Equine driving terms

[Nadja Adolf]

	Alan Hartley, perhaps, via the OED's opinion; I'd guess myself that dog
	commands are _older_ than the introduction of the Jargon into Alaska/the
	Yukon (late 1800s) and probably do come from much further east, in which
	case "mush" might indeed come ultimately from backwoods French, but
	directly from "marcher" ("to go") rather than via "mahsh".  As for
	"hike, hike, hike" I'm not sure if it's a Yukonism of "hyak, hyak, hyak"
	or not ("Yukon" here meaning that river's entire
	basin/territory/country, and so including Interior Alaska); it sounds
	like it may have originally been a muleteer's command, however; Nadja
	says it's not connected to bovine/equine commands; but it rings a bell,
	if only from old western movies (and therefore probably incorrect
	historically), as having to do with mules or maybe with horses.

Ummm..... Gee means go right, usually pronounced with a hard "g" in my
experience, although I've heard it with a soft "g." Haw means cut left,
and hyup or hup is used with a horseteam to move them on. Ho, spelled
whoa, means to stop, and I have heard people pronounce the "w", but
not to often. Usually you yell out the vowel the most, and I think that
is what the critters actually listen for.

When driving a wagon, you tend to "cue" the horses by putting on the
brake a bit which tightens the lines as well as increases resistance.
This alerts the critters that there will be a change here pretty
soon so they actually "cue in" to what you're doing. This is for a
work team on a wagon, and I have no idea how the show horse people
do it.

nadja