The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1897-01-16
Terms, s1.oo . Year in Advance.
GRAND MARAIs. MINN.:JAN. 1e, 1897
THE CULT OF THE HORSE.
How the Noble Animal Was Regarded by
Old-Tlnle Peoples.

{ + Is.
It is. perhaps, small matter for won.
der that the nations who first tanned
the horse for riding attached high
honor to the creature seated on whose
back they secured with such swift.
ness. The exhilara tion Of riding is one
which custom does not stale, and
which affects The civilized rider of TO-
day, if he be Of an emotional nature,
probably almost as keenly as it did the
ancient Scythian, German or Slav. In
( addition to this, neighboring races who
HAD not this art looked upon those who
had it with a kind of superstitious won
der, weaving strange stories about
them. The horsemen of Thessaly APP
peared to the other Greeks through
a mist of fable as centaurs, half man,
half brute, but wholly divine. And in
The frank fashion of all primitive peo-
pie the horseman gave back to the
horse the glory that he received re-
Elected from it, and made of his com
rade in war and chase a kind of deity.
The ancient Germans took oracles
from white horses, just as the Egyp-
tians did from their sacred oxen. The
animals were kept in groves, and gave
augury by neighing. Among the slavs
tie sword combined with the horse
to foretell future events. The weapons
were planted in the ground, and the
horses led among them; by the move
ments of the beasts the attending
priests judged the will of the gods.
Among the Norsemen the sacrifice of
a horse and the eating of it's flesh was
a token of sacramental allegiance to
Odin. Among the ancient Irish, when
a king was crowned in Ulster, it was
customary to STAY a white mare and
boil it in a vat. Into this vat the newly
made king descended, and there sat,
drinking the broth and tasting small
portions of the meat. The eating of
horseflesh was so well recognized as
a heathen rite that the early Christian
saints forbade it to their converts.
Among the Scythians the horse was
deemed sacred to the sun, and it's wor-
ship crossed the Himalayas, and was
early established among the Rajput
kings.
Next to human being, who probably
was, as a matter of fact, never sac
ritieed in ancient India, the horse was
the most acceptable offering to the
gods. It is laid down in the puranas
that the sacrifcer of a hundred horses
GUSTS 1ndra, the king of the gods, from
his throne, and reigns in Paradise
lSwarga) in his stead. There is no rec
ord, however, of anyone having earned
this surprising felicity. Kings, on at
tanning the throne, usually sacrificed
e horse, their tributary princes per-
forming the more menial duties con-
nected with the Aswamedha (horse
sacri6ce). Indeed, even the office of
porter in this solemn rite could only
be ASSUMED by one of royal blood. One
OF the books of the great Hindoo epic,
the Mahabharata, contains an account
of the Ashwamedha held by Yudhis-
thira, king of the Pandus, when he
had, by the defeat of the Kauravas,
firmly established his rule over north
ern India. The sacred horse was turned
loose to wander wherever it listed for
g year, while the loyal army followed
it everywhere at a respectful distance.
Other tribes whose pastures it crossed
were given the option of either turn
ing out in force to join the triumph of
the horse, or of accepting wag ger of bat
tic. At the end of the year the horse
was led back to the palace and there
sacrifced.-London Standard.