A horse culture is a
tribal group
The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confli ...
or
community
A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, ...
whose day-to-day life revolves around the herding and breeding of
horse
The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million yea ...
s. Beginning with the
domestication of the horse
A number of hypotheses exist on many of the key issues regarding the domestication of the horse. Although horses appeared in Paleolithic cave art as early as 30,000 BCE, these were wild horses and were probably hunted for meat.
How and when ho ...
on the steppes of
Eurasia
Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago ...
, the horse transformed each society that adopted its use. Notable examples are the
Mongols
The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal membe ...
of
Mongolia
Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...
, the
Scythian
The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern
* : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved for the ancient tribes of northern and eastern Centra ...
and
Turkic nomads of
Central Asia
Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...
, and the
Plains Indians and the Indians of the
Puelmapu
Puelmapu is the traditional Mapuche territory located east of the Andes. It covers much of Patagonia and the Pampas. Since the Conquest of the Desert (1878–1885) Puelmapu is ''de facto'' part of Argentina. It is a theater of the Mapuche conflict ...
after horses were imported from
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
, particularly from
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
, during the 16th century.
History
History offers many examples of horse cultures, such as the
Huns
The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part ...
and
other peoples in Europe and Asia. Horse cultures tend to place a great deal of importance on horses and by their very nature are
nomad
A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the po ...
ic and usually
hunter-gatherer or
nomadic pastoralist
Nomadic pastoralism is a form of pastoralism in which livestock are herded in order to seek for fresh pastures on which to graze. True nomads follow an irregular pattern of movement, in contrast with transhumance, where seasonal pastures are fix ...
societies. For example, the arrival of the horse in the Americas altered the culture of the Plains Indians. The horse increased mobility; the ability of the horse to cover a lot of ground in a very short period of time allowed native people to easily move from place to place, bringing on a nomadic shift in their culture, with an impact on transportation, trade, hunting and warfare.
However, there were also disadvantages to adopting horse culture, such as the increased responsibility of caring for the horses and keeping them healthy.
Social structure
In the social sciences, social structure is the aggregate of patterned social arrangements in society that are both emergent from and determinant of the actions of individuals. Likewise, society is believed to be grouped into structurally rel ...
s of the community also had to shift to accommodate the physical space for horses to graze and feed easily.
See also
*
Horse culture in Mongolia
Horses and horse culture play a large role in the daily and national life in Mongolia. It is traditionally said that "A Mongol without a horse is like a bird without the wings." , who travelled through Mongolia in 1911, observed, "To appreciate th ...
*
Horse worship
Horse worship is a spiritual practice with archaeological evidence of its existence during the Iron Age and, in some places, as far back as the Bronze Age. The horse was seen as divine, as a sacred animal associated with a particular deity, or as ...
*
Livestock
Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to animal ...
*
Nomadic empire
External links
Orland Ned Eddins, "Spanish Colonial Horse and the Plains Indian Culture"
References
Anthropological categories of peoples
Horses in culture
Indigenous culture of the Great Plains
{{Ethno-stub