You’re late for work, your train line is on strike and you’re stranded on a busy street corner in the outskirts of Buenos Aires. In desperation you phone a friendly neighbour to see if he can give you a lift into town. “Me hacés una gauchada?” (Can you do me a favour?) would be a good way to start the conversation, a sign of how deep the concept of gaucho runs in the Argentine psyche.

The gaucho is a legendary figure of Argentine society, a rebel reminiscent of ‘Che’. His elegance is supposedly inherited from the Spanish conquistadores and his freedom is intrinsically linked to the symbol of the country’s pampa. However in an age of paved roads, digital communication, and fenced properties how does the image of the gaucho survive?

Carlos Raúl Risso in La Plata (Photo: Lucas Radicella)

The “Real” Gaucho

“I believe the gaucho only really existed for a very brief period, about one century, roughly between 1770 and 1870,” explains Carlos Raúl Risso, poet, writer, and president and founder of the National Association of Traditionalist Writers.

The gaucho is exclusively from the Río de La Plata basin, a region that with today’s borders represents the Argentine pampa, Uruguay and the south of Brazil. Many other equestrian peoples exist in the region, the charro in Mexico, llanista in Venezuela, llanero in Colombia, or huaso in Chile, to cite a few of them.

The “real” gaucho however had a number of attributes, both spiritual and material, that distinguished him from his fellow countrymen. The first and most important of these was his freedom. By definition the gaucho goes where he wants, he tames the wild horses that roam the pampas, feeds off his hunting and gathering, and answers to no authority. The gaucho simply ignores the law and if he owes obedience to someone it is only to the caudillo, a man that has proven to be similar to him, but stronger.

The loss of this liberty is what Risso equates to the disappearance of the gaucho. It is illustrated, and therefore roughly dated, by the two most famous literary works on the gaucho; José Hernandez’s ‘Martín Fierro’, and Ricardo Güiraldes’ ‘Don Segundo Sombra’.

In the first, in 1872 after a fight against the army, the gaucho Martin Fierro and his companion flee civilisation as wanted men, they choose a general direction and ride their horses to exhaustion cutting across the pampa, their only obstacle a river too wide to cross or a mount to high to climb. In ‘Don Segundo Sombra’, set only a few decades later, the protagonist’s mentor transports cattle through the marked roads neatly delimited by fences that cross the pampa. He no longer can choose his own path and is forced to follow the one marked by the state, a crippling of the gaucho’s freedom from which he never recovered.

The second most important trait of the gaucho is his mastery of horse-riding skills. If the gaucho were to be compared to any mythological creature it would undoubtedly be the centaur: half human, half horse. The saying goes “the gaucho and his horse are one, the man on foot is half a gaucho”. Anthropologists and historians have found links as early as the 18th century between the gaucho’s riding abilities and those of the Spanish conquistadores. Some historians even link the preference of the gauchos for certain breeds of horses to those ridden by the Moors that controlled part of the Iberian Peninsula until the end of the 15th century.

Gauchos perform in rodeos throughout Argentina to keep the traditions alive. (Photo: Patrico Murphy)

Gaucho vs. Cowboy

So the gaucho is no one without a horse, he respects no authority, prefers to remain solitary, and wanders the countryside. Under this description it may be easy to think that the gaucho is identical to his North American equivalent, the cowboy. Think again.

While the cowboy wouldn’t dream of going anywhere without his revolver, the gaucho’s knife, strapped to his belt, is an extension of his body. The gaucho distinguishes himself among other things by his use of the bombacha, a resistant baggy pant unlike the slimmer dungaree or denim cowboy pants. Often the bombacha is half-covered by a skirt of sorts, called a chiripá.

Although both use lassos to capture cattle, a cowboy’s lasso is made of stiff rope while that of the gaucho is leather. Furthermore there are techniques associated with the gaucho that no other equestrian peoples of the Americas use. For instance he is the only one to capture cattle by binding its “hands” as they call it (the front two legs) with a lasso. They are also the only ones, because of the number of wild horses roaming the pampa, to move in tropillas. A tropilla is a group of at least seven horses (one for each day of the week) that are trained to follow the gaucho’s lead allowing them to rest in turn and the gaucho to have a fresh mount every day.

Because of his noble traits the gaucho was admired far beyond his native region and drew admirers from as far as Europe (see Cunninghame Graham box out) and North America. One of these was none other than the famous cowboy Buffalo Bill. His real name William Frederick Cody, Bill rose to stardom thanks to his feats as a cowboy and later mounted a circus that would travel throughout the United States and Europe demonstrating cowboy abilities. For one of these tours he recruited gauchos to perform alongside their North American counterparts. The tale says that when on tour in the United Kingdom a wild horse escaped from the circus and was bearing down towards the area where the Queen was seated. In the blink of an eye a lasso flew through the air and sent the rebellious horse crashing to the ground, its two “hands” tied in trademark gaucho style.

What’s Left of the Gaucho Today?

So if the gaucho really ceased to exist towards the end of the 19th century, then how would we qualify those men, wearing bombachas and chiripás, who spend their day on horseback and invariably have a knife strapped to their belt, that can be seen in many of Argentina’s campos and estancias?

“Those are campo workers” says Risso, “you work in an office, they work in the campo, that’s the only difference, they have nothing to do with gauchos.

“Some of them work with jeans and Texan hats, which is their choice, others choose to honour the tradition of their grandfathers and dress like gauchos,” he adds.

The traditions Risso mentions are not only important at their workplaces, costumbristas or tradicionalistas gather regularly to share an asado, demonstrate their riding skills, and talk, breathe, and live everything gaucho.

A young gaucho learns early on. (Photo: Eduardo Rivero)

Risso invites me to a jineteada, the equivalent of a rodeo, taking place in the outskirts of La Plata. Here jinetes (horse riders) dressed as gauchos compete to stay on untamed horses as long as possible in front of a jury, with sometimes up to $100,000 in prizes up for grabs.

