Chapter 13 eleven horses

Man's Energy and Servant ★image The horse is a representative symbol of the unbroken cooperation between humans and animals. At different times and in different places, the horse has countless appearances, and some even contradict each other.Humans still can't seem to believe that they can control such a large, strong, agile animal; perhaps this is because horses allow humans to surpass themselves and achieve tasks that they cannot do alone.Therefore, in our myths, legends, superstitions, and in our dreams, horses play a dominant role. The horse's hair is glossy, muscular, its body is shining, its eyes are piercing, its mane is flying, its tail is flowing, and its limbs like steel are like lightning in the sky. The mount; it is a symbol of phallic worship, a symbol of power and masculinity, a model and object to be revered.

The ancient British goddess Iona (Eona) was a horse; the Greek goddess of agriculture Demeter (Demeter, [Note]) had the head of a mare. People's worship of her has deeply penetrated into European culture. , continued from Roman times onwards.The horseshoe itself is also a symbol of phallic worship, as long as the horseshoe kicks, spring water (or semen) will gush out there.As for the shape of the horse's feet, it is a symbol of female reproductive organs. 【Note】Demeter is an agricultural goddess related to grain and harvest in Greek mythology.Demeter is one of the twelve main gods of Greece. When Hades, the king of the underworld, kidnapped her daughter Persephone, Demeter left the land barren for half a year until Persephone came back and reunited with her for half a year.Demeter was also the chief deity enshrined in the Ceres ceremonies of Eleusinia in ancient Greece.

In the Bible, horses often symbolize power that is closely associated with warfare.In the "Apocalypse" in the "Bible", the owner of the kingdom of heaven also has a mount.Moses warned the Hebrews that they should choose a king who neither kept horses for himself nor bought horses from the Egyptians, which probably meant that the king should not be warlike or build an army .Some kings heeded this exhortation from the time of Exodus, but some did not.Did King Solomon keep 4,000 or 40,000 horses in his stable?We don't know.Horses appear repeatedly throughout the Bible, often in ceremonies or in the army.In addition, horses often bring supernatural disasters.The Hebrews did not eat horse meat because horses were unclean and their hooves were not cloven hooves.

The number of mystical beliefs centered on horses is dizzying.Of all domestic animals, the horse is the most legendary animal.For example: not only can they see ghosts (is that why they are sometimes creepy?), they are ghosts themselves.If you see a white horse on New Year's Eve and make a wish to it, you will have a lucky year.Or, if you see a white horse, you will soon see a red-haired girl; it is said that if you see the red-haired girl first, you will soon see the white horse too.If the newlyweds can grow old together, they must never ride a pair of white horses together.In India, England, and the United States, dreaming of horses represents auspiciousness, but in Canada, if you see a pair of white horses running out of sight in your dream, it means that your life will end within a year.Witches and demons once took the form of horses.If a dark stallion hopped and kicked all night long, it would cause nightmares. One meaning, it means the devil, it is said that this kind of ghost will ride on the chest of the sleeper, causing nightmares].Images like these have long been central to European legends and myths.However, no matter where the horse went, it still couldn't get rid of this image.

Ancient people had a variety of horse-centric beliefs and legends.Hercules has horses that can eat people (horses that can eat people don't exist, they're just imaginary animals).The wooden horse allowed the Greeks to take Troy, and Achilles inherited his father's two legendary horses: Balius and Xanthus.The surname of Athena, the god of war, is Chalinitis (Chalinitis), indicating that she is a horse trainer who uses reins to train horses.The main task of the Roman goddess Epona was to guard the horses; she was, so to speak, the lady of the stables.Selene, the moon god, drives across the sky in a chariot drawn by two gorgeous white horses (to be precise, these two horses are sometimes said to be donkeys and sometimes cows. Ancient myths are like this , very varied and controversial).

