Armored horse, Farrington Springs, Colorado.
Photograph: Peter Faris, May 2002.
Drawing of armored horse, Farrington Springs, Colorado.
On August 20, 2009, I posted a column entitled Armored Horse Petroglyphs, about the discovery by Mark
Mitchell of two petroglyphs of armored horses at the great rock art site of
Farrington Springs, in Bent County, Colorado. I wish to study the phenomenon of
armored horses in Plains Indian art, especially rock art, in greater depth, and
share a few more photographs with you.
Armored horse, Farrington Springs, Colorado.
Photograph: Peter Faris, May 2002
Drawing of armored horse, Farrington Springs, Colorado.
For any student of rock art who wishes to study the subject of horse armor worn by Native Americans one excellent source is the painting on hide known as Segesser I displayed in the Palace of the Governors Museum in Santa Fe. This painting shows in detail horses wearing leather horse armor.
Segesser I hide painting, Museum of New Mexico.
On June 16, 1720, a Spanish expedition set out from Santa Fe
to reconnoiter French activity on the northern Plains. “They had camped in tall grass near the confluence of the Platte and
Loup rivers in present-day eastern Nebraska, six hundred miles northeast of
Santa Fe. The force numbered forty-some presidial soldiers, sixty Pueblo
auxiliaries, and a few citizens and servants, all well outfitted.” (Kessell
2002:210) The Spanish expedition had been following the tracks of a large mixed
group of Pawnees, Otos, and others. “A
message in French had brought an unintelligible response. The populous camp of
Pawnees, Otos, and others whose tracks the Spaniards had picked up, appeared
not especially welcoming, so the Spanish column had turned back. According to angry critics later,
Villasur made careless decisions that determined the expedition’s fate: he
chose an indefensible site for the camp; pastured the horses at some distance,
which left his people afoot; failed to post sentries; and went to sleep as
casually as if they had reposed in Santa Fe. At sunrise on August 13, while the
men were busy catching their unsaddled horses, a horde of gaudily painted
Natives who had silently encircled the camp fell screaming upon it. – Only
thirteen Spaniards and some forty Pueblo auxiliaries escaped.” (Kessell
2002: 210-11)
The relevance of this Spanish defeat to our subject is that
two contemporary paintings were done on elk or buffalo hide, one measuring 17
feet long by 4½ feet high was produced to illustrate the disastrous defeat
described above. This colorful illustration was probably created by a
mission-trained artist who was informed by the survivors but today the creator
is unknown. This remarkable artifact, now known as Segesser II, was shipped in
1758, by Jesuit missionary Felipe Segesser von Brunegg, to his brother in
Switzerland, and in 1988 was purchased by New Mexico where it is now displayed
at the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe. (Kessell 2002: 211)
Riders on armored horses, Segesser I, detail.
Hotz, The Segesser Hide Paintings.
A companion painting measuring 13½ by 4½ feet, known as
Segesser I, shows a battle between two tribal groups, with the attackers
possibly accompanied by a Spaniard. The painting shows hills and cliffs with
deciduous trees populated by bison, deer, and pumas. It is theorized that it
represents an encounter between Pueblo Indians and Plains Apaches. Such
skirmishes occurred between 1693 and about 1719. (http://media.museumofnewmexico.org/press_releases)
Illustrated in this battle two of the attackers ride leather-armored horses. “The attackers’ horses wear neck protectors,
like the collars worn by horses in jousting contests, and rawhide armor
reaching almost to the ground. – Both of these riders, confined in the long
horse armor, remind one of Eskimos in their kayaks.” (Hotz 1970:23)
“They are a later
version of the medieval covers worn by horses used in jousting contests. Such
coverings for horses were common in seventeenth and eighteenth century America
and served as protection both from enemies and from thick underbrush and cactus.
They are shown in Spanish drawings on the walls of Canyon de Chelly, in
Arizona. The Padouca Apaches are supposed to have adopted them and to have
glued sand on the outsides for reinforcement.” (Hotz 1970:55) In the
examples shown in Segesser II the legs and hips of the riders are inside the
leather cover which comes up to fasten around their waists.
There is considerable disagreement as to the tribes involved
in various depictions of hide-armored horses, but Lewis and Clarke did describe
hide horse armor among the Shoshone so examples from the Plateau and the
northwestern part of the Great Plains may well be Shoshone. Farther east and
south the issue becomes cloudier as many references exist that say the armored
horses were ridden by Padoucah warriors, and the identity of the Padoucahs is
not agreed upon. The great George Bird Grinnell identified the Padoucah with
Plains Apache groups early after the contact period (Grinnell 1920) while
others associate the name Padoucah with Comanches, although, as seen above the
Museum of New Mexico identifies the portrayals in the Segesser I as Plains
Apache. Either of these groups could have been responsible for the two armored
horses at Farrington Springs. This is an area that both Plains Apache and
Comanches passed through, and these figures represent a fascinating part of the
history of the west.
NOTE: For pictures of most of the armored horses currently
known in rock art check out the Mavis and John Greer’s site at http://greerservices.com/html/armored_horses.html.
REFERENCES:
Grinnell, George Bird
1920 Who Were The Padoucah?, American Anthropologist, Vol. 22, No. 3, July-September 1920.
Hotz, Gottfried
1970 The
Segesser Hide Paintings, Masterpieces Depicting Spanish Colonial New Mexico,
Museum of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe.
Kessell, John L.
2002 Spain in the Southwest, University of
Oklahoma Press, Norman.
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