DCHP-3

horse Indian

Hist.
DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

Entry from the DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

This entry may contain outdated or offensive information, terms, and examples.

1

a Kootenay Indian of the interior of Southern B.C., so called from the practice of travelling by horse rather than canoe.

Quotations

1888
. . . she like all Kootenay women, carried her "quirt," or riding-whip, for they are horse Indians and rarely walk.
1948
And for some unknown reason the Indians around Okanagan Lake neither made nor used canoes. Probably they belonged to a different tribe; they were sometimes referred to as horse Indians, and those round the Shuswap Lake as canoe Indians; however in other ways their customs were much the same.
2†

a member of a of several tribes of Indians inhabiting the prairies, as the Blackfoot, Assiniboine, and Plains Cree.

Quotations

1954
For the Blackfeet, the Piegans and the Bloods kept the land. They were the Horse Indians, war-like, proud, without fear of the white man.