The Military-Equestrian Complex (Part 1)
Rednecks in myth and legend.
Begin to imagine a world long before the one we know now. It is unrefined, the details lost among turning earth and setting sun. Over seven thousand years ago, the ancestral populations of all Europeans and Indo-Iranians roamed free across the wide Black Sea steppe. At the same time that the Pyramids were being built several hundred miles to the south, these pastoralists whom we call broadly “Proto-Indo-Europeans”, made their histories, put forth their own kings and chiefs, waged their wars, celebrated their victories and festivals, and carried on with their modes- all blind to the eye of history. We are only picking up the pieces left behind: the scattered bits of pottery, the burial mounds, the varied tongues spread across Eurasia. But for all we don’t know- for all that can’t be repaired- we know in some distant way these people are us. It is during this time of barbarism, that our customs and attitudes were forged.
As I’ve written a bit about wolves and men, this is what I draw on. Under the surface of all stories, exist themes much older than the characters and setting imposed on top of them, and the substance of my previous essay, “You Are a Wolf” is no different. Without getting into details, this should suffice enough to explain why you are a wolf and not a honeybadger or a leopard seal. Yet the accumulated themes that young men are supposed to be driven away from domestic society, that they are dangerous to it, and that they are supposed to embrace this fact and to not would be considered weird- exists not just as a cute specific, but it underlays our society.
It is as if the world itself is a story, with themes that lay just below the surface that surreptitiously dictate our daily means and modes. This is what societal conditioning is, right? Why are people conservative and liberal? Why is too little clothing, “profane" to some, and to others, too much clothing is “uptight”? In fact, why is anything profane at all? The answers lie among the collected values of a society and their creation at the inception of that society.
These Proto-Indo-European folk are those authors. Their biographies we will never know in full, but hints from the writing they left behind allow us to compare and analyze their psychology, with that canon of literature I speak of, being us, their descendants. We speak their languages, retell their stories, take their umbrages and we simply can’t help that innately we share most of our values with a pagan patriarchal bellicose group of pastoralists who worshipped among all else, cows, horses, and the sky. It is because of them that you are a wolf.
Can I ride it?
There is too much to recount behind Indo-European studies; any attempt to summarize it would be a severe bastardization. I can recommend a good handful of books and videos so that the reader can get him/herself abreast of the field, but I don’t see much of a good reason to repeat what these authors have already said, and so I feel free to throw all academic properness and class out of the window.
Have you ever thought about the redneck tendency to want to make things go really fast? The Australian bogan, the Dutch tokkie, and the American hillbilly, all share this trait, as well as most rural folk. Motorcross, NASCAR, this cheese-wheel from south-west England- all belong to the same phenomenon.
With this in mind, imagine two of these young pastoralists/hunter-gatherers1 living out on the plains with their clan. It’s been a long day for them, herding and following the damn cattle around. One of the bulls ran off into the brook some five hours ago and they know they’ll never catch up after him, especially if it would mean leaving the rest of the herd.
It is getting dark. The vast plains of grass are blazed by the colors of the dying light, and in its wake all seems to slow down. The boys retire to their yurt, the temporary shelter they have set up for themselves as they follow the herd to new winter pastures. Around the little pot of burning cannabis2, they begin to recount the day’s stories, ramble, and plan for the next stretch they’ll have to walk tomorrow- time leaves them.
A sudden thump and neigh rings from outside. The youngest stumbles out of the skin tent. He opens the door and glares out and from under a twinkling sky of raw stars, the shadow of an impressive stallion steps out. It is a herd of horses that has merged upon their cattle.
The pastoralists/hunter-gatherers of the pre-historic steppe would’ve been well acquainted with the horse long before they were riding them. Horses, unlike cattle, uniquely are able to break through ice and snow with their hooves and graze on dead grass when it would be unavailable to other grazers. It is suspected then that these pastoralists would’ve pushed their own cattle herds behind horses to let them graze in their wake, in addition to hunting or maintaining herds of horses as a more sustainable source of meat in the winter.
On any other night, the boy may have simply turned back and given the horses no notice, but he is too restless; both of them are high out of their mind really, burning too much of their ration in a single night. Something brews- its the thought of the lost bull from earlier that day which creeps into his head. What would it take to catch him? He admires the horse’s wide hooves, the veins that bead its leg, and he realizes the power that grazes before him.
“Dude,” he turns to the eldest boy in a manic spell, “that bull, that bull! What if we had four legs? We could find him in the next valley over. We could- we could after him, catch everything under the sun! The sheep on the Sunset mountains, the reindeer to the North, run from coast to coast, and circles around our new herd… we could be fast.”
