Stirrup leathers and placement

[sean]

I don't actually know how many times I've read Garrard's account 'Wah-To-Yah and the Taos Trail', but I picked up something out of the last reading that I hadn't noticed before on page 162 of my copy:

...while Hatcher and Louy first laid on their mules the half of a robe, and on that a bare Mexican tree, without pad, cover, or other appendage, save a few long buckskin thongs tied to the back of the cantle, and a pair of huge wooden stirrups dangling directly under--not forward of the seat.

It was the italics and bold section at the end of that quote that I never really paid any attention to before. The italics were Garrard's. He appears to be saying that American saddles (horned and otherwise) had stirrup leathers hung off the pommel and he was surprised that New Mexican saddles hung the stirrup leathers in the center of the saddle off the bars. The forward hanging stirrup leathers staked on to the pommel on American saddles is consistent with all of the original examples I have seen in print and in person, but I never really thought much about where the leathers looped over the bars came from. I find it sort of interesting that an American who had traveled the Santa Fe Trail to Bent's Fort and Beyond found this little detail worthy of comment that far down the trail.

Sean

[Mark]

Sean, I am not sure where I read it, but it just recently. I am fast becoming a member of the CRS crowd. But the reason Mexican saddles had the stirrups in the middle of the saddle was to aid in the dally roping of large cattle. The saddles were position more forward and over the whithers to help the horse handle the weight at the end of the riata.

Back in the 'states' cattle were not roped. Thus there was not a need for this positioning.

Mark

[sean]

Mark,

I think that comes out of Beattie's book 'Saddles'. His argument was not about where the stirrups were, it was about where the rigging or girth was. He thought it was about the difference between roping with a springy rawhide riata verses a tougher rope. He ascribes a lot more uniformity to southwestern saddles from Texas to California than I have seen. I think folks have had their own ideas about what rigging position works for them and their horse flesh over the centuries where ever they were from. Beattie's book has some good pictures in it and I don't put a whole lot of weight into his historical hypotheses.

Back to the subject of stirrup leather placement, almost every Indian women's saddle and men's saddle pad saddle that I have ever seen has the stirrups hanging centered under the seat. Garrard was living with the Cheyenne and chasing a Cheyenne maiden just prior to making this comment.

Sean