“The spectacle has become eminently commercial,” explains Risso, “but the public is still authentic and is here for the same reasons as those who came to see similar events in the early 19th century.”

Risso’s words couldn’t ring truer. The men participating in the jineteada are clearly athletes more than rough living gauchos and it is evident the horses don’t belong to them, representing a precious investment for their owners. The public and everything that surrounds the event, however, breathes of campo and authenticity. From the beaten up pick up trucks they came in to the meat they enjoy off an improvised table consisting of a tree log with no other utensil than the gaucho knife from their belt.

According to Risso there are up to 800 of these events a year, product of a fascination with the gaucho that dates back to the end of the 19th century. Back then, facing an increasingly large influx of immigrants from Europe, those who had been living in Argentina for several generations felt they needed to reinforce their sense of national identity and chose the gaucho as one of its main symbols. There is no doubt today, judging from the tourist spectacles in Mataderos to the fiestas gauchas of the Argentine countryside, that they succeeded.

We continue The Indy’s Beyond Borges series with Ricardo Güiraldes, author of one of the two most important regional novels to have emerged from Latin America during the 20th century.

In his epic ‘Don Segundo Sombra’, Güiraldes transformed the cultural heritage of the Argentine gaucho into an enduring national myth, resulting in the celebration of his novel as an instant classic and the elegy of a bygone era.

Ricardo Güiraldes (Photo courtesy of Wikipedia)

Early life

Himself resembling an escaped character from a fin de siècle novel, Güiraldes led a lifestyle that was simultaneously decadent and bohemian.

The son of a wealthy member of the Argentine oligarchy, he was born in the rural town of San Antonio de Areco in 1886. His family moved to Paris when he was only one year old, and settled in an upscale neighbourhood near the Rue Saint-Claude.

With French and German as his first and second languages, and Castellano as his third, the family returned to Argentina in 1890 where he began his education.

In Argentina, his time was divided between Buenos Aires and his father’s estancia, La Porteña, in San Antonio de Areco. It was there that he came across the men who would lend free rein to his writing. His father’s employee, Segundo Ramírez, was to be Güiraldes’ teacher in the practical matters of rural life but also provided the inspiration for at least one of his short stories, as well as the basis for the eponymous character in the novel that would establish his fame.

Having studied architecture before switching to law in 1905, Güiraldes completed neither and instead sailed for France, where in the company of artists, musicians and writers, he developed an interest in ethics and metaphysics that would lead his writing beyond traditional themes to more universal ideas of religion and philosophy.

Spiritually restless, but satiated by recent overseas travel in Italy, Greece, Constantinople, Egypt, Russia, Japan, and Germany, it was in Paris, in the workshop of Argentine sculptor Alberto Lagos, that Güiraldes decided to dedicate himself to writing.

As at home in the salons of Paris as on the estancias of San Antonio de Areco, Güiraldes would return to again and again to the French capital, eventually dying there in 1927.

Early Writing

Following his return to Buenos Aires and his marriage to porteña Adelina del Carril in 1913, Güiraldes published his first book of short stories and a book of poetry together in 1915.

‘Cuentos de muerte y de sangre’ and ‘El cencerro de cristal’ were both overlooked by critics, but ‘Raucho’, written and published two years later, was more a sketch of what would follow in ‘Don Segundo Sombra’.

Güiraldes' novel served as an elegy of a bygone era (Photo: Eduardo Amorim)

Its protagonist, a man who leaves the Argentine countryside for Paris but returns an educated and cultured individual, drew a likeness with Güiraldes himself, and later reappeared in the closing chapters of ‘Don Segundo Sombra’ as the well-travelled teacher and companion of the book’s narrator.

A second novel, originally published in a literary review as ‘Un idilio de estación’ in 1818, was later republished in book form. Dedicated to one of his sisters, ‘Rosaura’ told the story of a blossoming romance between a woman of society and a well-travelled, handsome stranger passing through Lobos train station, who promises to open her eyes to a world beyond the limited scope of rural Argentina.

Indeed, almost all of Güiraldes’ literature concerns itself with the difficulty of settling upon a national identity that could blend the traditions of the past with the ideals for the future.

Conveying the collective concerns of many Argentines at the turn of the 20th century, his writing sought to recover the lost identities of his readers, and ‘Don Segundo Sombra’ in particular, met the demand for a rose tinted perspective on a past that many Argentines did not know but were eager to accept.

The Creation of an Instant Classic

Güiraldes’ ‘Don Segundo Sombra’ is a classic coming of age tale that follows an inexperienced and orphaned young gaucho as he becomes a man under the care of an older and accomplished mentor, Don Segundo.

The first ten chapters had been written in Paris as early as 1920, but it was not completed until 1926 when a wave of Argentine immigration had led to a resurgence of interest in the gaucho. Unlike the social and political interest that had accompanied the genre the first time around, the renewed interest stemmed more from nostalgia and a need for understanding.

Written when gaucho culture had already perished, the novel was less a reflection of national spirit – as gauchesque literature had typically been – and more a lament for something lost.

'Don Segundo Sombra' cemented the stereotype of the Argentine gaucho (Photo: Eduardo Amorim)

Güiraldes’ gaucho entered literature already an emblem of the past, and is often held up as the image of a true gaucho.

Having journeyed in Argentine writing from the uncivilised barbarian put forward by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, through Bartolomé Hidalgo’s courageous and patriotic war hero, Estanislao del Campo’s backward and uncultured laughing stock and José Hernández’s persecuted citizen-turned-criminal; Güiraldes’ stylised portrayal helped cement a positive and prevailing image of the Argentine gaucho.

But whilst the novel marked a return to the themes of the gauchesque and was in keeping with the genre in that it assumed the voice of a gaucho narrator, ‘Don Segundo Sombra’ made little attempt to imitate the same local vocabulary or dialect found in earlier examples of gaucho literature.

In employing the polished techniques of European writers in a work that was at once European in flair and Argentine in nature, Güiraldes essentially refined the Latin American novel.

Reaching a new generation and a new audience, ‘Don Segundo Sombra’ was heralded an instant classic.

