herds and ran wild When the Native North Ameri cans first saw horses they couldn't believe their eyes They had never seen an animal like it before They had to think of a name for the strange looking crea ture At first they called them god dogs or elk dogs Some wanted to butcher and eat the animal others were afraid of it It wasn't long though before the Indians tamed the horses they caught and learned to ride swiftly across the vast plains Indians made ropes of grass hair or buckskin They rode without saddles guiding the horse with the pressure of their knees and by speaking softly to it The arrival of the horse was exciting and impor tant It changed the way the Native North Americans lived in many ways Before the horses arrived the Cheyenne Arapaho and Dakota Sioux had been farming in small villages After the Indians acquired horses they began hunting the huge buffalo herds and traveling in tepee camps across the plains With horses North American tribes could move swiftly and easily They began to travel farther raid ing other tribes and stealing horses from them This caused war something that hadn't been as common before the horse arrived Men became warriors not hunters and farmers Women worked harder than ever tanning the hides and preserving all the food that buffalo hunters mounted on horses rather than on foot now brought to camp Soon many tribes had hundreds of horses people
began to count their wealth in horses and warriors became more important The simple life of the farm villages had changed forever How High A horse is measured in hands from the ground to its shoulder Materials Ruler Pencil n North American Indian horses were small stand ing about 14 hands tall A horse is measured in hands a hand being 4 inches To measure a horse you start at the ground and go up to the shoulder How many hands tall are you Have someone mark your height in inches on a wall with a pencil then measure it and divide by
Horse Trading Game Make up a simple card game to help learn the differ ent colors and names of horse breeds O Draw a horse on the cards Materials Index cards cut to playing card size Crayons markers and pens Scissors Books and magazines with colored photographs of horses n Trace the outline of a horse like the one shown here Cut it out and use it as a template or pattern Trace around the template to make a horse outline on half of the cards Color in the horse outlines to match the natural colors of horses See the list on the fol lowing page for assistance Write the name of the breed of horse on a separate card When you are fin ished you should have a stack of cards with horses colored on them and a matching stack of cards with names of the horse
To play 2 players shuffle the cards then deal out an uneven number 3 or 5 to each player Put the rest of the cards in a stack face down on the table Look over the cards in your hand If you have a pic ture of a horse and a breed name that match this makes a pair These pairs can be put in a pile beside you If you make a pair select the next 2 cards on the stack and add them to your hand If you can't make a pair ask the other player for a card you need to make a pair If she has the card she gives it to you and takes another from the top of the stack If she doesn't have it you must draw 1 card from the top of the stack and put a card you don't want at the bottom of the stack Then it's her turn Continue playing make ing pairs and discarding cards until the cards are gone Count up the cards you have in your pairs stack and see who ends up with the most horses Horse Colors and Markings albino white with blue eyes Appaloosa spotted rump bay reddish brown with black mane and tail buckskin beige with black mane and tail chestnut bronze or coppery dappled spotted all over dun beige with beige mane and tail grulla bluish gray paint white and colored brown or reddish areas