Myths and beliefs began to sprout when humans began to manage or dominate horses; they were copied, adapted, and modified to fit various cultural connotations, but certain qualities remained the same.The horse is a swift, noble, heroic, faithful, honorable, dangerous, sexual animal, and thus an object of emulation and a formidable rival.Horses are handsome, scary, and beautiful in every sense of the word.It is amazing how badly humans treat themselves and the beloved horses of their gods.In France and Belgium, horsemeat is eaten, a reward for futility to the horse. ★horse animal Horses are odd-toed ungulates.Rhinos, tapirs, and equines, which include horses, all belong to the same ancient group of once numerous and generally large animals.Horses belong to the family Equidae; at present, the representative animals of Equidae are horses (one or two species), three kinds of donkeys and four kinds of zebras, among which the South African quagga has become extinct in this century.Consider the grandeur that equids once had, and consider that wild horses are all but extinct now, save for a few survivors in zoos, compared to the few remaining equids today.It is said that at a place called Riwoche in north-eastern Tibet, a small herd of wild horses of a rather primitive nature has been found, and their identification may take at least several years; they may be a distinct breed, a lost species. Bonded equines.This small herd of wild horses, hidden in isolation in remote valleys, is said to look like those depicted in Stone Age murals.It is generally believed that, except for the wild horses in Leiwuqi, almost all horses living in the wild are wild horses, or horses that have been mixed with wild horses.This was indeed the case in the New World; those horses that survived represented the end of a major evolutionary line from the Eocene.

Horses originated in North America, but they became extinct in the Western Hemisphere after they migrated westward with camels across the land bridge over the Bering Strait.They were originally animals that lived in bushy areas, and they were about the size of a cocker spaniel. Later, they evolved into the steeds we see today, from Shetland miniature horses, British thoroughbred horses, to twenty-one palms (twenty︱one︱ Hand, about eighty-four inches, [Note]) have pulling horses; their food has changed from the original twigs and leaves to the later grass, and this is why they learn to run. [Note] The width of a palm is equivalent to four inches (about ten centimeters), which is a special unit for measuring the height of a horse.

Persian ungulates are originally adapted for running, and horses have the most highly developed hooves. For example, tapirs run on four toes, rhinos run on three toes, and horses only run on one toe. .Tapirs live in dense forests and jungles along rivers, and rhinos and horses in flat or rolling grassland areas (the few surviving Asian rhinos spend more than half of their time in shelter, and African rhinos in open savannahs).Without ideal cover, these animals can do nothing but run, especially the horse, which lacks the formidable size of the rhinoceros and lacks the impressive nasal horns, so has to be the fastest of them all .

Try to imagine the way a horse moves: a half-ton animal galloping at full speed, over obstacles, and doing it all on only one front leg, which means only one toe.It has been measured that if humans were going to abuse their feet in this way, they would have to be as big as a tennis court.Regardless of whether this statement is absolutely true, at least it explains the pressure on the horse's hoof.The horse's hoof is truly an amazing organ; and the horse itself, including its heart, lungs, limbs, feet, vitality, etc., is simply an incredible treadmill. ★The first origin with human beings

Widespread Bronze Age humans (with the exception of Tibet) probably distinguished the two types of wild horses.In Mongolia there are the buff Mongolian mustangs, and in southeastern Europe there are the yellowish to gray European mustangs, both of which have black manes and tails.The European wild horse probably became extinct in the early 1600s, but the Mongolian wild horse can still be seen in zoos today.It is generally believed that the two wild horses have not changed much since their first encounter with humans; and the European wild horse may be the ancestor of the domestic horse, but it is named after the domestic horse we know or the surviving Mongolian wild horse. Just the same name.

