A Woman Who Loves Horses Teaches Me Something New About Love

a short essay with video

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Photo by Erin Dolson on Unsplash

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Back in 1989, Dr. Tim Reid screened the Dustin Hoffman movie, Little Big Man, in his Western American Literature class at Washington State University. I was the only Indian student in the class. Heck, I was one of maybe 25 or 30 Indians in the entire college. I’d already seen the movie multiple times. It’s adapted from the novel of the same name, and both the book and movie have long been among my favorite works of art.

The novel is far rowdier than the film and likely upsetting to some contemporary readers, including some Indians, which is one of the continuing reasons why I love it so much.

Here’s a good description of the movie from the Library of Congress National Film Registry: “Little Big Man (1970) chronicles the long and troubled history of Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman), a 121-year-old man whose family was killed by the Pawnee Indians when he was only 10. He’s saved by the Cheyenne (longtime enemy of the Pawnee) who raise him as one of their own tribe members. Jack comes to love and respect the Indians who refer to themselves as ‘human beings.’ Throughout the film Jack is torn between two worlds. The world of white men who are often depicted as religious hypocrites, murderous gunslingers, racist brutes and money hungry capitalists willing to do anything in order to make a buck. And the more earth conscious world of the Native Americans who are trying to survive while their own way of life, identity and human dignity is being stripped from them by the U.S. Government.”

That serious description doesn’t include the fact that Little Big Man is also a satire and revisionist Western that’s often very funny.

But the film can also be brutal. Here’s a horrifying scene from the movie that is a fictional version of the Washita Massacre that happened on November 27th, 1868. It’s a tough watch, especially as I’m presenting it as a standalone movie clip.

If you aren’t able to watch the scene, you need to know that dozens of Cheyenne children, women, men, and elders are murdered. There is one particularly graphic killing that still brings tears to my eyes after dozens of viewings.

It was a strange thing to be the only Indian in a classroom with white people watching a movie massacre of Indians committed by white soldiers. But feeling like a solitary Indian in the white world is a very common experience. Urban Indians spend a lot of time in rooms where we’re the only Indian. It can be a source of eccentric strength and intense loneliness.

While watching that massacre scene with white students, I felt an extra level of pain. A few of those students had spent the entire semester loudly disputing the fact that the United States had committed such atrocities. But even when they accepted that such massacres occurred, they were quick to justify them. That’s not surprising, I suppose. History teaches us that people are quick to justify the atrocities committed by their political brethren.

But all the white students, disagreeable or not, were respectfully quiet during the massacre scene. I heard a few soft gasps and distressed whispers, especially during the more graphic murders.

But there were much louder gasps and tears when General Custer orders his soldiers to shoot the Indian ponies and they proceed to do just that. The human massacre and horse massacre become one and the same. Some of the students rocked back in their seats when ponies were shot and fell to their fictional deaths.

I was incredibly offended and said so after we finished screening the film.

“Fuck,” I said to the classroom. “Fucking people reacted stronger to the murder of horses than to the murder of Indians.”

Dr. Reid agreed with me but gently turned the discussion in safer directions. None of the other students contradicted me. Even the most conservative kids, the rowdy white dudes, didn’t want to publicly disagree with me.

I carried that memory with me for years. I never stopped feeling a visceral disgust whenever I thought about it.

Then, in 2001, as I was working in post-production on our film, The Business of Fancydancing, I told our editor, Holly, about my experience watching the fictional Washita Massacre in that classroom. If you’ve seen our movie (and few have) then you might remember the scene where a group of Indian kids use their hands to paint a very gentle horse. Holly owned that horse though I think that she might strongly disagree with the idea that horse can be owned. In any case, you can see a brief shot of that horse in the trailer for the film:

“Those fucking white kids in fucking college reacted bigger to the horses getting shot,” I said to Holly. “They cared more about the horses than they did about the Indians.”

Holly is a white woman. And she was quiet for a long moment.

“Sherman,” she said. “The best movies always make you feel like you’re in the movie. You feel the emotions that the movie wants you to feel. Sometimes, you get so into the emotions that you kinda forget you’re watching a movie.”

