I hadn't thought about it till now but one of my favourite
childhood films is really beginning to link in with my project; Spirit Stallion
of the Cimarron. The film is about a wild mustang horse living in the West who
is caught by settlers and Indians. It shows his time with the settlers and the
control and forced oppression on the horses, even the man-made mutation of
clipping mains, tails, putting shoes on and branding their horses. These horses
were taken off the plains wild and forced into tack and broken in a corral.
Whereas the Indians didn't ‘break’ their horses, you can’t force a horse to
carry you bareback with no tack. They formed a trusting relationship with their
horses where they would show them respect and love.
The Indians are treated similar to the horses when captive
in the way that they are humiliated and broken, tied up to starve or taken to
the stockades. It’s interesting to see how the settlers treat not just their
animals and the land but the Indians too with complete lack of respect. You
could compare the way the settlers caught and broke wild mustangs to the way
they captured and killed Indians.