As the first novel to receive such immediate acclaim and the last important writing to emerge on the gaucho theme, it gained more critical attention during the 20th century than perhaps any other work of Argentine writing.

Retaining its relevance and its following several generations on, ‘Don Segundo Sombra’ remains one of the most-treasured texts in Argentine writing, and is still considered the masterpiece of all literature pertaining to the Argentine gaucho.

When Bartolomé Hidalgo assumed the voice of the gaucho in early 19th century writing, he planted a seed that would later mature and thrive. Carried forward by poets such as Hilario Ascasubi, the gauchesque genre came in to its own in the second half of the century.

The latest instalment in our Beyond Borges series introduces the Argentine poet Estanislao del Campo. Born in Buenos Aires in 1834, Del Campo was a well-known literary figure and remains one of the more prominent names of the gauchesque period. His playful twist on the genre pushed the gaucho protagonist to the forefront of Argentine writing.

The Branches of the Gauchesque

'Fausto' pushed the gaucho protagonist to the fore (Photo: Sam Verhaert)

Since Hidalgo, gauchesque poetry had continued, although not necessarily in the same vein. Rather the genre branched off in two directions in accordance with the different understandings of national and cultural identity. The first took its cue from Hidalgo and followed populist advocacy for the excluded lower classes, while the second took its language and form from his writing, but either skewed or avoided its politics.

The branching out of the genre ensured that the gauchesque was a usable outlet whatever the political orientation of the author or the audience. Argentine poet Hilario Ascasubi for example, utilised the voice of the gaucho in anti-federalist literature until the 1850s, presenting him as a backward individual and a mouthpiece of Juan Manuel de Rosas’ federalist regime.

As urban intellectuals began making use of the genre in a new way, the Argentine gaucho found his body used by the army, and his voice used by literate culture. Whilst the gauchesque appealed to the lower classes on one hand, the development of a new type of gauchesque presented the gaucho as source of entertainment, and extended its attraction to upper classes on the other.

The appearance of Del Campo’s humorous and light-hearted poem ‘Fausto’, in 1866, was a welcome source of relief in a genre that had, until then, been taking itself very seriously.

Interpretations of ‘Fausto’

A firm favourite with Argentines, ‘Fausto’ stands out as one of the most universally popular texts in the entire portfolio of gauchesque literature. Taking its name from Charles Gounod’s world-famous opera, and originally subtitled ‘Impressions of the gaucho Anastasio el Pollo on the presentation of this opera’, the poem joins gaucho figures El Pollo and Don Laguna in the Argentine pampas, where El Pollo is convincingly recounting the tale of his encounter with the devil.

Del Campo shifted the subject of the gauchesque from conflict to high culture (Photo: Francisco Aragão)

The story he offers is not in fact real life, but the plot of the opera he had seen performed at the Teatro Colón when he visited Buenos Aires. What is open to interpretation however, is whether El Pollo had genuinely mistaken the opera for real life, or whether he was merely leading Don Laguna to believe so.

Borrowing the eight-syllable lines of the rural ballads and the vocabulary of the gaucho, Del Campo created a satirical version of ‘Faust’—an Italian opera based on a French play, based loosely in turn on a German one.

Any moral tale that had been present in ‘Faust’ was deliberately lost in translation, and some say that, in this sense, Del Campo came closest to representing the diction of the gaucho but furthest from understanding his mindset.

Del Campo’s playfulness comes in when we consider which group ‘Fausto’ is really mocking. Whilst it appears that the gaucho who was brave and heroic in Hidalgo’s hands has become idiotic and laughable in Del Campo’s, the poem has also been read as an intelligent joke towards the urban elite.

A favourite among Argentines: Estanislao del Campo

The similarity between the writer’s own name, Estanislao Del Campo, and that of his protagonist, Anastasio el Pollo, also inspires some speculation as to who El Pollo was really meant to represent. Was the naivety and cultural innocence that endeared Del Campo’s gaucho to so many intended to represent only the gaucho, or a more common Argentine mentality?

The poem sat comfortably with upper classes because it seemed to assert a popular belief that the cultures of the rural populations were simplistic and easily understood, whereas high culture could only be understood by the urban elite. The idea that they might have been missing the joke placed them in the same basket as El Pollo when it came to understanding sophisticated culture.

‘Fausto’ as a Text Apart

Having attended the opening of the first Teatro Colón in 1857, Del Campo had entertained the idea of uniting a gaucho character with the theme of an opera for some time.

He first introduced his protagonist, Anastasio el Pollo, in a poem ‘Carta de Anastasio el Pollo sobre el beneficio de la señora La Grua’, but didn’t return to his idea until the announcement that ‘Faust’ would be performed at the Teatro Colón in August 1866.

El Pollo’s reappearance in ‘Fausto’ one month later coincided perfectly with the enthusiasm of the Argentine elite to embrace opera as a sign of their identification with European culture—resulting in the adoption of Del Campo’s poem as a celebration of a key cultural event.

Where the subject of gauchesque literature had traditionally been the narration and celebration of political events, Del Campo’s poem shifted the content of the gauchesque from conflict to high culture. In ‘Fausto’ we arrive to a refreshingly creative text, which at face value is purely cultural and whose protagonist is fictional. Del Campo’s poem remains humorous and avoids maliciousness because his gaucho can be observed as a character and an individual, rather than representative of a whole group.

Del Campo’s willingness to have fun within the genre not only broadened the appeal of the gauchesque, but also changed its content and its style – propelling the genre to new levels of popularity.

One of the most important developments in Latin American literature during the 19th century was the emergence of gauchesque poetry – poetry written, not written by gauchos as the name suggests, but usually by urban authors who assumed their voice.

Bartolomé Hidalgo (Photo by: El Bibliomata)

Although gauchesque writing was at its height of popularity during the mid to late 19th century, the seed of this home grown genre was planted many years earlier. Continuing The Indy’s Beyond Borges series is Bartolomé Hidalgo – the poet otherwise known as the ‘Father of the gauchesque’.

