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Post by Montana Bab on Apr 26, 2007 7:55:10 GMT -6
ON THE OTHER HAND.........Van Gogh needed a shrink too.......
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Post by elisabeth on Apr 26, 2007 8:25:27 GMT -6
Bab,
I'm no artist, so only guessing ... but mightn't letting rip with the animosity make for a really great painting? So many are either the sainted martyr stance, or the steely-eyed grim determination one. It'd be novel to see him through the eyes of someone who doesn't think he walks on water.
And who knows, you might find that once you've worked through all the animosity and given him a good pillorying (if that's a word) other aspects of him might start to reveal themselves ...? In which case you could have another, less hostile, go at the same subject. Could be an interesting experiment.
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Post by BrokenSword on Apr 26, 2007 9:59:55 GMT -6
Bab-
"There is no great genius without some touch of madness." -- Seneca in "Epistles"
M seems to be my day to quote others
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Post by BrokenSword on Apr 27, 2007 7:20:40 GMT -6
Elisabeth-
After venturing into a little independent research on the subject of Curly Horses, I ran into mention of a cross between a French Black and a Bashkir after being plundered by the French at the capture of Vienna. Enough Bashkir horses were curly to be called ‘cheval a poil frize' by the French in those years. Not a breed as such, more of a description of the coats of certain horses within the breed and the cross-breed. This probably won’t help a bit - but I became interested in the question and this is what I found.
First chickens and now the plunder taken from Vienna by the French. I may at least be setting a record for straying farther afield than anyone else on this board.
Michael
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Post by elisabeth on Apr 27, 2007 10:01:47 GMT -6
Great stuff. Maybe the "poil frize" description was what I was thinking of, and from some other book? (Or maybe not.)
The Bashkir does seem to be as good a root as any for this variation. And now you've found a French connection. Hmmm. Interesting ...
P.S. Which capture of Vienna was it, as a matter of interest? The French seem to have been in and out of there as through a revolving door (well, I exaggerate, but it was always a major target of theirs). Just wondering whether or not there was enough time for a French strain to be established and to go over to America/Canada with them, or whether we're back to the Russians again. Or to some freak of nature that, with selective breeding, allowed a separate strain to be established in America.
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Post by Montana Bab on Apr 27, 2007 13:54:07 GMT -6
Great stuff, indeed, Michael and Elizabeth! I did a whole lot of searching again on the subject of the 'curlies' and much to my amazement found a real conflict with what I thought the "Bashkir Curly" was! It all started when I discovered that there were curly-coated horses at the LBH (via pictographs by Red Horse.) So I dug some more and found out that they were recorded in the Indian winter counts (pictographs) of 1801-2, proving that they were already in the U.S.! Now I discover that the name given to the "Bashkir Curly" by the Damele family of Nevada was entirely wrong! I have included a site I discovered that explains it all. The Bashkir Pony of Russia DOES NOT HAVE CURLY HAIR! The article enclosed explains how the connection came about. www.animalnetwork.com/horse/Breed_Profiles.aspx?aid=4133&cid=61&search= Just proves that no matter how much material you collect, there is always mountains more to learn. And do I love it! Thanks to you two, I'm still collecting and learning! Montana
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Post by BrokenSword on Apr 27, 2007 20:21:31 GMT -6
Elisabeth-
I did my research at the library and didn't note which capture of Vienna was involved - doesn't seem to matter though. I found today that DNA testing has shown NO link between European or Asian Curly breeds and the American breed. Apparently curly coats can appear in ANY breed of horse. A rarity but it happens. Some peoples down through time have specifically bred curly coated horses within breeds to produce this characteristic.
HOWEVER, as a completely unrelated sidebar- There is a breed called the Pyrenees which the French Normans bred with blacks from the East to produce a particular breed with special qualities of strength, endurance and growth. The Pyrenees are small but when removed from their native area in Spain they attain greater height and weight for some unknown reason. They have the advantage of growing and maturing rather quickly- an attribute that they pass on to offspring even when interbred. The Normans and Friesians interbred Pyrenees with their local stock to produce a strong fast maturing war horse especially prized for its frequently gray color. The Normans brought this horse, during the 1066 invasion, to England, interbreeding it again with English stock to achieve a more consistently gray colored coat while maintaining its size, strength and fast maturation rate. From that blood-line came the ‘Scots Grays’ of Waterloo fame.
Bab, I also found mention of Curlys in the Winter Counts as the earliest record of them in North America. Just how long BEFORE that 1801-02 date the Curlys were here isn’t known. There are reports of Spanish sightings of curley coated wild horses in South America in the late 1700s.
Native American legends speak of a large red dog they knew of before the white man came. They call it the horse before it was a horse - or by some such description. The fossil record hasn’t supported the existence of the horse on this continent from a time when they could have crossed any sort of prehistoric land bridge. Only examples of the three toed ‘pre-horse’ Eohippus (indeed, about the size of a large dog) which became extinct thousands of years ago- again according to the fossil record. However, new fossils are discovered nearly every year.
