Backdrop Series #2
Violence and the Picturesque
The Fourth of July is our biggest holiday here in Livingston. The kids who have grown up and gone off to wider pastures all come home. There’s the parade and the rodeo and a ton of music and, as I pointed out in my last newsletter, lots of people boating on the river. As I was scrolling Instagram over that weekend, I came across a picture of one of “my girls” with a sweet looking brown horse that had a large brand on it’s jaw. I’d never seen a jaw brand before and, instinctively replied “Oh my god who would do that to a horse?” I got the dismissive response a kid gives when an older relative yelps at something they’ve posted online; she said her friends’ family said it was easier to brand in that spot, because they only had to burn it once.
Aside from the jaw brand, it was exactly the kind of picture that all the 20 somethings were posting that week — pictures of how “Western” they were, how “Western” Livingston and our parade and rodeo are, of how “Western” their vacations were.
One of the central things I want to explore in this series, is what the ways we treat things we consider “background” tell us about the ways we see the world, and so I wound up going down a rabbit hole of research on jaw branding. I grew up in the horse business, but in hunter/jumpers and racehorses. Show horses are never branded, and while racehorses used to carry identification tattoos on the inside of their lips, the industry has moved to microchips because they’re easier and more humane. While it appears that most reputable jaw brands are done by freezing, and with local anesthetic, the online horse forums make it pretty clear that there are still plenty of outfits stuffing young horses in cattle chutes, throwing a rope over their necks to keep them from flipping, and hot branding them on the face.
Imagine it. You’re a young horse, just learning about halters and bridles and bits and saddles, and the people you’re trusting with this process, come at your face with a flaming hot piece of metal and burn you. You can smell burning flesh and hair. You don’t have to be a person who read Black Beauty a million times as a girl to imagine it.
It’s the kind of thing someone does when they see you as property, when they want to establish dominance over you, when they want you to know they can, and will, hurt you.
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I went to write a few comments but found they were too long (winded) and grumpy. So I'll make those into a post and link to this fine piece of work. But I'll still be grumpy about a few things: (that's a Sorrel horse, not a brown one, and branding is the law, at least in New Mexico, not just an affectation—same goes for scarves, hats, boots, and spurs. Sometimes, at least). Thanks for this work, Charlotte. I'm inspired, and reminded that there is much to say about the rural West.
I always find videos of horse shoe adjustments (or whatever its called) satisfying, but there is always someone who comments "doesn't that hurt the horse", to which a horse enthusiast will reply that it doesn't and its necessary for horses. Now I can't for the life of me imagine why a horse needs branding on its face of all places. You don't have to love horses to know this is wrong and inhumane. Yet, unlike the horse shoes, I'd never heard of this practice before and otherwise would never have done so had it not been for this post. Thank you for sharing and spreading this unjust treatment of horses. I feel like there should be a petition to stop this and hopefully there will be some day.