Life and early writing

Most known for his cielitos and patriotic dialogues, Hidalgo was born in Montevideo in 1788 to Argentine parents. He lived most of his life in Uruguay but died in Argentina, leaving both nations a claim to the creator of a genre whose popularity would eventually straddle Argentina, Uruguay and Southern Brazil.

With a lifestyle far removed from that of the river plate gaucho, he was raised in a modest urban home and suffered the loss of his father at a young age. He grew to be highly patriotic, and learned the hardships of poverty and battle through participation in several military actions that fought for the liberation and independence of Uruguay and Argentina.

His patriotism translated into his writing, with the appearance of his first composition, ‘Himno oriental’, coinciding with the 1811 battle where Uruguay’s José Gervasio Artigas began the siege that would eventually liberate Montevideo from the control of Buenos Aires.

Under Artigas, Hidalgo presented several one-man plays including ‘Sentimiento de un patriota’ and ‘Idomeneo’ in 1816, but this period of political stability was short lived. The Luso-Brazilian invasion of Montevideo provided further material for Hidalgo’s extremely patriotic literature, provoking two further works, ‘Marcha nacional’ and ‘Cielito oriental’, which were both written in direct response to these political triggers.

With Carlos Frederico Lecor ruling the region, Hidalgo found himself censored from the theatre where he had previously been appointed director, and left for Buenos Aires.

His writing therefore, can be considered in two distinct periods – the first from 1811 to 1816 in Uruguay, and a second beginning 1818 and continuing until his death in 1822 in Argentina. Critic Eleuterio Tiscornia draws a clear chronological divide through his body of work, labeling the writing from the first period as militant poetry, and the cielitos and patriotic dialogues from the second as ‘poesia expectante’.

It was not until this second period that Hidalgo made the transition from using his own voice to using the voice of his peers, or the gaucho – qualifying the cielitos and patriotic dialogues written near the end of his life as the earliest form of gauchesque writing.

His most celebrated compositions such as ‘Cielito patriotico’ and dialogues such as ‘Nuevo dialogo patriotico’ and ‘Dialogo patriotico interesante’ emerged from this period. His writing remained aggressively patriotic and in one cielito, ‘Un gaucho de la guardia del Monte’, he offers up one gaucho’s bold response to the manifesto of Ferdinand VII, the King of Spain.

The Birth of a Genre

There are two schools of thought surrounding the origins of the gauchesque genre – one that gauchesque literature stemmed naturally from the rural song and popular poetry of the gaucho, and the second stating that it was a form of populist poetry created artificially by generally educated writers. The idea that Hidalgo’s cielitos and patriotic dialogues marked the beginning of the genre positions the truth somewhere in the middle.

Gaucho mural. (Photo by: Beatrice Murch)

The originality of Hidalgo’s writing lay in taking something already existing and transforming it into something new. His cielitos were an adaptation of the ballad like payadas sung spontaneously by gaucho payadors, and his patriotic dialogues borrowed and transformed the theatrical form of the sainete – placing literature at the service of specific political instruction.

Whilst he might not have created the cielito, and his use of language may have borrowed heavily from a dialect that was not his own, Hidalgo is recognised now, not so much for what he wrote, but for what he started.

In this respect, his contribution to Latin American literature has been described as both modest and revolutionary. Modest because it took the popular speech and satirical elements already existing in the cielitos of the River Plate region, and revolutionary because in doing so, he produced something never seen before in literature.

In adopting the familiar form of song and the common language used by the gaucho, he created a literature that could be understood and embraced by the lower classes. The marriage between the techniques of modern journalism and those of age-old storytelling allowed his literature to spread through the spoken word as well as in print. Rather than a literature aimed at intellectuals and elitists, here was the creation of an accessible literature – one which directly addressed the gaucho whilst simultaneously granting him a voice.

The adolescent irreverence and simplicity of Hidalgo’s writing held an undeniable charm. His series of patriotic dialogues mimicked conversation between two gaucho figures where one, usually more educated than the other, passed on his version of recent political events. In tune with popular feeling, these dialogues reflected the gaucho’s aspirations and sense of disillusionment that the independence he had fought for was not benefitting him as he imagined. The appearance of Hidalgo’s writing satisfied a certain demand, since it marked the first instance of a writer addressing the idea of awarding the Argentine gaucho a place in an emerging nation.

Some say that this need for a voice stemmed from the physical relocation of the gaucho from the rural pampas to the forefront of the nations armies, arguing that conflict not only provided the content for early gauchesque literature, but also the necessary foundation for its success as a genre.

Indeed, the gauchos approved of the flattering portrayal as brave and courageous men, and welcomed Hidalgo’s affirmation of them as authentic Argentines who embodied a national spirit.

However you might explain the success of the gauchesque genre its popularity is undeniable, and Hidalgo’s influence on the development of literature throughout the Southern cone was enormous. The seed he planted at the beginning of the 19th century would continue to mature and thrive throughout shifting social circumstances and gave birth to a truly South American genre.

Lead image by: Eduardo Amorim

Continuing our ‘Beyond Borges’ series is an author who if you don’t know for his contribution to Argentine literature, you may well know for being Argentina’s seventh president, the subject of one of Rodin’s final sculptures, or the face of the fifty pesos note.

Sarmiento's writing on the fifty peso note (Photo: Julián Rodriguez Urihuela)

Aside from his achievements in areas of education and modernisation, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento was also an intellectual, an activist, and a prolific writer whose historical essay ‘Facundo: Civilización y Barbarie’ has been elevated to classical status among works of Latin American literature.

Life and Early Exiles

Born in the landlocked Argentine province of San Juan in 1811, Sarmiento grew to be an unlikely intellectual. By 15 years of age he had already identified himself as a supporter of the Rivadavia government that was dividing unitarian and federalist ideologies.

Prevented from attending school in Buenos Aires by the outbreak of a civil war in the province, he joined the unitarian army to fight against the invasion of Juan ‘Facundo’ Quiroga – the gaucho who would become his obsession and subject.

