Historicizing the Horse (IV). Untitled story told by the Diné (Navajo) and Ghost Stallion (Yinnuwok)
Historicizing the Horse (IV). Untitled story told by the Diné (Navajo) and Ghost Stallion (Yinnuwok)

Summary/Abstract: This is the fourth study in a series dedicated to analyzing the process of historicizing the horse in Native American cultures and it focuses on its representation in two stories: un untitled story told by the Diné and Ghost Stallion, recorded from the Yinnuwok. None of them is a creation story (in the sense of explaining how the first horse was created), but both fall into the category of stories that narrate how the historical legitimacy of the horse was constructed, following a recurrent pattern that first de-historicizes and then re-historicizes the horse. In this process, the structural identity of the horse, internal and external, is changed though an act of mythicization, which allows it to be logically enculturated in a tribe’s narrative.

• Details
• Contents