Synopses & Reviews
A tender account - by turns cultural exploration and memoir of a young woman's firsthand experience of change and continuity in one of the worlds most remote regions, through the lens of the horse and "horse culture."
At nineteen, Sienna Craig made her first venture deep into Mustang, an ethnically Tibetan area of Nepal, in the rainshadow of the Himalayas. As an equestrian and a buddhing anthropologist, she sought not only to understand what it was like to rely on horses to navigate through the windswept valleys and plains of High Asia, but also to grasp how horses lent meaning to the lives of the Mustangi people. Through living and working with local Tibetan doctors, veterinarians, and other horse experts, as well as the deep friendships she formed, Sienna began to understand the region's history, and the way life in Mustang was being transformed in the face of temendous social, political, and economic shifts. She learned much about herself and her life's course through her year in Mustang - a place that came to feel, for all its foreignness, like home.
Review
"Many scholars have opened Himalayan cultures up to us with authority and learning, but few have traveled with the open heart and transparent sincerity of Sienna Craig. Horses Like Lightning is a singular dance of innocence and experience."
Synopsis
Sienna Craig first came to Mustang, Nepal, as a 19-year-old anthropology student interested in the mysterious “horse culture” high in the Himalayas. An experienced equestrian herself, Craig planned to focus her fieldwork on the methods and practices of the Mustangi people and how they formed a complex, spiritual relationship with their animals. But the result of her efforts far exceeded her expectations. In a remote, obscure corner of the world, she found a community of vibrant individuals caught in the gray space between the traditional and the modern, between deep spirituality and political unrest. Craig was welcomed initially because she could speak Nepali and “talk horse” with the locals, but because of her openness as a researcher and her kindness as a woman, she was soon brought into their homes as much more than a guest or friend. Horses Like Lightning offers an intimate portrait of an extraordinary culture and tells how one woman found her place in it.
About the Author
Sienna Craig was born in Santa Barbara, California in 1973. She is the author of a children's book, Clear Sky, Red Earth: A Himalayan Story and A Sacred Geography: Sonnets of the Himalaya and Tibet. She earned her PhD in anthropology from Cornell University and is currently an assistant professor at Dartmouth College. She lives in Vermont with her husband Ken and her daughter Aida.