“The f**k?” He wasn’t paying attention.
“The ekwos3, the ekwos! What if we could ride them?”
“Ride? (That’s obviously a verb that can’t exist yet) What do you mean?”
“I’m going to… uh.” He thinks through his process. “Sneak up to one of the mares (for the stallions are too fierce as you know, I heard tales of how uncle Rah₁kʷar had his face put in when I was younger), and grab ahold of the hair along its neck, pull myself up onto its back, and pull its ears to direct her. I shall bend the beast to my will!”
“You’re an idiot…”
Moments later, the two boys are crawling in the low brush a few hundred meters away from their yurt. They are as silent as wolves who pierce the depths of the herd, with eyes set on a new calf. There stands a mare, gnawing quietly from the prairie grasses, the mane of her hair floats in the hind. She seems on edge.
The youngest boy, as he readied for his jump, suddenly hesitated.
“Soft as horseshit, you are!” The eldest saw it in a second, and he snapped in a whisper, “For all of your boasts, where are your balls!”
The mare picks up her head. The air grows silent and still as the hearts of the boys tightened, with only the blowing wind to fill the space. After looking briefly left and right, the mare continues to eat.
“I bet you the sheep coat on my back, if you could stay on for more than three eye blinks!”
With that the youngest knows he has to decide- he casts aside his timidness in that second and bounded on to the stout steed’s neck. He clasped on, trying to reach his leg over the bony withers, as panic broke out. The horse lurches up and back, begins to bend herself in a u-shape to shake the strange thing off. The boy succeeds to get on top, and at once he feels his spine twisting into itself with each buck. His grip breaks free and he tumbles into the churned earth and rock as the mare speeds away…
The eldest can’t help himself from laughing, but the youngest walks and brushes the mud off- he is of a different mind than most: There is a way this could work… Needless to say, one of the boys goes home that night without his coat…
I have a grandaunt who when I was younger, shared with me stories about the origins of many of our technologies, and whether misremembered or simplified for a child, the ideas behind them fascinated me and helped to spark an interest in anthropology. In a similar attitude to the bastardly story above, she presented to me that the origins of the wheel lie most likely somewhere with some kids playing with plates, rolling them down a hill, until one of them innovates an axle to have more stable plates. For horses, or any technology whose origin lies completely in the undocumented past, why couldn’t it have arisen from haphazard accidents just like many modern inventions?
The mundane details with time become obscured, and eventually, they transcend into myth and legend. The collected myths and stories among Indo-European peoples have many creation stories that circle around specifically two audacious twins who change the world. Remus and Romulus4, the legendary brotherly founders of Rome, are often interpreted as a form of this myth reappropriated into a historical context. If you look further, an odd theme of horsemanship appears. Hengist and Horsa are the legendary Anglo-Saxon settlers of England and their names translate to “stallion” and “horse”. Zeus’ boys, the Dioskouroi, are remembered in myth as fine horsemen worshipped as cattle-stealing Gods of War; and the Vedic Asvins were born by the Sun God and his wife after they had taken the form of a stallion and a mare.5
And what if it all started in some manner like my story? If we accept some notion that people haven’t changed, two backcountry boys who do nothing all day but herd animals, would be bound to stir up trouble in what free time they had, and spend an inordinate amount of time at some point figuring out- can I ride it?
Pounding Ekwos
Evolution would be required from the first riding attempt. An understanding of bits and tack and breaking techniques would be needed before the horse could be utilized as more than just a rodeo piece. But after the first people had gotten a handle of the art, horsemanship would prove to be a game-changing innovation. When once a herder or a hunter had to walk on foot to follow his animals, he now had the ability to run circles around them. Distances were closed between communities. Trade caravans could carry a greater burden of goods across land than ever imaginable before. It was revolutionary to every aspect of life, in cementing new possibilities for communication, for power and control, and warfare. Horses were launched into status symbols of the wealthy and the noble. The richest of all animal agriculturists were the horse breeders, later to be viewed as those wielding some kind of four-legged gift from the divine.
With this much radical change, it is easy to imagine how these two hypothetical rednecks from the backwater steppe would be transformed into figures of myth and legend in later generations. (Just as much as it can be argued that fire-gifting archetypes in myth like Prometheus6, are revered remembrances of ancient pre-Sapien ancestors who first sparked flame.)