As with the experiments with the aurochs (the main ancestor of today's domestic cattle), European zoo personnel (especially in Germany in the 1930s) experimented with breeding for basic traits of appearance to reproduce primitive horses.Although this was not really possible, they were quite successful in producing horses that closely resembled their extinct ancestors.There are still some wild European horses in Poland, which I have encountered in the easternmost forests there. These wild European mustangs have a bold but gentle personality and love physical contact with humans.In the forest, one of these wild horses reappearing from behind me touched me from behind to remind me of its existence, and then actively squeezed its head between my arms and body, and we walked along the forest path like this. walk together.I don't know if it will replace those real wild Broncos, but no matter how much they look like wild Broncos, I doubt they will behave like real Broncos.If it is true that primitive horses bred in German zoos sixty years ago replicated the behavior of their ancestors, then we would have no doubts about the domestication of horses, because if so, Bronze Age humans would only have to move closer to the European wild horse , and then wrap a rope made of leather around its neck, and then take it into the future.The real process, though, must have been far more violent than that. Horses provide the hunter with plenty of meat, versatile tough hide, and tail hair suitable for weaving rope.Horses, like bison and wild camels, are fast, alert, difficult, herd animals, capable of galloping away in a split second, so any attempt to pursue them is foolish.Humans have never domesticated an animal that runs as fast as a horse.Even if only one horse was to be captured or slaughtered, humans might still have to make noise and use torches made of straw to herd entire herds into stalls or corrals.If it was for large-scale and extremely wasteful slaughter, then humans would drive entire batches of horses off the cliff, as evidenced by the piles of bones at the bottom of the cliff.Humans may have also used the same method on camels, blocking water sources to lure horses and then capture them.Either way, humans fenced off herds of horses with wooden fences, segregated them, slaughtered them, extracted their meat and hides, and finally used them as draft animals.Wild horses must have been very difficult to deal with, so capturing and sorting wild horses soon became a highly specialized occupation, and perhaps a high social status as a result.Denim is a profession with a long history. ★Horse domestication process Exactly when and where humans domesticated this vitally important animal has been debated for centuries.Although we have a wealth of information, there is still no consistent interpretation, and as is often the case today, the amount of information exceeds our ability to decipher.What is known is that wild horses were the main source of meat and leather for Europe's growing population as far back as the last centuries of the last Ice Age; this occurred approximately 12,000 to 13,000 years ago.But we will never know when the first man who was not afraid of death threw himself on the back of a foal or a yearling, and thus foresaw the uselessness of the horse; He raised horses as he wished. In the cave of Saint Michel d'Arudy in the Pyrenees was found a stunning small ivory carved horse's head, which appears to be wearing a bridle.Carved from the ivory of a mammoth, the statue was completed in the Paleolithic period about 14,000 years ago, long before the traditional domestication of horses.Still, there are many skepticism and objections to this claim.If the bridle is indeed inscribed on the statue, and if the statue does date back to that time, then we know next to nothing about the early history of human domestication of such an important animal. Julie.Clutton︱Brock (Juliet Clutton︱Brock) is an expert on animal husbandry in England. He believes that the European wild horses became scarce around 7000 BC. The reason is the pressure of overhunting or too many horses. What about being driven off a cliff?At that time, the number of human beings was growing day by day.Evidence suggests that horses and humans lived together as early as 4,000 BC, about 8,000 years after mysterious mammoth ivory statues were found in caves in the Pyrenees.It is generally believed that humans did not seriously attempt to manipulate the difficult wild animal horse until about 6000 BC, so we have to ignore the statue of St. Michele da Hudi for the time being. The discrepancy is too difficult to explain. ★Place of breeding On the northern edge of the Black Sea, a group of Neolithic sites called Sredni Stog, scattered across a large treeless plain, are often considered to be the true birthplace of human domestication of horses.At a late Neolithic site called Dereivka, near the Dnieper River, many horse bones were found, including the remains of at least one horse as high as fourteen and a half hands ( about 58 inches, 147 centimeters), about the size of the current Mongolian wild horse and the European mustang re-bred in Poland. The early human use of the pen-breeding horse was almost certainly consumptive, first for its meat and hide, and more slowly for its pulling power.Some researchers believe that humans did not ride horses until around 1000 BC. If this is true, then this means that for a full 3,000 years, humans kept horses in captivity for breeding, not for riding. However The odds seem very low.After all, the temptation of such a brave and rough activity as riding a horse is too great, and it is impossible for human beings to suppress it for three thousand years.Not long after humans began bred and bred horses, some young cowboys who drank too much alcohol may try to ride young foals that are not yet adept at wild feats. The horses found at Drifka may have been completely untamed wild horses, so there is not yet enough evidence to show where they were first bred.At first, there was not much difference between captive horses and wild horses, so the skeletal remains did not leave any identifiable records.Later, the pen-bred horses became smaller and smaller, and after a long time, they became bigger and bigger.Horses have been shown to have a genetic mix that is easily altered by mating breeding.On my farm, there are huge Belgian pull horses and fully grown miniature horses that can pass between my feet.Both horses are the product of breeding, showing how easily a horse's genes can be changed. After someone discovered that Marco was used as a towing animal, the idea quickly spread everywhere, from what is now Anatolia (Anatolia, [Note]) in Turkey to what is now Negev (Negev) in Israel, from West Asia to Britain. In the archipelago, and the Iberian Peninsula, horses migrated, presumably accompanied by humans. 