10 / Sport and Trail Magazine
Princess Kahelelani (2013 filly out of Kiko by Mana Koa) bred by Maila Coleman
used horses for food, their value as pack horses was quickly recognized. Before acquiring horses, the women would carry the food home from the hunt on their backs and were responsible for the movement of the household goods during their seasonal relocations. With the evolution of a horse culture these practices changed and the horse became important to not only these daily activities but also as a means for transporting trade goods, thus widening the range of trade.
When a Choctaw child was born, it was customary to give that child a pony, a cow, and a hog. Thus, when reaching adulthood, the young adult would now have herds of his own. Cushman (1899) tells of the use of the “famous little Choctaw pony” as a means of transportation for children. Once a child was too large for his/her mother’s back sling, he/she would be placed on the back of one of the ponies and secured to the saddle. At approximately the age of four or five he/she would be considered old enough and skilled enough to ride without any restraints. “They were all equestrians, men, women, and children; each had his pony and saddle, and to ride on horseback was the first lesson ever learned” (Benson 1860).
According to Carson (1995), the Choctaw horse played an important role in the funeral practices of the Nation. In the 18th century, when a man died and after his bones were placed in the “village bonehouse,” the horse(s) of the deceased were slaughtered and a feast held in honor of the deceased’s passage, reaffirming the bonds of community and kinship. By the late 18th century, the Choctaw were beginning to bury their dead men, including in the grave the deceased’s guns, tomahawks and favorite horse(s). The above practices ceased sometime in the early 19th century as both men and women began to depend on the horses for their transportation and livelihood.
By 1828 the Choctaw herd is said to have numbered 15,000, a ratio of 0.7 per capita, similar to Mississippi’s 1840 ratio of 0.8 per capita. The missionaries estimated the average horse’s worth at $60.00, putting the value of the Choctaw horse herd, in 1828, at $900,000 (Carson 1995).
There are numerous records on the removal of the Choctaw horse during the migrations to Oklahoma Territory in 1831, 1832, and 1834 in the National Archives Indian Emigration records. One of interest is a letter cited in Forman (1932). “Nine hundred Choctaw horses crossed the Mississippi river that winter; 500 passed Little Rock, 300 going to the Kiamichi river, and 200 to Fort Smith; 400 went to the Red river country by way of Ecor à Fabri (Brown to Gibson, April 30, 1832, ibid., 444, and OIA, “Choctaw Emigration”).”
We have been able to trace ownership of herds of Choctaw horses, since removal, through one Choctaw
family, the McKenney - Locke family of Antlers, Oklahoma. John McKenney owned a stand on the Robinson Road in Mississippi and was Captain of a group that emigrated in 1832. In 1836 he was elected Chief of the Mush District. The National Archives has a letter John wrote discussing the stock held by himself and his neighbors. In addition, in the 1835 claim filed by the Choctaws against the government for lost horses, John is listed as having lost several horses on that emigration. All told, over 2300 horses are listed in this document as “lost,” worth approximately $80,000.