Map of Native American etymologies for “horse”. There were no horses in the Americas before the colonists arrived. Native Americans quickly developed new words for this strange animal, often associating them with dogs, their one other domestic animal before contact with Europe.
In Inupiaq its tuttuqpak, which means “big caribou”, which I’ve always loved. But I didn’t realize that the Creek, Choctaw, Cheyenne, and Shawnee etymologies were so similar! I love how associative animal names tend to be, like how “catfish” were named for their whiskers. What’s important about horses? They’re domesticated, they resemble other American ungulates but only have one toe, the Spanish and the French brought them (so you might as well use a loan word) and they’re quite useful for various tasks. It sounds goofy, but that’s how humans think, and its how we categorize animals- by their relationship to us, their appearance, where they’re from, and how useful they are.