I agreed with her.

“But even with the best movies,” she said, “there’s always some part of you that knows you’re watching a movie. You’re eating popcorn or somebody is talking in the theater or you get distracted by other thoughts. You could be watching a passionate love scene and suddenly remember you have to get milk at the grocery store.”

She was right about that.

“I don’t know those kids in the classroom,” she said. “I can’t tell you what they were thinking. But I’m thinking that, no matter how disturbing that massacre was in the movie, I’d always find some comfort in knowing everybody was an actor. I could feel horrible about how the United States has treated Indians. I could feel sick about all the real massacres that happened. But I’d always know that the Indian actors would stand up when the director said, ‘Cut.’ I’d always know the white soldiers were just white actors. I’d always know the bullets and blood weren’t real.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You can’t always suspend your disbelief when watching a movie.”

“Yeah,” Holly said. “And remember that the horses in the movie weren’t actors. They were just horses. And they didn’t know it wasn’t real. The fake screams would’ve sounded like real screams. And the fake bullet fire would’ve sounded like real bullets.”

“They were probably trained horses,” I said.

“Maybe some of them were,” she said. “But if you know about how Hollywood treats animals then you know the movie producers probably didn’t give a shit about the horses.”

“There were scenes of the horses falling,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. “And you know how they used to get horses to fall in the movies? They use trip wires and shit. They knock them over. Hollywood has killed real horses to make it look like movie horses are dying.”

I knew that many horses had been killed during the filming of Ben-Hur in 1926. And I also knew about the horrific and negligent helicopter crash that killed actor Vic Morrow and child actors Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen during the filming of the Twilight Zone movie in 1982. I knew there have been and always will be filmmakers who care far more about their movie than about the humans and animals who are part of the movie.

“The kids in that classroom,” Holly said. “I bet they were reacting more strongly to the horses’ deaths because they knew, maybe only subconsciously, that the horses were in real danger. Did any horses fall in the movie?”

“Yeah,” I said. “There’s a bad one.”

“When did they film it?”

“In 1969.”

“They probably hurt her. Maybe even killed her.”

After Holly’s wise and illuminating words, I began to pay closer attention to how horses and other animals are treated in films. As time has gone by, and technology has improved, it’s easy to spot the horses that are only CGI and it’s also easy to spot the horses that are only models.

Here’s a still photo from a violent battle scene from Game of Thrones.

Game of Thrones is one of my favorite TV shows of all time (even though much of its last two seasons are illogical and just plain dumb). The still photo above is from what is known as The Battle of the Bastards.

I just played the video of this battle five times and closely studied the horses. Many of the most violent scenes are special effects. A green screen is certainly used for some sequences. And there are horse collisions, falls, and deaths that have to be CGI. But there are a few horse falls that look real to me.

Can horses be taught to safely fall?

Well, yes, they can. I know that dogs can be taught to fall. They can be taught hundreds of tricks. And I also know that dogs love to please their owners. Do horses also love to please their owners? I’m sure they do though I also assume that horses are more independent-minded than dogs.

“I hardly watch any movies with horses in them,” Holly said. “I get too sad and scared for the real horses. I love horses too much.”

Holly’s words stay with me. Sometimes, I like to paraphrase her: “I hardly watch any movies with Indians in them. I get too sad and scared for the real Indians. I love Indians too much.”

The previous is not true, of course. Most of my favorite films are about death and destruction. And some feature the death and destruction of Indians. I don’t know what that says about me. I don’t know what that says about any of us who like the same kind of violent films. And it’s not just men who watch violent films. Various studies have shown that up to 80% of the viewing audience for true crime documentaries are women.

I don’t ride horses. They scare me. I didn’t get near Holly’s horse when the kids were painting him. In 1992, I punched a white guy in the face after I’d warned him that I would do so if he called me Chief again after he’d already called me Chief a dozen times. Growing up on the reservation, I got into at least one fistfight per month. And, sometimes, I could only drop to the ground and curl into a ball when the biggest bullies started punching and kicking me.

Yeah, I taught myself how to fall. It’s a special skill possessed by some of us. It’s not a skill that we ever wanted to learn.