the majority of horses, will become the human's for life.
These mustangs would stampede from Americans in their scent. They smelled different than Indians and the horses recognized the race as a threat. It was a remarkable psychological finding that the Comanche through brute force learned in how to control humans and horses.
This choking off of horses was nothing the Americans ever engaged in. It was instead the breaking of riding a horse to stop bucking, three times, and that was a trained horse. Teddy Roosevelt instead tried gentling in a horse as a better training method on his ranch, as the wild horses he had on the Elk Horn were horrid creatures which for the most part were never tamed, as every morning it was more dealing with a biting, bucking or stamping creature.
Roosevelt mentions on a hunting trip to Yellowstone before it was park that a particular mount he was on while riding out, caught him in the snow and cold by surprise and decided to buck as was natural. He dislocated a finger, popped it back in, and then stated, the entire day that damn horse pitched and buck every opportunity it could find.
There are no records of Indian ponies ever acting out like that.
I know from a Caitlan description that one buck he came across who was a Comanche had great delight in a stud horse he was riding with an iron bit. The horse was bleeding froth from the mouth, and every so often the Indian would kick the horse and it would tear off, much to the buck's delight in torturing the animal, who in that crazed state was still under this Indian's control.
It was not elaborated on if the Spanish iron bit was new and the problem or if the Indian had just captured this stud horse and was delighting in riding the crazed animal, but the reality was this horse which would terrify most people and never be under their control, but this Indian had a crazed deadly animal under his control.
I honestly do hope one day to choke off a horse to try this method, as it certainly accomplishes in 15 minutes what training and gentling requires. A similar method is throwing a horse with a rope and releasing them from that bondage, I have read of. I simply know that I saw no benefit when castrating young studs as you had to tie them down to not get killed, and releasing them did nothing. It was just more repetition in conditioning which created the horse.
We had some neighbors who adopted 3 mustangs. Those horses climbed the walls. They sold them for slaughter. I would have liked trying the Comanche method. Only part I am concerned about is blowing air into a horse's nose, as I would not care to get my teeth broken out if a horse snapped their head.
Odd in no one ever says what wood the Comanche's used for their flexible spears. Not like willows grow 16 feet and cottonwoods are not flexy material.
Maybe have to research that as I would like a spear to poke poke poke beasts that make good roasts.
agtG
