They sang for horses
Subtitle: the impact of the horse on Navajo & Apache folklore
By: LaVerne Harrell Clark.
Edition: Rev. ed., with a new epilogue & photographs.
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Published: 2001-01-01
Place of publication: Boulder
Language: eng
Number of pages: 338
Subjects: Navajo Indians -- Folklore; Apache Indians -- Folklore; Navajo Indians -- Religion; Apache Indians -- Religion; Horses -- Southwest, New
Genres: Folklore.
Description: "No Native American groups placed more emphasis on the horse in their lives than did the Navajo and Apache of the Southwest. They Sang for Horses examines how storytellers, singers, medicine men, and painters created the animal's evolving symbolic significance by adapting existing folkore and cultural symbols.

Exploring the horse's importance in ceremonies, songs, prayers, customers, and beliefs, Clark 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."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [318]-330) and index.