Columns

Drought-driven falling levels of Chiapas‘ Grijalva River have presently revealed the mid-16th century Temple of Santiago.  Normally drowned in 100 feet of water, the church was built in 1564 by Friar Bartolome de las Casas.  He was the celebrated advocate of the abolition of slavery in the Americas. In 1966, when the Mexican government created the NezaThualcoyotl reservoir, the Dominican temple and surrounding villages, towns and historically valuable archaeological sites all disappeared.     

For some, an October 30 story in the Los Angeles Times was saddening news.  Many missed it, though they were engaged in a continuing discussion about horses.  Few missed the same story in Monday’s Washington Post.  

Destructive storms of the past were a main topic of intent tales both before and after Hurricane Patricia’s arrival last Friday. 

A time of demanding fiscal wrestling – as analysts note a recent slowing of the economy – is taxing President Enrique Peña Nieto.  

When Christopher Columbus arrived in America, he couldn’t find all the gold he had promised to bring home to his sponsors, the Spanish Crown. 

“They Shoot Horses Don’t They,” a adage so ancient that it was used as the title of a 1969 much-lauded film about the Depression, by Sydney Pollack, starring Jane Fonda.  And small and significant wars until recently have utilized horses in defense or attack.    

“I grew up an a farm and I love horses,” said someone, remarking on recent material appearing this space.  I, too, grew up on a series of ranches and farms, and much later owned the livestock populating a large Mexican ranch.  I too love horses.  If, for no better reason that when chasing crazy broke-lose steers aboard a high-strung mount, a rider’s well-being depended on his bronc’s own sense of terrain and self-worth.       

But horse folks have all known people who vowed they loved horses at the same time they were mistreating them.   Regarding the column about shooting horses, one of the things I learned very early on about humans and horses is that cherishing horses means wildly different things to different people.  

{access public}

Please login or subscribe to view the complete article.

{/access}

{access !public}

As the 1960s began nearly all residents of mid-sized and small Mexican pueblos who could afford it owned a horse and/or a burro, plus other livestock that furnished them basic food: cows, pigs, chickens, etc.   Yet it was common to see horses being roughly used.  

And, in starts and stops, both small and large bands of horse and cattle rustlers would infect close-by areas.  That had accounted for the centuries’ old habit of bringing stock close to home at night.  For the hirelings of the more wealthy and politically well-positioned often slaughtered horses in pastures where they grazed and the result was hauled off in trucks to be sold as beef.  Effective government slaughter houses manned by trustworthy “overseers” did not appear until sometime later.

Folks forced to defend their property, including livestock, also relied on the centuries-old method of moving defensive resources into place – by horseback, of course.  This, also for centuries, meant the wholesale equestrian slaying during encounters between owners and thieves.  

That was what foreign horsemen and women then found in Mexico.  And the poverty they also found too often meant the mistreatment of animals by the poor and uneducated.  Such folks’ unrelieved anger regarding their harsh life was unthinkingly expressed against those targets close at hand – both people and animals – that made up their lives, often same beings on whom they depended.     

At the same time, stories leaking down from the north seemed unbelievable:  Gringo ranchers whose land was over-run by “too many” wild ponies were outrightly encouraged by the U.S. government to “cull” them.    

In choosing whether to shoot at a rustler or the mount he was riding, ranchers and other horse owners were inclined to pick the thief.  But as the ranching family of Cleto Rosales always said, the government — over-loaded with well-known thieves of its own — increasingly chose to protect the rustler, not the mount he was riding.  No longer livestock owners, they were ready to sacrifice the mount, not the criminal.  “They’re the kind of pueblo folks trying to imitate big-city politicians,” rural people said.  “And it doesn’t fit the way folks in country pueblos want to live.”  Certainly not mountain campesinos.

Returning to rustlers and horses.  Below, just as distance shrunk the figures of pueblo folk, the hesitant northern edge of the nearest village commenced.  A couple of folks there rented land from me for day-time grazing for their cattle, less frequently for horses.  Bringing them into good-sized back-yard corrals for the night.

Some pueblo authorities were the kind of people who, later, suddenly advocated culling locally-owned, and well-recognized unleashed dogs roaming country pueblos, as well as livestock wandering in the streets.

Returning to the conundrum of rustlers and horses.  Getting a good horse wasn’t easy.  (For instance, at the moment north-of-the-border fall ranch horse sales are beginning to crank up as ranchers study the market offerings with sharp eyes and a lot of researching.)  Here, for mountain campesinos, buying livestock was pretty much a case of urgent replacement.  An animal has a broken leg, or dies of some sickness, or breaks loose and is hit by a highway truck.  Campesinos bought cattle and horses when they needed to replenish their herds.  When I and my close friends needed cows or good mounts, we usually went from ranch to ranch among folks we knew well, and asked if they had something for sale.  

Somewhat similar to the United States, flashy colored mounts cost more and were no guarantee of performance.  Buckskins, pintos, roans were expensive.  We looked for sorrel or bay geldings. We looked for age: no younger than two years, no older than seven.  And we’d test saddle the offerings, seeking to see how spooky they were regarding just about everything, bridling, saddling and roping them. We checked the condition of their legs, ankles, closely examining their feet, and finding if they were flinchy about having their feet cleaned.  How much they flinch when a rain slicker was tossed over their bodies and heads.  Can you mount them on the wrong – left – side without stirring up a fit?  In general, trying to find what sends a horse into the air.  You want a lot of alertness and plenty of spirit, but not full-tilt craziness.  

The mounts Cleto and I were astride fit our needs well.  They knew our habits as well as we knew theirs.  Which meant that if rustlers stole our cayuses, we’d have had to pray we could “wound” – not kill – the thieves with a quick shot.  Not promising.  

Was the risk worth a horse?  In those days, the answer tended to be yes.  That’s the way ranchers assessed the worth of their best mounts.  Those handsome animals were also our prized equestrian friends.  Creatures we knew well and valued emotionally. 

{/access}