The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c10.467

v1.c10.467

**Harness for draft horses :** The harness for draft horses in the olden time included a body-roller, collar and a bridle. The body-roller was apparently plain, and tied where, in our times, the surcingle is buckled; but without any padding or cloth underneath; differing in this respect from the Assyrian harness, which always included a rich saddle -cloth.²³⁶ It was intended to prevent the traces from hanging low when the horse was checked or backed. The collar was light below, but heavy at top, something like the wooden frames which were until recently used for *kerāñcī* tattoos. In fact, the idea of a collar was derived from a bullock's hump, and the contrivance was designed with a view to give a false hump to the horse, and the traces were so adjusted as to throw the weight much higher up than the point which bears the greatest strain under an ordinary collar. The remnant of this hump is represented in English dray horse-harness by a semicircular piece of leather on the top of the collar, and until recently it also appeared prominently in gig harness. The Egyptian harness-saddle was designed in the same way, placed on the highest point of the withers, and kept there by two bands, one forming a collar, and the other a girth. This was also the case with the ancient Greek harness, in which the yoke was tied on the withers by two bands, one of which served the purpose of a girth, the other, the *lépadnon*, was, according to Arnold, “a broad strap which fastened the neck of the horse to the yoke”. The Assyrian breast-band, as described in the note below was very much of the same kind. The Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Assyrians however, differed from the Indians in making their horses draw their chariots by a yoke, while the latter depended on traces, and had no yoke. Wilkinson says, that the former “had traces, but on the inner side only”. Such traces could not have been very effectual either for steady draught, or for preventing the horses from falling out, and the main dependence must have rested on the yoke, which he adds “sufficed for all the purposes of draught, as well as for backing the chariot; and being fixed to the saddle, it kept the horses at the same distance and in the same relative position, and prevented their breaking outwards from the line of draught”.²³⁷ In Indian rich trappings, a trellised *croupiere* was added to serve the purpose of a kicking-strap, but it was not common. The bridle differed in no respect from what was used for saddle horses, except, perhaps, in having gaudy plumes and rosettes over the head, and by the ears.