Arab Equitation: Its Principles Its Practice

By GENERAL DESCOINS

Written as a guide to help native (Spahi) non-commissioned officers incorporate new recruits, and newly acquired horses, into effective cavalry units, this book presents a method formed around the Arab (North-African) style of riding. While indicating its limitations, he stresses its benefits: the ease with which it can be acquired, the confidence which the native saddle imparts upon the rider, and the constant impulsion it imparts upon the horse. General Decoins also explains the principles of the Arab bit, removing some of the mystery that has surrounded this elegant instrument. It is a fitting companion to Daumas Horses of the Sahara, written by another French General half a century later

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 17, 2007
• ISBN: 9781462842278

GENERAL DESCOINS

About the Author Eduard Descoins (1869-1928) was a general in the French army and the author of several books on military history, tactics, and theory. A master of European equitation, while in command of the native cavalry in Algeria, he was nonetheless open-minded enough to realize the benefits which Arab equitation could confer. When the “big tents” no longer supplied a sufficient number of officers to train the native cavalry, he wrote this book as a manual to help native officers train their troops. Although certain European influences are noticeable, Descoins was uncompromising in maintaining Arab equitation as an integral whole, rather than adapting certain of its elements to European equitation.

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Contents

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

GLOSSARY

FORWARD

THE ONLY CHAPTER

ENDNOTES

Translated from L’équitation arabe, Paris, 1924

by

James Luck

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

Written as a manual for Spahi (North African native) officers, Arab Equitation is remarkable for several reasons: despite an overwhelming amount of Arabic books dealing with horses and European books dealing with Arab equitation, there is no other methodical, progressive exposition of Arab equitation, so radically different from any other style of riding; secondly, the description given of the rider’s seat in the Arab saddle may well be one of the best descriptions of the jineta style of riding, so instrumental in transforming mounted warfare in the middle ages and renaissance; finally, General Descoins’ explanation of the dynamics of both the Arab saddle and bit, and his refusal to allow their utility to be compromised by alterations that would bring them, supposedly, into conformation with European styles, demonstrate an objectivity and lack of ethnocentrism often missing in contemporary writers.

Early Arab books on horses and horsemanship (kutub al khail, kutub al furusiyya) concentrate on other areas of equine studies in preference to the training of the horse and rider. Certainly, much information can be gleaned from them and from classical Arab poetry, but the emphasis in these books is on the terms used to describe the horse’s anatomy, the conditioning of the horse, his best proportions and conformation, the legality of horse racing and wagering, colors and markings, the names and descent of notable horses and of their riders, how to judge a horse in different circumstances, etc. With the passage of time more space was dedicated to suggestions on how to mount the horse and how to manage the reins; there were even some instructions on how to start colts under saddle, and how to teach them different gaits and accustom them to noise and crowds. However these instructions and precepts seldom amounted to more than a brief chapter, nor did they provide more than cursory suggestions concerning a methodological and progressive education of the horse—a statement I maintain despite General Descoin’s assertions in Appendix III of this book.

Most modern Arabic books on horsemanship teach European equitation, although they generally preserve many elements from the older books as well.

As for Arabic poetry, especially pre-Islamic and early Islamic, there is no other literature so prolific, detailed and artful in describing horses and their riders. There is much that can be deduced from it concerning Arab equitation during that time span, and there seems to be little to contradict their employing a style similar to that described here.

Despite the existence of books describing the jineta style of horsemanship, written in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, and due to their being difficult to obtain, the mechanics of the jineta style are nearly unknown and often misunderstood. Certainly the style of riding described in this book has suffered modifications and evolved since the sixth and seventh centuries, yet there are many reasons to believe that many or most of the elements of that ancient style, due to a similar terrain and common tactics, were preserved.

General Descoins’ respect for the best of Arab horsemanship and his recognition of its suitability for the terrain of North Africa, its potential for the rapid mobilization of cavalry units and, most importantly, his understanding of the mechanics of the Arab saddle and bit, made him an uncompromising defender of the Arab harness. It is the same respect, recognition and understanding that General Eugene Daumas demonstrated three quarters of a century earlier in The Horses of the Sahara; and this small book complements its predecessor by fleshing out its description of the Arab saddle and bit.

Beyond these considerations, there are few who will not be better riders after having read this book, simply because General Descoins was a true horseman, who always made the horse’s care and well being his first priority.

GLOSSARY

Burnous: A caped cloak used by North Africans and adopted by the Spahis.

Captain-commandant: The commanding officer.

Douar: A bedouin encampment (usually defensive and circular in shape).

Filali: Soft leather made in the oasis of Tafilalet, Algeria.

Garniture: The rawhide covering of the saddle-tree (here).

Guedda: The cantle of the Arab saddle.

Karbouss: The fork (pommel) of the Arab saddle.

Longe: Either a lead or a longe.

Metropolitain: In France proper (Europe).

Olives: Self-connectors on the reins (no buckles used on reins with olives).

Sirocco: A hot, desiccating wind that comes off the Sahara.

Spahi: (From Turkish sipahi) A member of a cavalry corps established in North Africa in 1834 which recruited, principally, natives. It is also used as an adjective.