If you think the fighting on this board is heavy at times…just wait ‘til you see the horse people go at it over Curlys and their origin. For instance the business about ‘no curly haired Bashkirs’. AS I UNDERSTAND IT- that info about Bashkirs having no curly coats appears to have been made by Russia’s head of zoology at the Moscow Zoo and their Department of Agriculture in answer to a western researcher‘s request for information. Now the Russians are saying, “That there were no Bashkirs with curly coats that they were aware of at the time the question was posed to them,” in the 1970s or 80s, I believe. AARRRGGG! (I have NEVER known the Russians to get their story straight the first time!) The curly coated Bashkirs were from a mix of breeds, one of which dated from the ancient Hittites, and DID have a curly coat. Apparently the curly hair gene from the ancient Lokai breed of the Tadjik region became common among the horses of the Bashiries - who inhabited an area just north of Afghanistan. A horse of that breed was what I had mentioned to Elisabeth - in the earlier posting - as having been brought back to France from Vienna. The naming of the American breed as the Bashkir Curly was just a complete misnomer from the start.
M
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Post by elisabeth on Apr 27, 2007 20:59:55 GMT -6
I'd read somewhere, earlier today, that the first Russian settlers in America definitely did NOT bring Bashkirs with them, but some other breed, which was disappointing. So the "no curly Bashkirs" theory seemed momentarily like a comfort. The French/Lokai cross is still interesting (as is the info about the Pyreneans, for which much thanks) but seems unlikely to give us a strain that could be imported from Europe early enough to be well established in the wild in time for the 1801 winter count.
The South American sightings suggest that curliness could just be a genetic freak, or "sport", that occurred spontaneously among the feral horses descended from those of the Conquistadors. I've read on yet another website somewhere today that the Indians referred to curlies as "buffalo horses", and prized them especially because their coat resembled that of the buffalo. So ... is it a huge stretch, I wonder, to think that the Indians might have done a bit of selective breeding to encourage this characteristic? Although horses came to them comparatively late, they'd presumably know all about selective breeding via dogs ... and could simply apply the same principles to developing the curly horse strain?
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Post by clw on Apr 28, 2007 8:35:22 GMT -6
The tribes knew well how to breed for size, talent, speed or color. Consider the appaloosa. And paints were bred for too because they provided excellent camouflage. Coat texture could certainly have been added to that list. I loved the reference to 'buffalo horses'! Didn't know that.
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Post by BrokenSword on Apr 28, 2007 9:39:37 GMT -6
Elizabeth-
Thanks for mentioning the absence of the Bashkir line among the 18th Century Russian colonists - I meant to mention that and forgot. Russian ships logs are the source of info as to what was and what wasn't imported into North America.
Also- I imagine that, given the more or less independent tribal units that Native Americans lived and travelled in, each tribe had its own pony herds that saw only scattered intermingling with other tribes/bands on the Plains. Gene pools - perhaps?- remained mostly exclusive to individual groupings/herds. That would, in theory anyway, allow for a 'curly gene' (as well as other traits) to become more common place within a certain tribe's herd. What I'm trying to say is that each tribe's herd of horses may have developed similarities and characteristics of their own. Just another silly thought. I'm not a horse breeder. I'm here to lean and not to teach.
P.S. clw- I have also heard it said that Curlys were reserved for the more important ceremonial leaders of a tribe's members. Interesting idea. That would indicate to me that Curlys were not altogether a common item - even among the tribes.
M
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Post by elisabeth on Apr 28, 2007 10:29:19 GMT -6
That would make sense re the winter count pictograph -- the Sioux stealing them from the Crows. If the Crows had developed that particular gene (which figures, as they're so keen on interesting hairstyles) it'd be far easier for the Sioux to steal a herd nucleus than to wait for generations until they could breed the trait for themselves ...
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Post by harpskiddie on Apr 28, 2007 10:48:26 GMT -6
Youse guys had better all post some artwork featuring some of them curly horses [did Curly have one?], or else stand charges of hijacking this thread!!!!
Did anybody consider than these horses might have been named after old Autie, and developed from an animal on his pappy's farm? Did Crazy Horse, who was, maybe so, called Curly in his younger days, have one?
Gordie, naturally curly, like that little sweetie in the Peanuts strip................................................
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Post by elisabeth on Apr 28, 2007 11:32:12 GMT -6
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Post by clw on Apr 29, 2007 5:41:08 GMT -6
Elisabeth, what an interesting link! The mystery of them being gifted to the Lakota by the Crow really has me wondering. I'm going to ask around about them and see what I can discover. The breed is obviously an important part of plains culture I knew nothing about until this thread. Here's a picture for you Gordie. They're odd looking little dudes........
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Post by elisabeth on Apr 29, 2007 9:36:43 GMT -6
Cute little fellow.
Interesting, what that article says about the sorrel with four white stockings being an unusual and prized colouring. I'd wondered if there was something special about it, as so many Indian accounts of LBH fixate on a horse or horses of that description. Even wondered if it might be more than just a literal description -- whether there might be some symbolic or metaphorical aspect to it. (As with the "drunk" and "suicide" descriptions being possibly metaphorical.) Would you know anything about that? I'd love to get to the bottom of it.
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