Sunkawakan: American Indians and the Horse See all the exhibitions.

An exhibition containing photographs and objects related to American Indians and the horse from the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution. American Indians first acquired horses in the early 1500s when Spanish conquistadors arrived. Among the Plains Indians, beginning from the mid 1700s, the horse redefined social and intertribal relations, changed the nature of warfare and buffalo hunting, and influenced many religious practices. Lacking a word for horse, various tribes assigned descriptive phrases that often referred to workloads previously performed by dogs. "Sunkawakan" (Lakota for "wondrous dog") explores the relationship between Native Americans and horses up to the present day.