With Argentina under the rule of federalist dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas, Sarmiento fled to Chile in 1831 where he lived the first of three periods of exile, and began exploring an environment of free expression by writing political commentaries.

In an effort to recreate this same environment inside Argentina, he directed his energies into the foundation of an anti-federalist review, ‘El zonda’, but was forced into exile a second time in 1840. It was during this passage to Chile that he wrote out the misquoted French “On ne tue point les idées” – an incident that would become the preface to ‘Facundo’, his most famous work.

The phrase “ideas cannot be killed” translated as a warning to Rosas, but also served to further emphasise the difference Sarmiento perceived between the civilised intellectual who understood French and the uneducated barbarian who could not.

Back in Chile, and bearing a larger than life chip on his shoulder, Sarmiento resumed an extremely active literary career. Through regular contributions to ‘El mercurio’ and articles in his own newspaper ‘El progreso’, he strove to defeat the political ideologies of Rosas from across the Andes.

Facundo

‘Facundo’ itself was written during this second period of exile, and first appeared in serial form inside ‘El progreso’ in May 1845. Through the impassioned study of real-life figure Juan ‘Facundo’ Quiroga, it launched a strong protest against the federalist dictatorship, painting Facundo’s barbarism as a product of his environment and of the Rosas regime.

Presenting an Argentine national character torn between the dichotomy of civilisation and barbarism, it can be seen as both a critique and a symptom of Argentina’s internal cultural conflicts at the time. In it Sarmiento delivers a written prescription for the modernisation of Latin America, in accordance with his own vision for Argentina’s future under a democratic unitarian government.

The interior of Sarmiento's home (Photo: Axel Rosito)

Often cited an exemplary precursor to the genre of the Latin American dictator novel, ‘Facundo’ set the bar high. Many consider it crucial reading in understanding not only Argentine history but also Latin American history in general.

What began as a biogaphy of the barbaric gaucho nicknamed “the tiger of the plains”, ended as a combination of biography, autobiography, creative non-fiction, essay and political diatribe which fuelled by Sarmiento’s own fascination with his subject, read as easily as fiction.

Political Writing

As an author Sarmiento wrote diversely and extensively, publishing several autobiographical works including ‘Recuerdos de Provinca’ and ‘Campaña del ejército grande’ – describing his own part in the tri-nation army which finally defeated Rosas in the 1852 ‘Battle of Caseros’.

With Rosas in exile and a programme of national organisation underway, Sarmiento remained in Argentina where he forged a promising political career alongside an ongoing literary one.

Although the majority Latin American literature from the time can be earmarked political in some respect, politics ran as a common thread through almost all of Sarmiento’s work. The appearance of a new edition of ‘Facundo’ at the end of his presidency was considered by some to be a form of political gesturing. The 1874 edition spanned 15 chapters broadly divided in to three sections: the history and geography of Argentina, the barbaric life of the gaucho Juan ‘Facundo’ Quiroga, and several chapters originally left out of the 1845 edition in which Sarmiento outlined his own political visions.

In addition, the much talked about ‘Conflictos y armonias de las razas en América’ is an example of post-presidency writing in which Sarmiento put forward controversial ideas about the effects of racial mixing in Latin America, while continuing to offer the existence of the rural pampas as a reason why Argentina had failed to achieve civilisation.

Ironically, whilst denouncing the barbarism of the Argentine gaucho, Sarmiento simultaneously romanticised him, transforming him into a symbol of national mythology that would soon be at the head Argentine literature. Despite his sometimes controversial opinions, his bold ambition and his renowned egotism, Sarmiento is nowadays reflected upon favourably as a public figure and heralded as the best Argentine writer of the 19th century.

Cody Right cowboy turned gaucho (Photo: Hernán Corera)

Two parallel archetypes of North American and Argentine culture are the subjects of ‘Rodeo’ by playwright Agustina Gatto.

Halfway through the one-man show, Cody Right, a western cowboy with a rimmed hat and a thumb lodged under his belt, sits down on a bench, takes out a thermos, and pours himself a mate. The cowboy has been forced to flee Texas because of a family crime, and finds himself far from his native land in the home of the gauchos.

The image of a rugged Texan sipping mate rather than, say, sucking on a cigarette as the ‘Marlboro Man‘ did for nearly fifty years is exactly the kind of cultural dissonance Gatto is trying to create in her newest work. Gatto plays on stereotypes and clichés of the two archetypes and in the process, reveals something larger about national identities of both the United States and Argentina.

“The cowboy and the gaucho are born walking over the bodies of indigenous peoples and have a dark and conflictive relationship with their own origin” Gatto explains over email. “Because of this, they embody the history of the colonization of America.”

Agustina Gatto’s thought process may go deep into the wounds of the past, but the play itself focuses on an earnest cowboy driven far from his father, and far from his motherland. “I’m going to tell you a story,” begins Cody Right, played by actor Germán Rodriguéz. The cowboy goes on to relate that the three sons of his grandfather had a plan to rob a bank. When the bank robbery went awry, he and his mother were forced to flee. In a move that calls to mind the notorious bank robber Butch Cassidy’s escape from the law, they settled in Argentina, a place that thankfully reminded them of home. In Argentina, after a run-in with a gaucho and a guitar-strummed ode to the past, Cody Right sets about clearing his tarnished name.

The actor speaks with a vernacular Argentine Spanish, exposes a decidedly protestant ethos, calls revolvers by their names (“Colt Dragoon” and “Winchester Yellowboy”), and of course, drinks mate. In short, Cody Right enacts a mix of the gaucho and cowboy mythology.

The two archetypes share many similarities: a lifestyle on the open land once occupied by indigenous peoples, a dismissal of law and order, and more than anything a powerful presence in culture, politics and identity formation of Argentina and the United States.

