Earlier this month, I shared about revisiting photographs from a trip to Italy 14 years ago. I’ve shared various building and landscape images and memories of my time there. This week, I thought I’d zoom in closer and focus on something different: the various horse hitches or ferri da facciata (literally “façade irons”) that I came across on buildings in Tuscany.
You can see two examples of these hitches in the photo above. The rings on these metal sculptures were used to tether horses to buildings while the owners were visiting. As with so many practical things humans craft, artisans made them decorative and interesting as well as functional. I find it fascinating that they frequently chose to depict other animals—as if one animal was literally hitched to another.
This leads me to think about how language changes over time. The concept of hitching a horse to a building became the idea of a hitching post in the American West. We also talk about hitching animals together to work alongside one another, whether for plowing fields or pulling covered wagons across prairies.
Such hitching of work animals in tandem then led to the informal phrase of “getting hitched” to describe marriage—with the idea that both partners would work equally alongside each other. Theoretically, this was a harmonious arrangement, although that’s not always the way things worked in real life (in the fields or in marriages!).
We will soon celebrate Independence Day here in the US. In a sense, we are hitched together as people in a nation. Many of us intentionally seek to work together harmoniously, while others of us spend a lot of time resisting the tethers that bind us to each other. The American ideals of individualism and independence have too many of us thinking we don’t really need each other—but that doesn’t work out well, in the fields, in relationships, or in the broader society.
In this time of cultural and political upheaval, we each have the opportunity to reflect on what it means to be American. We are hitched together, whether we like it or not. How might this idea of being hitched together as a people inform your perspective on celebrating “independence” day this year?
The idea of being hitched together as a people certainly runs counter to the meaning of being independent, doesn’t it? Of course, we know it meant being independent from England, but you raise a good question here. Maybe we need to emphasize the fact that we are, in fact, dependent on one another. That might help to counteract our “rugged individualism” in this country, which is so contrary to Christian beliefs. I wonder where the idea of “every man (sic) for himself” or “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” even got started. It couldn’t have been during the pioneer days, when people always helped each other. It sounds very mean-spirited when you stop and think about it. So, yes, let’s celebrate Interdependence Day this year!
Thank you for your thoughts Aston. I think we do need some different quips to celebrate Interdependence Day!
Peace,
Shirin