【Note】Anatolia occupies most of the territory of Turkey today, located on the passage between Asia and Europe. At least we can be sure that the 3,000-year-old bones found in Ireland belonged to domestic horses, because there are no local fossil records of horses in Ireland, and these horses must have been brought by humans.Crewton-Brock presents a skeleton of a mare from Norfolk, England, dating back to the Bronze Age.This mare, which lived many years ago, has worn down its teeth to the point where it is almost impossible to eat grass due to its long life.She couldn't have lived alone for such a long period of time. Someone must have fed her carefully.Maybe she's a pet, or some sort of worshiped goddess? As a general rule, horses from higher latitudes appear to be shorter and fatter, with shorter legs and ears, and more fluffy coats, than horses from warmer regions.Horses from warmer regions typically have long, shiny legs, short, shiny coats, and large, erect ears resembling those of the champion thoroughbreds we admire today.However, all domestic horses apparently descended from the same breed of wild horses, which later spread.When horses are brought from one place to another by humans (or humans by horses), they adapt to the local climate and have to be subject to human preferences in breeding.In contrast, this is a fairly simple process for humans.When humans aren't too happy with a certain horse's appearance or behavior, or don't like its temperament, humans just eat it and that's all. No one knows when humans began to combine the mating and production of animals.In the case of horses, there is eleven months between mating and giving birth.However, when humans began to breed animals, they did not necessarily understand the relationship between mating and production in advance, and even if they did, they would not know about genes.It may be natural for humans to keep those animals with the most desirable and useful traits longer, thus giving them a better chance of producing offspring. Along with raising horses came various cultural by-products.Between 1,000 and 1,500 BC, humans had the technology to make sleds, carts, or wagons.We can almost say with certainty that humans were already using animals to pull plows.Steers were probably the first to be harnessed by humans, followed by horses and donkeys, and then by mules.The earliest horseshoes may have looked like slippers and were fastened with belts. It was this kind of horseshoes used by the Romans.The real horseshoes, which fasten metal shoes with nails, may have been used between 800 and 900 AD.By the Middle Ages, horseshoes had become standard equipment.In the following centuries, humans have had a variety of vehicles towed by horses, including circus organ pullers, fire trucks, public carriages and stagecoaches.No other domestic animal's equipment is so closely intertwined with our lives. ★Benefits to mankind The horse itself is an elegant means of transportation. If we think about the values ​​​​that it provides to humans such as speed, mobility, means of transportation, strong military advantages, and efficient agriculture, as well as its image, we can understand that a Whether a culture owns horses or not makes a huge difference.From the beginning, humans have used horses as war machines, and it wasn't until after World War I that they were replaced by menacing ultimate weapons such as machine guns, tanks and airplanes. Shortly after humans discovered the potential of horses, the lack of horses and poverty were almost equated.In places like North America, where there were no horses at the time, there was no difference between having a horse or not having a horse.However, once horses appeared in the local area, the concept that horses equaled wealth soon became a practical consideration at that time.For those explorers who ride on horseback and are full of adventurous spirits, horses have an additional advantage, which may not be recognized by people today, but if these explorers encountered difficulties in novel and unfamiliar environments at that time, They can dismount and eat the animal they have just ridden.Horses have dramatically changed human life and wealth; we need only recall North America to see. By 1494 AD, there were already horse breeding farms on Hispaniola Island in Haiti. The horses in these breeding farms were mainly brought by Columbus. Conquest, thanks to the assistance of these horses is possible.Later, the British brought horses into the American state of Virginia, and when they left the coastal colonies, they did so with the help of horses.Eventually, the Spaniards introduced horses to the Plains Indians via Mexico and Florida, and the British via the East Coast, and their culture expanded rapidly.Except in the dense jungles of the east, the Indians attacked the enemy on horseback. Western expeditions in the United States also relied on horses, and most of the transportation also relied on horses, although steers and mules were sometimes used.Most of the earliest local farms used horses to pull plows; before the invention of the telegraph, the fastest way to transmit messages was by knights on horseback; in newly reclaimed areas, cavalry were also responsible for guarding.When the cattle culture began to flourish in the west, if you want to control a large number of herds in a vast area, you must rely on cowboys. Of course, cowboys are also riding on horseback.As we know, the so-called American West would not have been possible without horses. At that time, the transportation between cities in the United States was mainly based on horse riding or vehicles drawn by horses.Coal mine trucks, fire trucks, and, by extension, American landscapes all depend on horses.Today, this reliance on horses has disappeared, but horses are still deeply embedded in our culture.Horses are involved in everything from westerns to horse racing, from anachronistic rodeos to elegant recreational riding and Olympic competitions.Even after the internal combustion engine began to replace the horse-drawn vehicle, we (and still do) classify the internal combustion engine in terms of horsepower, and put the engine at the front of the machine because that's where the horses were originally placed.