A vivid first-person study of a notorious equine ritual—from the perspective of the wild horses who are its targets
Wild horses still roam the mountains of Galicia, Spain. But each year, in a ritual dating to the 1500s called rapa das bestas, villagers herd these “beasts” together and shave their manes and tails. Shaving the Beasts is a firsthand account of how the horses experience this traumatic rite, producing a profound revelation about the durability of sociality in the face of violent domination.
John Hartigan Jr. constructs an engrossing, day-by-day narrative chronicling the complex, nuanced social lives of wild horses and the impact of their traumatic ritual shearing every summer. His story generates intimate, individual portraits of these creatures while analyzing the social practices—like grazing and grooming—that are the building blocks of equine society. Shaving the Beasts culminates in a s
