'A Song for the Horse Nation'

That's the title of a new show at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in New York City.

Ken Johnson, in a November 13, 2009 New York Times review, wrote about the exhibition of 98 artifacts relating to native horse cultures, up through July 7, 2011.

Above, "a Piikuni Blackfoot horse mask, made of hide, beads, hair locks, porcupine quills, brass tacks, buttons and more."

Excerpts:

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••

When Christopher Columbus first came to America, there were no natives on horseback to greet him. That is not only because he landed on an island in the Bahamas. It’s also because there were no horses in the New World. They originated here 40 million years ago and spread to other parts of the globe, but by 1492 horses had been extinct in the Western Hemisphere for 10,000 years. On his second trans-Atlantic voyage, in 1493, Columbus brought along 25 horses and reintroduced the species to America. Many more were brought later by French, English and Dutch colonizers.

This is just one remarkable piece of information to be gleaned from “A Song for the Horse Nation,” an exhibition of 98 artifacts relating to native horse cultures, opening on Saturday at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Lower Manhattan. Including saddles, riding blankets, clothing and beaded bags adorned with equine imagery and much more, the exhibition brings to light a fascinating and ultimately sad chapter in American history.

Organized by Emil Her Many Horses, a curator at the museum, the show presents most of the artifacts, all from the Smithsonian’s collection, that were pictured in a small paperback of the same title published in 2006 (by the museum and Fulcrum Publishing). In his introduction the historian Herman J. Viola, a curator emeritus of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, tells of the rise and fall of American Indian horse culture, which thrived for only about 100 years.

As the exhibition’s many different sorts of artifacts show, the horse was much more than just a beast of burden. It was a highly efficient form of transportation, and it enabled Plains Indians to hunt buffalo, a primary source of food and material for clothing and shelter. So Navajo, Crow, Comanche, Pawnee and other tribes were able to expand their territories and flourish.

Captivating as the exhibition’s contents are, hardly anything in it is spectacular in the sense that European art and artifacts produced with elaborate refinement and expensive materials can be.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••

A number of artifacts in the show are pictured and described here.

Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, George Gustav Heye Center, One Bowling Green, Lower Manhattan; 212-514-3700; nmai.si.edu.