Yakama Wild Horses

Yakama tribe has about 5,000 wild horses on their lands. They are unaffected by BLM laws, and are adoptable at $100 a head.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/204346_wildhorses18.html

We believe the horse was always here, yes, even before the Spanish arrived. I understand paleontologists say the horse was hunted to extinction. Believe what you like. We have songs that talk about long, long ago, songs that honor the horse.

Call me crazy if you wish, but I have a lot of respect for native Americans. When I went on a geology field trip lecture to Crater Lake National Park, it was an interesting learning experience not only for the geology but for the history as well (keep reading, this will be horse related).
There were verbal tribe stories going back more than 7,000 years about the eruption of Mt Mazama to form crater lake -- 250 GENERATIONS!
It is amazing to me that a culture's history could be so well preserved, when today you have teenagers who don't even know about the founding of this country, not a very long time ago in comparison.

Getting back to horses, who is to say they haven't also carried down stories orally about the original horse, before its extinction?
And has DNA testing been done on this herd to see what the ancestry is like?

Hmmm... I wonder what (if anything) would change if a herd of horses were to be found genetically matched to the native horses. Would they be protected as a native species instead of considered feral/invasive?