The Gift of the Sacred Dog by Paul Goble, 1980.

A Native American tribe is starving because they haven’t been able to find any buffalo. They send out searchers and try to do a dance to call the buffalo.

One boy decides to go into the hills to ask the Great Spirit for help. When he asks for help, Thunderbirds swoop down from the sky, and a figure rides toward him on an amazing animal.

The figure tells him that the “Sacred Dog” he is riding will help his people because it can travel faster than the buffalo. The rider disappears, and other Sacred Dogs appear, in various colors.

When he wakes up the next morning, a herd of Sacred Dogs rushes out of a cave. The boy leads the Sacred Dogs to his people so the hunters can ride them in pursuit of the buffalo.

The book ends with the English translations of Sioux songs about horses and the return of the buffalo.

My Reaction

I love folktales, and this is a colorful story to explain how Native Americans came to have horses. Historically, horses were brought to the Americas by Europeans (although there was an ancient form of horse in the Americas that went extinct thousands of years before Europeans re-introduced horses to the continent). However, this folktale presents a more fantastical story.

As the Sioux songs at the end of the book indicate, horses are very important to Native Americans. Aside from their utilitarian uses for hunting and transportation, horses have a spiritual significance to many Native Americans. They are companions to human beings and a truly wonderful gift!