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The Gaucho Lives: Romanticizing South America's Cowboy
| Article
# : |
20403 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
3 / 1992 |
2,836 Words |
| Author
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Eugene G. Schulz
Eugene G. Schulz, a photojournalist and travel lecturer
residing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, recently returned from a
photographic and research expedition to the east coast of
South America and Antarctica. |
The word pampas comes from a Quechua Indian word meaning "plains." The geographical region covered by the pampas of South America includes parts of Argentina, Uruguay, and the southernmost state of Brazil, Rio Grande do Sul. These grasslands stretch more than six hundred miles from the Atlantic Ocean westward to the foothills of the Andes Mountains, and south to the Rio Colorado, where the region of Patagonia begins and continues southward.
During the historical times the pampas were covered with tall grasses excellent for grazing. The endless horizon was broken only by high thistles and an occasional ambu tree actually a huge bush with an immense girth its soft and spongy branches unfit for use as firewood. The leaves were large, glossy, deep green, and poisonous. Aside from serving as a landmark on the monotonous plains, the ombu's only usefulness was to offer refreshing shade to a man and his horse in the hot summer.
The men who sought the ombu's shade were the caretakers and masters of the pampas, the gauchos, and the continent's notorious cowboys. For many South Americans today, the gaucho evokes images of excitement, adventure, and romance, of fearless cowboys riding swift, beautiful horses and tending cattle on the lush grasslands of the frontier. But the gaucho was not always a romantic figure. In days gone by he was a villain and vagabond, a rogue on the fringes of society. In his transition from criminal to folk, hero he played an important role in the colonization and development of South America's plains, a role that has never been forgotten.
Land of the gaucho
Gauchos were mainly people of mixed blood, mestizos descended from Indians and Spanish white women captured in raids, or from Spanish criminals, adventurers, or deserters who had crossed the frontier of civilization to find refuge. But gauchos were a class of society, a subculture and not a race. Fearsome and swarthy, with high cheekbones, fierce eyes, huge black beards, and unshorn hair, gauchos were distinguished by their life-style. They were lawless vagabonds and superb horsemen. The gauchos were at home in the vast, flat, and lush grasslands which stretched as far as the eye could see.
Gauchos lived a very simple, pastoral life. Homes were small huts with straw roofs and walls of sticks filled with clay. They had no chairs, beds, or tables, and they sat on cow skulls and slept on hides stretched on the floor. Water was kept in barrels and drunk out of cow
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