Square: The hollow-square formation, sometimes mobile. Facing outward, excellent for defense; facing inward, excellent for instruction.

Wadi: A periodically flowing desert river and its bed.

FORWARD

The native cavalry has recently been given regulations for equitation. It is interesting for the officers of the Spahis to know its evolution. This is entirely contained in the report which I addressed the 15th of October, 1919, to the commanding general of the Algerian cavalry and which I reproduce here below:

The principles of equitation and the procedures of mounted instruction to be employed in the native cavalry have been made known by the Decree of April 9, 1900, regulating the schooling of mounted riders in the Spahi regiments.

The form adopted by this document has been that of an annex to the regulations for maneuvers then in use in the Metropolitan Cavalry: the numbering of the paragraphs of the decree of April 9, 1900, corresponds to that of the decree of May 12, 1899.

For twenty years the French cavalry has been successively equipped with many regulations for maneuvers: it is to be expected that those now in vigor will undergo modifications resulting from five years’ experience in war.

Furthermore, the instructors of the Metropolitan Cavalry have at their disposal an exposé of equestrian doctrine (Manuel d’équitation et de dressage of January 9, 1912). Nothing similar exists relative to Arab equitation. The decree already cited of April 9, 1900 is strictly limited in its objective, which is the rider’s school; it contains no code of equestrian doctrine for the use of instructors; it is equally silent on the important question of the horse’s training.

These gaps would not, perhaps, have been a major inconvenience if the recruitment of the Spahi regiments had remained as it had been previously and if the officers of these regiments were able to fill in, generally, by their personal experience and by tradition for the absence of a written doctrine.

But this isn’t the way things are anymore.

These days the Spahi regiments receive a notable contingent of riders whom they must teach completely and of horses which must be trained before they are put into service.

For reasons which will not be listed here, the sons of the big tents, trained on horses from their earliest childhood, seek service in our regiments less than previously, when their equestrian skill had been a living example for the young riders.

On the contrary, because of diverse and often unavoidable reasons, certain French officers were brought to the Spahis, the previous stages of whose careers had little prepared them for service among the native troops.

They did not discern the true points of contact between French equitation and Arab equitation. But readily considering this last as a collection of empirical and brutal procedures, they thought it well to introduce into it innovations which, while denaturing its character, remove from it precisely its principal advantages.

It is thus that I have noted, in certain units:

(a) A modification of the harness: the stirrup-leather hangers have been displaced and relocated considerably forward of their traditional and, moreover, statutory place;

(b) The custom of lengthening the stirrups.

These two innovations remove an essential and valuable peculiarity from the Arab saddle: to force the rider to constantly have his legs placed and to thus communicate an irresistible impulsion to his horse;

(c) The use of the trot à l’anglaise, which is nonsense in Arab equitation;

(d) The abuse during instruction of the work without stirrups, which is more nonsense in an equitation in which it is characteristic to constantly support one’s self upon the stirrups;

(e) The abuse, likewise during instruction, of riding with two hands and with the snaffle, which results in spending much time teaching the rider the opposite of what he ought to do when he uses the bridle.

It is true that the Decree of April 9, 1900 put the instructors on guard against the pitfalls mentioned in the last two paragraphs above. But the very form of this decree, whose divisions are patterned upon those of regulations for maneuvers, is of a nature to cause confusion.

Arab harness and Arab equitation form a whole, which must be accepted or rejected as a whole. It cannot be a question of renouncing the Arab harness, so practical and so completely appropriate to its object. It is, therefore, desirable that the rules of Arab equitation should be expressed in a document independent of the regulations for maneuvers and not be subject to the modifications which the other might be called upon to undergo.

These rules have been conserved by tradition¹ and by example. A rational analysis of the procedures employed by good Arab riders will also help to formulate them.

Seen from the purely equestrian point of view, these procedures are by force restrained, they might not lead to such brilliant and such complete results as French methods have allowed us to attain in all areas of equitation. It is, nonetheless, able to procure a relative equilibrium which answers its goals.

Certain of them, even though born only of instinctive experience, present an undeniable similarity with different equestrian means whose effectiveness has been sanctioned by the enlightened experience of our masters. When this is the case, we are well advised to make the Arab rider benefit from the doctrine taught at the cavalry school and synthesized in the Manual of January 9, 1919.

Lastly, the reorganization of the Algerian cavalry and the role that the native regiments are called upon to play vis-a-vis the elements of the subdivision of arms maintained in the Orient imposes upon us the necessity of training instructors of equitation among our Arab cadres as well as among our French cadres.

These instructors should speak the same language, that is to say, they should be instructed in the same doctrine.

There now remain few copies of the Decree of April 9, 1900. I could cite a regiment of Spahis which at this time hasn’t even one.

Rather than purely and simply reproducing this document in its primitive form, I believe for various reasons, explained above, that it would be advantageous to develop the excellent principles which have served as its foundation and to clarify its application to the training of the horse as well as to the instruction of the rider.

These considerations have brought me to undertake the project of writing a Manual of Equitation and of Training for the Use of the Spahi Regiments.

I have the honor to submit this work to you. If you approve of its contents, I ask you to kindly authorize me to put it into practice from now on, in order to gain experience with it."

The experience has been made.