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In this completely redesigned and expanded edition of They Sang for Horses, LaVerne Harrell Clark examines how storytellers, singers, medicine men, and painters created the animal's evolving symbolic significance by adapting existing folklore and cultural symbols. Exploring the horse's importance in ceremonies, songs, prayers, customs, and beliefs, she investigates the period of the horse's most pronounced cultural impact on the Navajo and the Apache, starting from the time of its acquisition from the Spanish in the seventeenth century and continuing to the mid-1960s, when the pickup truck began to replace it as the favored means of transportation. In addition, she presents a look at how Navajos and Apaches today continue to redefine the horse's important role in their spiritual as well as material lives.
About the author
LaVerne Harrell Clark is a writer, photographer, and lecturer of Southwestern folklore and mythology, and was the founding director of the University of Arizona Poetry Center. She is the author of six books, including "The Face of Poetry "and "Revisiting the Plains Indian Country of Mari Sandoz."
Summary
They Sang for Horses, first published in 1966 and now considered a classic, remains the only comprehensive treatment of the profound mystical influence that the horse has exerted for more than three hundred years.