The gaucho, scorned in Domingo Faustino Sarmiento’s 1845 book, ‘Facundo‘ was rehabilitated 30 years later by José Hernandez’s poem, ‘Martín Fierro’, which describes a victim of authoritarian society who had been stripped of an idyllic past. Following the iconic poem, literature and cultural references that idealized the gaucho took off. Representations of the cowboy, although far removed from the original animal herder of the 19th century, are also of course rife in United States culture. One only need think of John Wayne flicks, Frye boots or Ronald Reagan’s exalted status as a “self-made man”.

‘Rodeo’ does more than explore what might happen if a fugitive cowboy of the 19th century came face to face with gauchos. The play reminds us of how much influence these archetypes continue to have in the way the two countries present themselves to the world, from former president George W. Bush’s ‘cowboy diplomacy’ ‘cowboy diplomacy’ to the gaucho as a mainstay in Argentine tourism.

The short production takes place at the intimate theatre, NoAvestruz, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Their café offers a modest selection of empanadas and bruschettas, and there’s little of the routinized engine of larger theatres: the employee who rips your ticket also gives you a personal reminder to turn off your cell phone. The audience reclines on pillow-softened bleachers in a theatre that seats no more than two-dozen.

Photo by Beatrice Murch

“Prepare to discover the history of Argentina in an unprecedented and unparalleled show, where the beginnings of a nation and its traditions are shown as never before.” The publicists for this show cannot emphasise quite how impressive this show is: “one of the best shows in the world”, “magical”, “expressive”, “one of the best shows in the world”. Well, there was certainly an unprecedented and unparalleled amount of sentimentality and tackiness.

The musical show covers the history Argentina, from first Spanish landing, through independence and Julio Argentino Roca’s conquest of the desert to 20th century European immigration. You might be thinking, “Those are rather hefty topics to be covering in one show” and you would be right. However, the Opera Pampa people have niftily circumvented that little problem by depicting each part of history in much the same way; There were military men on horses. There were semi-naked indigenous communities, also on horses. They would charge at each other and then indigenous people would die in large numbers.

Photo by Beatrice Murch

Never has the term ‘one-trick-pony’ been so apt. The traditional zamba dance was a nice touch, but apart from that it was just two hours of men in costumes riding furiously around La Rural stadium with the occasional illustrative song and dance. The music was mostly easy listening pop inspired by Karl Jenkins with the occasional pan-flute over the top. The dancing was nice, but not spectacular. It was made worse by the fact that the stadium is enormous, so it was like watching mice dancing. All of the scenes were bathed in deep shades of red and blue, which gave the odd sensation of watching a horse show inside a disco.

The most painful element in the show was the singing. The singers themselves weren’t bad, but the songs that punctuated each ‘storyline’ were quite horrendous. At one point, a Mapuche woman in a flimsy dress is left behind by her people and sings a song about death and being forgotten. I felt distinctly uncomfortable thinking about the pueblos originarios who had marched to Buenos Aires only two weeks before that. I doubt they would be too impressed that their history has been distilled into a two minute song involving a scantily clad woman wriggling around in the sand.

However, let’s not forget that Opera Pampa is not just a show. There is a reception before the show and a dinner afterwards. Polite members of staff in ponchos and boots welcome the audience to drink glasses of wine and eat empanadas whilst shopping for equine souvenirs. They then militantly shunt the guests out again to watch the show. There is a traditional asado dinner provided afterwards.

I am not sure that the hospitality made up for the show. It was disappointing to attend this show two weeks after the bicentenary celebrations. So much effort was dedicated to highlighting the triumphs of the country’s complicated history at the bicentenary celebrations, it seemed ludicrous to see this hammy interpretation of Argentine history being peddled for $300. There was none of the “magic” or “realism” that was advertised: they really were just flogging a dead horse.

Reservations can be made via www.operapampa.com.ar or by calling 4777 – 5557. Shows take place on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm. The show costs $120, dinner and a show costs $300 and a VIP package costs $460. Children up to the age of 12 are half price. The shows are all in Spanish.

Photo by Rosalie Smith

Equine activities are an emblematic part of Argentine culture and the country is famous for its success on the polo field. Since the economic crisis made it cheaper for players and aficionados to jet in, there has been a conscientious effort to market Argentina as the ultimate worldwide destination for this glamorous sport. Anywhere you go in the country, there is a chance to do some horse-riding and any Buenos Aires guidebook will have an entry for Feria de Mataderos.

However, if you want to diverge off the tourist trail, venture into the countryside to see a gaucho rodeo. Argentina is famous for its horses, so the rough sport of bronc-riding takes precedence and you can enjoy some authentic, Argentine culture. Feria de Mataderos exhibits elements of gaucho culture, but a day at the rodeo is an excellent opportunity to see gauchos really show off their horsing prowess.

Matadero actually means abattoir and the barrio of Mataderos is so called because of the great number of slaughterhouses in the area. As you can probably guess, a lot of cow-killing goes on. However, unlike in other parts of the world, cows and bulls have never really been used for labour. Traditionally, it is horses that are used as working animals. This was in large part due to the size of Argentina. Horses are quicker and can cover vast swathes of the plains in less time.

Similarly, just as rodeos tend to be associated more with bull-riding in other countries, bronc-riding is the traditional sport here. That is, competitors ride a bucking horse rather than a bucking bull.

Photos by Rosalie Smith

The horses used for these rodeos are criollos, a breed that came from horses brought over from Spain. They are known for their endurance and hardiness. A visit to a gaucho rodeo is a chance to see some of this hardiness, as well as the endurance of the gauchos that ride the horses. I went to a rodeo in Capilla del Señor to see some bronc-riding.

Savage criollos were used for the bronc-riding and, in order for the competitor to mount them, they had to be tied to a pole and, sometimes, surrounded by tame horses ridden by other gauchos. The wild horse would then be blindfolded in order to pacify it, whilst the competitor climbed on and secured himself into the stirrups.

Once the competitor was steady, the blindfold was removed, the ropes loosened and the other men departed. One remained to whip the wild horse into a frenzy and that is when the bucking began.

