This saddle was made by a student at the Yakama Indian Agency s vocational school, Built in the new Western style, on a Mexican tree with Mexican-style embossed leatherwork, the ladies sidesaddle represents a cultural imposition through the schooled trades for horsegear and fashion on a people with a longstanding stellar reputation for indigenous horsemanship.
Between 1819 and 1972, thousands of Indians were sent from their homes to mission schools and often forced into federal boarding schools. The schools mission was to kill the Indian and save the Man, according to the founder of the military-style Carlisle Indian Industrial School and Hampton Institute, Capt. Richard Pratt. Ordered to give up their language, subsistence, and religious practices, along with their savage clothes and hairstyles, Indian students were made to wear citizen clothing, work, farm, keep houses, and attend Christian churches. Most were trained in the civilized trades, such as carpentry, cobblery, and dress-making, and were not allowed to pursue Native arts. By the 1930 s, the government had gradually let go of some of its most culturally repressive policies in the schools. From the 1960 s on, the movement for tribal sovereignty restored tribal people s control of their children s education. A majority of Indians moved to public schools, old federal schools were closed, and most Bureau of Indian Affairs schools on reservations and pueblos were converted to tribally-controlled institutions. In these schools, students live at home; curriculum and school policy support Native cultural arts and language learning, as well as mainstream skills in literacy, math, science, and technology.