Shaving the Beasts: Wild Horses and Ritual in Spain

313 Pages·2020·11.394 MB·English

by  John Hartigan Jr.

Shaving the Beasts

Shaving the Beasts
Wild Horses and ritual in spain
John Hartigan Jr.
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis
London
The University of Minnesota Press gratefully acknowledges the
fnancial assistance provided for the publication of this book
by the University of Texas at Austin.
All photographs are by the author.
Copyright 2020 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hartigan, John, Jr., author.
Title: Shaving the beasts : wild horses and ritual in Spain / John Hartigan Jr.
Description: Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifers: lCCn 2020023677 (print) | isBn 978-1-5179-0473-9 (hc) |
isBn 978-1-5179-0474-6 (pb)
Subjects: lCsH: Wild horses—Spain—Galicia (Region) | Wild horses—Control—Social
aspects—Spain—Galicia (Region) | Galicia (Spain : Region)—Social life and customs.
Classifcation: lCC SF360.3.S7 H37 2020 (print) | ddC 636.1/30946—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020023677
to my BrotHers
Zay and Geo
who know horses.

Contents
Introduction: Horse Sociality 1
1. Into the Field: Techniques of Observation 21
2. Bands: Social Life on the Range 105
3. Ritual Shearing: Dissolution and Chaos 181
Conclusion: Species- Local Analysis 253
Acknowledgments 263
Notes 265
Bibliography 279
Index 291

Introduction
Horse soCiality
Roughly eleven thousand horses roam the mountainous terrain of
Galicia, Spain, in the northwest corner of the Iberian Peninsula. They
have inhabited these slopes for millennia and are one of the largest
free- ranging populations in the world. Every summer in more than a
dozen rural localities, many of these horses are rounded up in a ritual
called rapa das bestas, or “shaving the beasts.” The earliest historical
accounts of this ritual date to the 1500s, but archeologists argue that
this tradition extends from the Neolithic era, based on petroglyphs fea-
turing horses being driven into small rock enclosures.1 That is the heart
of the rapa: wild horses, roaming communal lands in the mountains,
are herded together and driven into curros— structures similar to rodeo
corrals— where their manes and tails are systematically shaved. Their
hair, which in the past had many folk uses, falls worthlessly to the
ground.
Though they belong to Equus ferus, these animals are called bestas
(beasts) or burras (asses), refecting a widely held view that they are a de-
generate mountain breed. They are intensely disparaged and not con-
sidered “real” horses in comparison with the glorifed Andalusians and
other Spanish breeds. Smaller in stature than most of their conspecif-
ics, this population features a distinctive body type: they have relatively
large bellies and short legs, some feature a distinctive gait, and a few
sport a thick “mustache,” which is probably an adaptation to the thorny
gorse they feed on extensively.2 These physical characteristics indicate
that this population was certainly passed over by modern breeding re-
gimes, starting with royal projects in the 1400s.3 That is, rather than a
degenerate strain, these are possibly a refuge population that survived
when the last Ice Age decimated European horses. That would make
them Equus ferus atlanticus, a distinct subspecies from Equus ferus cabal­
lus, the domesticated horse.4
1