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and what it meant for you to have Midnight Dream carry the Spirit Rider’s Saddle of Hope?
Beverly: Thundering Hooves is a grassroots organization formed for educational and charitable purposes, providing a platform to promote the arts, culture, and educate the public on subjects useful to individuals and beneficial to the equestrian community and the environment. An old broken-down saddle was donated to Thundering Hooves Memorial Fence located in Texas along the roadside of Neta Rhyne’s property that memorialized horses being shipped in semi loads to Mexico to be slaughtered. Neta is the founder of Thundering Hooves and is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation. This saddle eventually finds its way to a Kentucky barn where an epic journey as a Voice 4th Horse Nation begins.
Jennifer Thomas began her journey on the saddle. With only one half being restored the saddle represents a semblance of hope for the horses. The worn side of the saddle represents how so many horses end up in the slaughter pipeline once they have served their purpose. The restored side represents the potential of the discarded horses and if given a second chance they too can be repurposed and serve a productive life.
As a person who holds the horse nation in high regard there are really no words that can describe the experience of carrying such a powerful saddle. We appreciate the value and understand the significance and are so blessed to be apart of the epic journey as we share the voice of the horse nation. For more information of Thundering Hooves please visit their website at [email protected].
Ozana: Can you tell me more about the making and dressing of a War Pony?
Beverly: The use of horse regalia was common amongst the Hunkpapa Lakota for giveaways in honor or in remembrance of a relative, for identification of a warrior society, or used for ceremonies such as the horse dance. By 1900, our culture was under threat and our people were unable to practice our ceremonial life. Our horses were taken from us, some slaughtered and others relocated to what is now the Theodore Roosevelt National Park located in North Dakota. Today, the Horse Nation is making its way to back to our people. The making of horse regalia is being revitalized by incorporating our traditions of parades, dances, racing/relays and giveaways.
For our people who are blessed to have horses, we feel a deep sense of design and symbolism to honor them through elaboration, artist, and mystical ways. Our artists find a place in the glorification of the horse with the use of paint, feathers, fringes, quills, beads, mirrors, and more. A horse dressed for ceremony or war would have be often painted. A favorite horse is dressed in beaded bridles, masks, breast collars, saddle blankets, and rump drapes.
The painting and the dressing of a horse is a creation of an individual’s idealization of self that aligns one’s spirit and with spirit of the horse.
War pony Midnight Dream owned by Beverly Bear King Moran, Hunkpapha Lakhota Beadwork Artist