Breeding Horses

Abstract The tenth chapter explores a final sign of horse domestication: the breeding stock. As the third chapter showed, ‘horse’ differs from other words for domestic animals in having an unmarked masculine form, while, chapters 6 and 7 showed horses are treated in burials and ritually as a domestic animal. Building on Meillet’s observation that apparent feminines (Lat. equa, Lith. aśvà, and OInd. aśvā) were independent innovations, other candidates for the females and young are examined. These (Lat. pullus ‘colt,’ OE fola ‘foal,’ Alb. pelë ‘mare,’ Gk. πῶλος ‘colt,’ and Arm. ul ‘kid’) are derived from a root *pel- ‘beget, engender (of animals).’ The derivational attributes of these terms closely parallel terms for the functionaries inaugurated by the ceremonies of horse sacrifice, the so-called ‘king’ and ‘queen.’ These terms provide evidence that horses constituted the final stage of animal domestication, supplementing the Indo-Europeans’ previous knowledge of the common domestic animals of the Old World.