To the people living on the steppe at this time, no other innovation would be as monumental as the horse. Evidently what happened following its domestication, was that these people with their new-fangled four-legged pet started roaming. Their migrations would be seen by later anthropologists as invasions- and while images of advancing horseback armies riding from the plains like Mongols would be highly inaccurate- their genetics, language, and culture supplanted those of the previous inhabitants of Western Eurasia7 and created a new order across the continent.
It was a collision of worlds and undoubtedly, society was being reshaped, values reformed. More than just the pounding hooves of horses led the way of these migrations; the real spearhead was ideological. One may have the horse, but who really was going all the way to the distant shores of Ireland and to the jungles of India8, and why? (It is an awful amount of effort after all)…
New Kin
It is 3000 B.C., the Pyramids of Giza won’t be erected for another 500 years and the name of “Rome” won’t be uttered for another 2,500. You exist on the banks of the Notec River, in a palisaded settlement that you grew up believing your father built with his bare hands. Your father is a strict man though- so much he won’t tell you out of graveness, but somehow he became accomplished, earned many a head of horse with a bounty of scars carved on his shoulders. He provides well for you and your many brothers and your darling mother. The time has not come yet for you to worry about what those scars mean…
The difference between a boy and a man is immense. They exist in two different states of being. One sits at the mercy of others, is dependent on his caregivers, and is expected to be so. A little boy is allowed to be innocent and carefree. He is allowed to carry his favorite blanket around while accepting cuddles from mother. A man, however, is not afforded any such comfort. He is expected to be strong and to take on the cares and burdens of others. It is a virtue for him to be decisive and proactive. It would seem most bizarre to imagine a masculine figure, toting around his dinosaur-clad affectations, and running submissively into the arms of someone for hugs and kisses.
Children in this manner, are wholly selfish creatures, who demand love and attention like a resource without always giving it in equal share.
And as a child, with all your brothers, you’ll live a fanciful life as the son of a chief, hardly knowing hunger, hardship, and cold. Your mother will always be there to comfort whatever woes do come about. This will last for about seven years before a profound change happens. The world comes into better clarity- you are no longer the center of it. You’ll notice that your brothers- your best friends and playmates- as they suddenly begin to demand more of the pie: more food and more affection. They do it in a sort of competition, aiming to take your fried horse nuggets and cuddle time, and they begin to develop the strength to inflict their will upon others.
Chores are thrust upon all of you- gone are the days when your sole duty was to be cute. You become intimately aware of the functions of life: the real stench of a mound of horse feces as you shovel it, the reproduction of animals as you help your father’s men birth calves, and the bloody slaughter of those same calves six months later. Your innocence is gradually being whisked away.
There is nothing unique about these facts. The loss of innocence is a universal experience that all people face as they grow up, across all cultures and all times. However, your adolescence will be a special one, for your father came from a different world you’ll never know about- one where the sky was uneclipsed by trees and the wind unhampered. You’ll never truly conceive of how powerful a man, and men like he will be in history- let alone facts so simple as to why he’s passed down such a radically different tongue to you in comparison to what Mother speaks. This kind of man, who rode from the East a generation ago, will forge new traditions, a new heritage, that will disseminate itself like a plague, and you will be among the first carriers…
A story, a legend- or something, To be continued.
Danke,
ABSURDISMUS
It is hard to distinguish in the archaeological record true animal agriculture from bands of humans simply following the migrations of wild animals.
Cannabis grows wild throughout much of Eurasia, and the archaeological record shows it was burned in tents and the smoke inhaled in a mode we would simply call today “hot-boxing”. The pipe is a Native American invention and such things as joints and cigars are post-Columbian inventions, and such hot-boxing would’ve been the most common method of smoking cannabis.
*éḱwos; the hypothesized Proto-Indo-European word for horse, mostly likely deriving from a root meaning “quick”.
Who fed from a she-wolf, and obviously fit the description… “they are wolves”
Read “Comparative Mythology” by Jaan Puhvel. The full list of connections you could draw from this theme are immense and confusing and times.
Etymologically most likely: “forethinker”
If you are a typical white European, you speak an Indo-European language and share most of your genetics with these horse-bound pastoralist heathens (particularly in your Y-chromosome lineage [in less nerdy terms, patrilineal] ). The remainder of you however, belongs to these populations that preceded the arrival of these horse-bound pastoralist heathens. It is arguable that the different flavors of Modern European cultures, are resultant from the substrate features of pre-Indo-European peoples who mixed and intermingled with the invaders.
Unrelated, but click here for Indo-European Unity