The riders were only on the horses for a few seconds, but those few seconds were intense. Sometimes, the competitor would stay on the horse and helpers would come to ease him off the animal before it fled to the opposite end of the field. At other times, the rider would fall off and there would be a nail-biting few seconds as the crowd peered through the dust to see if the competitor had been trampled or managed to roll away into safety.

Occasionally, the horse would buck closer to the crowd and everyone would part ways. There was some chicken wire marking the field area, but the horses were bucking much higher and the crowd clearly knew that it takes more than a few stumps and chicken wire to reign in a bucking bronco.

The competitors were marked on a points system, depending on a number of things, including how long they stayed on their saddle and the quality of the horse. However, this all seems rather irrelevant as you lose yourself to those few seconds and that rather morbid sense of excitement as you watch a fully grown man flail about like a rag doll in the washing machine.

Photos by Rosalie Smith

For those interested in equine culture, this is a must see. As well as rural gauchos, the attendees at the rodeo also included moneyed Argentines keen to show off their horses. Criollos are a very specific breed and anyone with any interest in horses or rodeo sports should take a trip into las Pampas.

If watching horses being whipped into a fury isn’t really your cup or tea (or indeed, your gourd of mate), you may want to take a book with you. The wild horses do look distinctly uncomfortable when they are tied up and blindfolded. Some would keel over during this process and be prodded till they got up again, others would fall and collapse whilst bucking.

Nonetheless, it is a traditional sport and those looking for authentic gaucho events would do well to go along. It was a real family affair: groups would set up camp for the day with generations all sitting together. The older members of the family wore full traditional dress, with knives and elaborately decorated belts. The children ran around, taking rides on the Shetland pony that was trotting about and eyeing up the toy horses available to buy at the stalls.

Even the children had gaucho berets on. As the only non-Argentines there, we were tempted to buy capes and hats to hide behind, so that we didn’t look quite so conspicuous. Sadly, the alpargatas we did buy didn’t do much in the way of camouflage.

When we weren’t in enthralled by the gripping drama on the field, there was a band playing and some of the audience joined in with the dancing. There were occasional parades, where horses were exhibited and, of course, what is an Argentine event without an asado? There was a parilla running throughout the day, grilling slices of beef and juicy choripan.

As the sunlight withered away with the last of the parades, men started unwrapping huge multi-coloured sheets and we were seen off into the night by the light of four enormous hot air balloons. I’m not sure if hot air ballooning is a particularly traditional gaucho activity, but it was a majestic way to finish the rodeo.

So, whether it’s the enthralling prospect of watching men clinging onto angry animals that appeals, or just the opportunity to go to an event that is less touristy than the Feria de Mataderos, a day at the rodeo is definitely a worthwhile trip out of the city.

To find out where and when the next events are look on this website: www.sanantoniodeareco.com/turismo/fiestadelatradicion (Spanish). Plan your travel carefully: some of these rodeos are in rural areas that are not always covered by bus routes.

  

Illustration by Nick Mahshie

Looking back, I deserved to be punished. In fact, in a weird way, it was what I wanted. I saw my epic 35-hour journey to the tip of Patagonia and subsequent six weeks hard graft on a sheep farm with Quinchado, the 65-year-old Chilean gaucho, as a form of penance.

My face had changed since arriving in Argentina and I didn’t like it. You could tell by the jowls, my dull eyes, the hollow cheeks and the scurvy that I had lived beyond my means and my moral factory settings. The only thing for it, other than return to the warm, perfumed embrace of my mother, was to go Wwoofing.

With no interest whatsoever in organic farming, I knew I was going Wwoofing (World-wide opportunities on organic farms) for all the wrong reasons, but I didn’t care, I needed help and a straight-talking gaucho to show me the light.

I should have turned back when the bus company said the only seat left on the bus to Gobernadores Gregores was non-reclinable. I should have turned back when a gang of laughing Paraguayan hookers who looked like they had just raided a primary school prop cupboard, boarded the bus. I felt like Pinocchio trapped on that weird vaudeville-like train to the circus. I couldn’t believe my eyes when, halfway through an omelette roll during a lunchtime pit-stop, a couple of the girls tried turning a few tricks from the roadside.

I had made a pledge not only to myself, however, but also to the estancia owner, Marc-Antoine, that in his absence I would show up, scrub his corrugated iron roof with a wire brush, make sure no one pinched his sheep and shovel the horse shit out of the barn. I had paid my US$30 subscription fee for access to the Wwoofing website and I was determined to see it through. In return for my efforts I was to receive free bed and board.

As arranged, I was picked up from the bus stop by Marc-Antoine’s mate and dropped off at the estancia. A three-legged sheep dog with a stick in its mouth came bounding awkwardly towards us. According to Marc-Antoine’s mate, it always had a stick in its mouth. Bit strange, I thought. The estancia was desolate. Quinchado’s concrete hut was empty. Marc-Antoine’s mate told me to sit and wait in the hut, before leaving me alone with the dog scratching around outside on its three legs.

The little I knew of the gaucho lifestyle came from studying Martin Fierro – Argentina’s most notorious gaucho – during literature classes at uni. He used to wander around on horseback, get drunk and start knife fights. So it came as somewhat of a surprise to find, inside the hut, a teddy bear sitting with his legs dangling over the edge of a wooden sideboard next to a small ticking alarm clock.  The hut, which smelt of wood smoke, was tidy and sparsely decorated: Two calendars nailed to the wall, a table with three chairs, a wood-fire stove, a hook from which hung a hunk of meat, a sink and a sideboard stacked with tins of coffee and mate. There was another door – which no doubt led to Quinchado’s room, and possibly even more teddies, so I kept it shut. I waited in that cold hut listening to that ticking clock for three hours before the dog barked, signalling Quinchado’s arrival.

