Quick pics: Havre students learn about painting horses

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The family of Toby and Elizabeth Werk and Joan Racine blessed the Sunnyside students and Havre Public Schools with traditional horse painting in recognition of Native American Heritage Month.

They also took the painted horses to the Lincoln-McKinley and Highland Park schools and paraded them up and down the sidewalk so the young students could see the painted horses and ask questions. The students even got a pet or two in.

"In Native American cultures, horses meant power, wealth and survival" a page on Notes from the Frontier said. "To paint a horse for battle or for a buffalo hunt was a sacred act, believed to enhance power for both horse and rider - spiritually and physically. It was serious business and could mean life or death."

Colors and symbols used had different meanings to impart different strengths, although they had different meanings to different cultures.

"The most common link was the belief of kinship with nature, the earth and all its animals, and the conviction that nature imparted a vital power in the paints themselves, and the symbols, too, brought power to horse and rider," the Notes from the Frontier page said.

The painters talked to the students about why the horses were painted.

"They weren't doing it to make their horse look good," Joan Racine said. "Each symbol had a different meaning, and many were meant to help the horse in battle and in hunting.  The symbols had spiritual significance. To make the horse stronger, faster, and braver. They showed the riders' victory or their defeat."

Toby Werk added that the ceremony has great significance.

"Before we start, we give thanks and bless our horses; this was done before battle, before ceremony and we are doing this today for this activity - to bless us and to bless these horses," Werk said.