This is the Navajo story of First Horse
“When the Holy People first made the horse, it was a complete thing, but it would not come to life. They tried to get it to rise up on its strong legs, but it would not rise. Caterpillar was asked to help. ‘How can I help?’ he asked.
“’You know,’ one of the Holy People said, ‘where the sacred flints are kept.’”
“’Yes, this is true. But I am pretty slow getting around.’”
“Then the Holy People prayed over Caterpillar and he became Butterfly. Swiftly he flew to the Mountain Where Flint Is Kept. After gathering four flints, he returned to the Holy People and put the flints into the hooves of the horse.
The great horse stirred, quivered, and came to life. Then it surged, leaped fully into life, struck the air with its hooves, and galloped off into the clouds.
“’Look,” a Holy Person said. ‘The horse makes the marks of Butterfly when it dances on its hooves!’ And it has been that way ever since.”
Navajo people believe that there are Five Horses of the Sun Father. And, they believe that they are a way of telling time, Navajo-style. White shell and pearl horses represent dawn, turquoise is noon, red shell is sunset, and jet or coal is night.
(Adapted from An Ethnologic Dictionary of the Navajo Language, 1929; The Franciscan Fathers.)
It’s only fitting that the old Indians used to tie a tree branch to a horses’s tail to cover up their tracks as they rode off to make a new camp.
