Shunka wakan: the sacred dog Part 1 of 2

Around 6000 years ago wild horses roamed the plains of Kazakhstan in South Central Siberia. This period is credited as being the first time humans took to riding horses instead of just hunting them and eating them. In the millennia to follow a wealth of archaeological evidence would be uncovered across Africa, Europe and Asia indicating the horse was an integral part in the development of most of those cultures.

While the presence of horses can be traced deep into human antiquity in the Old World, no fossil record existed of the evolution of horses. Ironically, in North America, where horses had gone extinct, archaeologists discovered fossils dating back tens of millions of years. This forced a conclusion that horses had evolved in North America, crossed over the land bridge to Asia, where they thrived, but they went extinct back in North America as late as 11,000 years ago.

Currently efforts are underway to establish the modern horse in North America before the arrival of Columbus in 1492. Normally, when a theory is presented, it must be backed by three basic types of verification: hard, direct archeological evidence, scientific evidence like DNA, and historical evidence. To this point, every attempt to establish a pre-Columbian horse presence has failed to meet all three standards. DNA was claimed to have been found but the surrounding fossil record indicated no horses. If horses were common in North America before Columbus then why did mighty horse cultures like the Comanche and the Lakota not have horses until much later? The historical record is irrefutable they did not, and there is no archaeological or scientific evidence to dispute that conclusion.

In addition, Lakota call the horse shunka wakan, sometimes translated as holy dog, sometimes as sacred dog. But whatever the translation, the horse was called a dog because that was the only animal the Lakota could compare it to, since they had no horses. If the horse was familiar to them, why not have a word for horse, and why would the animal be a mystery?

Many Lakota claim the horse followed the people up out of Wind Cave. This belief is passed off as long held, but when Tom and Jesse Bingham first saw the cave in 1881, the entrance was about the size of a large dinner plate. Not much chance of a man fitting through that, let alone a horse. It is reasonable to conclude, that the Wind Cave story was something the tribe invented after they arrived in the Black Hills on horses, sometime in the late 17^th Century. However, inquiry into this line of reasoning is critically subdued by the well-intentioned desire not to offend tribes.

Science is often mistaken as an expression of Western culture, when other scientifically savvy cultures, like the folks in Japan, China and India, have decidedly non-Western societies, and yet, they practice the same science, because the scientific method is a universal method of logical, and empirical inquiry. These societies, too, once held belief systems that ran counter to scientific knowledge, and every society struggles to balance the sacred and the traditional with the ever expanding body of scientific knowledge.

Yvette Running Horse Collins is an intelligent, eloquent spokeswoman for the theory that horses were actively interacting in Native culture before the arrival of Columbus. A scholar of Lakota/Nakota/Cheyenne decent, Collins is not a radical fringe theorist, but well respected within the scientific community and willing to work within the scientifically respected framework to “synthesize fossil evidence, historical documents, and oral history to present a compelling new story of the horse in the Americas.”

Those advocating a traditional interpretation of the horse in the Americas could find no better ambassador than Collins, as in person, she is gracious, articulate and easily accessible. If anything, the difficulty comes from the folks advocating for traditional science, as time and again NSNT has been politely rebuffed trying to get any of them to comment on concerted efforts between all perspectives in the debate over the history of the horse in America. This Blackfeet elder quote, from a doctoral paper by Collins sums up why it is difficult for the liberally minded, socially conscious scientific community to address the assertions of tribal people with the same vigor and perspicacity they do any other anti-science assertion, example, Flat-Earthers: “We have calmly known we’ve always had the horse, way before the settlers came. The Spanish never came through our area, so there’s no way they could have introduced them to us.”

This quote is easily to break down: “We have calmly known we’ve always had the horse, way before the settlers came.” Nothing supports this assertion, however calmly it is asserted. Worse still, how have you known, by oral history, passed down over generations? How much do you know about your great grandparents? It takes only about a half century for people to lose touch with who their ancestors actually were. More than that, tell a person one thing, and after it only passes through a few people before it comes back to you it is often considerably distorted. More than even that, gossip is a problem on every reservation, and gossip tends toward fabrication and exaggeration. It is just as easy to calmly assert a deep history that never was, infusing into traditional beliefs that actually are ancient, and since nothing is ever written down, calmly assert that this is always what the tribe believed. Finally, it does not matter if the Spanish never came through the area. Because there was a well-developed trade network. For example, farmers in South Dakota don’t need to first meet a person from Peru to have llamas.

On March 27, at Toulouse, France’s Paul Sabatier University, a conference sponsored by the Centre for Anthropobiology and Genomics, regarding horse distribution and evolution, was held. A joint paper was published, combining contributions and conclusions of scientists from all sides of the ancient horse issue.

Attending that conference was Oglala Lakota Attorney Mario Gonzalez, who has worked closely with the folks sponsoring that conference. Thanks to Gonzalez, these folks were gracious enough to send NSNT their joint paper but asked nothing be published about it until this Friday, hence the need for a two part story, as the body of that joint paper will be the subject of the next article.

(Contact James Giago Davies at skindiesel@msn.com)

 

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