Historicizing the Horse (VI). The Dun Horse (Pawnee) (a Hegelian approach)
Historicizing the Horse (VI). The Dun Horse (Pawnee) (a Hegelian approach)

Summary/Abstract: The series of studies dedicated to analyzing the process of historicizing the horse in Native American cultures continues with The Dun Horse, a story told by the Pawnee. The action of the story happens at a time when the horse is already historicized and integrated into the life of the tribe and it focuses on the events experienced by an old woman and her grandson, whose poverty caused them to have a marginal position, socially speaking. It is the accidental discovery of a dun horse that shifts their social position: as the horse turns out to be a reservoir of Pawnee knowledge, on both the social and the historical level, it helps them ideologically and hierarchically navigate from the margin of the tribe’s historical system to its very center. The dun horse has foreknowledge of historical events and functions as the force that propels humans from the margin to the center of the historical system. It can initiate historical action, in the Hegelian sense, by placing itself in the service of the young boy, but can also launch reaction. Its support is conditioned by unquestionable acceptance of myth. Through the dun horse, obedience to myth entails historical progress. In the case of the young boy, the horse intervenes in the course of history as a result of a historical action undertaken by him and, in its turn, sets up a series of actions which help the boy depart from the margin and reposition himself at the very center of the Pawnee historical system.

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