Passing the hut window on horseback with a skinned sheep slung over the rear end of the horse, Quinchado dismounted in an all-in-one blue boiler suit and stood approximately 5ft tall in his wellies. With relief, I realised I would just about hold my own against him if things turned nasty. What looked like a brown, over-sized seagull hopped around behind him as he put away the saddle and cut up the dead sheep.  His eyes were two-toned – blue with green-rimmed edges. We shared a mate, he turned on the radio and we sat in silence listening to the messages being broadcast out to the estancias from the town, approximately 60km away.

  

Photo by Kate Stanworth

This idyllic image of wwoofing was not what greeted Sean on his trip to Patagonia

He was an orphan, he told me. He once worked in a bakery in Chile but got into a fight so moved to find work on the estancias in Patagonia. He preferred animals to people and hadn’t been to the town for two years he said. He proudly showed me a new pair of bombachas he had bought there two years ago and still hadn’t taken them out of the bag. According to the one of the broadcasts, an old gaucho friend of his had died, so Quinchado lit a candle and said he would stay awake until it burnt down, as a mark of respect.

He cooked us a lamb stew on the stove and then asked me why I was there. It turned out that ol’ Marc-Antoine hadn’t bothered to tell him that I was coming. I did my best to explain the Wwoofing concept but he couldn’t get his head around the fact that I had travelled across the country to work for free. In fact, it seemed to annoy him. Perhaps he thought his job was at risk? Perhaps he thought I was just stupid? When he explained that a boy from the town arrived the year before and was paid 50 pesos a day for the same work, I started to wonder if indeed I was stupid. Once he realised I was of no relation to Marc-Antoine, that I wasn’t French, that England wasn’t in France and that I was actually a journalist, things started to go downhill fast. The whole episode was farcical.

He showed me to a wooden cabin on the other side of the ranch. There was no heating, no running water, an upside down horseshoe above the entrance and a sheep’s skull encasing the one light bulb. Work was to start at 8am. I didn’t have an alarm, so he lent me the little clock from his sideboard. Bearing in mind it was mid-winter, the temperature had dropped well into the minuses.

Wrapped in all my spare clothing, frozen to death, my mind started racing. No one knew where I was, civilisation (if you can call Gobernadores Gregores that) was a good 40-minute drive away, and I was stuck on an estancia within rifle shot of a confused gaucho with a penchant for teddy bears. People make their own rules in places like this. This wasn’t a place for me. I didn’t have rough hands and a way with horses. I was a city boy, and a scared city boy at that. Dead on half past ten the clock suddenly stopped ticking. The same clock had been sat on his sideboard for goodness knows how long yet had suddenly stopped within half an hour of me being in the room. I was close to tears. My gut instinct was telling me to get out.

I was pleased to see daylight stream in through the window. So cold was the night that my alcohol-based ointment I was using to treat a wart had frozen in its bottle. Without the use of the clock, I judged it to be roughly 7ish, so headed over to Quinchado to see how things stood. He could see I hadn’t slept a wink, or washed, and just gave a toothy grin. He knew I was close to breaking. He set a few challenges, like getting me to drag a wheelbarrow across a frozen stream and chop a tree trunk with an axe.

I realised, watching him handle the axe that he was as strong as an ox and despite being a midget could axe his way into my cabin, rough me up and have me hanging in cutlets from one of his metal hooks whenever he wanted. That evil-looking bird appeared again and watched us as we took turns with the axe. Quinchado had the thing tamed like a circus chimp. He was able to push its head into the ground so that its beak got stuck in the mud. As I was loading the wheelbarrow with wet leaves the nasty little thing launched itself at me and tried to land on the back of my head. I grabbed the rake and shooed it off while Quinchado flashed his teeth laughing and said the bird knew what I was like. What was that supposed to mean?

  

Photo by K.W. Slovache

This idyllic image of wwoofing was not what greeted Sean on his trip to Patagonia

I had had enough. Soon after this, the three-legged sheepdog started to bark and ran to the estancia entrance. Quinchado’s ear pricked up and he followed. A truck pulling a trailer full of barking dogs in a cage pulled up. Out jumped Martín. Was this a good or a bad thing? Was Martín my saviour or had Martín come to join the party? The wild barking from the dogs and the wild, thick set of black curls on Martin’s head and his deep-set dark eyes had me worried. His arrival interrupted the labour at least, and we broke for mate in Quinchado’s hut. I sat and listened to them talk about the dead gaucho, the radio broadcasts, skinny sheep, fat sheep, diseased sheep, good sheepdogs, bad sheepdogs, the three legged sheepdog and that bird which was now tap dancing above us on the corrugated iron roof. Quinchado then explained to Martín that I had travelled all the way down by bus from Buenos Aires to cut wood and shovel shit out of the barn for free. Martín was particularly ticked by this story and I noticed his shoulders shake as he sucked on the bombilla.

“Martín, are you heading into town with those dogs after this?” I asked. Quinchado knew what was coming.

“Are you going?” Quinchado asked.

“Yes”, I said, “I have made a terrible mistake and now realise this isn’t for me. I’m sorry for wasting your time and thank you for the food and your hospitality.”

I rushed back to the cabin and threw everything into a bag before joining Quinchado and Martín who were now standing by the truck. I shook Quinchado’s hand, although he opted not to make eye contact. I think he was just blown away by the whirlwind that had been the last 36 hours and was still trying to make sense of it all as I buckled up next to Martín and felt, at last, that things were back within my control.

I gave Martín $20 for his trouble when we arrived in the town and ran to the bus ticket office to organise my 35-hour return back up north. The bus journey now seemed like heaven in comparison to what I had just been through.

I decided to write to Marc-Antoine when I returned to BA to explain that I did make it to his estancia, that I had shared dinner, breakfast and lunch with Quinchado, managed a couple of jobs on the checklist and nearly died of hypothermia before before jacking it in. I explained I was ill-prepared and naive about what to expect and that I had become de-motivated after learning that the work I was doing was previously cash-rewarded. I conceded that it was I who accepted the conditions prior to starting and apologised for flaking.

A disappointed Marc-Antoine wrote back suggesting I should have asked Quinchado for a hot water bottle. Perhaps that was what that bloody teddy was?? Although I don’t think so…