Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri / Edited with Notes and Biographical Sketch

by Edwin Thompson Denig

The Horse

Era of the Importation of the Horse.—When the horse was first introduced among them does not appear by any of the traditions of these ignorant people. The name of the horse in Assiniboin is shunga (dog) tunga (large), i. e., large dog. Among the Sioux it is named shunka (dog) wakan (divining), i. e., divining dog, which would only prove that the dog was anterior to the horse, inasmuch as they were obliged to make a name for the strange animal resembling some known object with which it could be afterwards compared.