by punkofnice 87 Replies latest social current
Punkofnice
there exist today working ranches in western canada and United States that employ cowboys to herd cattle on horseback in the back country. Some of these " cowboys" happen to be native North Americans or formerly called Indians. thus my previous comment some cowboys are Indians.
Hoser - Thanks. That's also interesting to me.
I grew up on a kind of Hollywood version of the cowboy legend. I also had a head dress like a Native American. My sister was really into the Native American culture growing up.
Gaucho is an equivalent of the North American "cowboy" (vaquero, in Spanish), the Chilean huaso, the Cuban guajiro, the Venezuelan or Colombian llanero, the Puerto Rican jibaro, and the Mexican charro, which are terms that often connote the 19th century more than the present day; then, gauchos made up the majority of the rural population, herding cattle on the vast estancias, and practicing hunting as their main economic activities.
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Loading cattle at Kailua-Kona, at the start of the 20th century.
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Photograph of Hawaiian Paniolo
The Hawaiian cowboy, the paniolo, is also a direct descendant of the vaquero of California and Mexico. Experts in Hawaiian etymology believe "Paniolo" is a Hawaiianized pronunciation of español. (The Hawaiian language has no /s/ sound, and all syllables and words must end in a vowel.) Paniolo, like cowboys on the mainland of North America, learned their skills from Mexican vaqueros. [ 98 ]
By the early 19th century, Capt. George Vancouver's gift of cattle to Pai`ea Kamehameha, monarch of the Hawaiian Kingdom, had multiplied astonishingly, and were wreaking havoc throughout the countryside. About 1812, John Parker, a sailor who had jumped ship and settled in the islands, received permission from Kamehameha to capture the wild cattle and develop a beef industry.
The Hawaiian style of ranching originally included capturing wild cattle by driving them into pits dug in the forest floor. Once tamed somewhat by hunger and thirst, they were hauled out up a steep ramp, and tied by their horns to the horns of a tame, older steer (or ox) that knew where the paddock with food and water was located. The industry grew slowly under the reign of Kamehameha's son Liholiho (Kamehameha II).
Later, Liholiho's brother, Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III), visited California, then still a part of Mexico. He was impressed with the skill of the Mexican vaqueros, and invited several to Hawai`i in 1832 to teach the Hawaiian people how to work cattle.
Even today, traditional paniolo dress, as well as certain styles of Hawaiian formal attire, reflect the Spanish heritage of the vaquero. [ 99 ] The traditional Hawaiian saddle, the noho lio, [ 100 ] and many other tools of the cowboy's trade have a distinctly Mexican/Spanish look and many Hawaiian ranching families still carry the names of the vaqueros who married Hawaiian women and made Hawai`i their home.
Thanks Blondie.
It appears there is even more to the legend and history than Hollywood implies.
For a more accurate depiction of what the West was like post Civil war, I recommend shows like Deadwood, or Hell on Wheels, as opposed to John Wayne movies.
There's the Western, a Hollywood genre with its own conventions and mythos.
Then there's real cowboys, who are still around. Come out and stay at a dude ranch and find out all about it.
http://www.albertacowboypoetry.com/
I might add that the Canadian cowboys were less likely to take the law in to their own hands. We had the RCMP out here for law and order. Infamous was Fort Whoop-Up, more along the lines of the American west, with too much alcohol and too many guns.
keyser soze - Thanks. Not familiar to me but I will keep an eye open for them.
hey punk i recommend you take a trip to arizona,california,and other wild west frontiers.a lot of the hollywood stuff isnt accurate but there were outlaws and lawmen in the old west that may be somewhat accurate.
i remember time life books had a wild west series a few years ago that showed in detail the outlaws,and lawmen of the day and of course the famous indians.
Cowboy history is one thing. Modern Cowboy culture is something else all together.
Go back to the 1800's and you start with Fur trappers later called Mountain Men when they worked their way West. Fiercely independent
The US Calvary, the Texas rangers.
Cowboys were most often young and worked moving cattle from one place to another.
The Stage coach, pony express. Gold strikes. Winters where the snow was so deep people couldn't find their dead cattle until it melted in the spring.
After the civil war more people headed West for land and opportunities. Bank and train robbers followed
Gun hands and range wars, Sheriffs and Marshals. Famous shoot outs like the Earp's at the OK Corral.
A lot of blending went on, immigrants from Ireland, Scotland, England and ex slaves, Mexicans, and Chinese labor building the great railroads.
Mail order brides and Sears and Roebuck catalog's, newspapers with month old news and Dime Novels lionizing the good and the bad.
The West was a specific melting pot in American culture .........a window on what this country could do...... could become. Because so many different kinds of people found their place over a period of a 100 years or so there were so many legends, stories etc. that it turned into a gold mine for movies, books and TV shows.
Probably one of the best books...... Lonesome Dove.......... is a great place to start.
A good book I read a few years ago really opened my eyes as to how wild things were in the early days before the coming of the Railway etc, it is called "A History of the Indians of the United States" by Angie Debo, herself native American if memory serves.
Those early guys and gals trekking in to the unkown had some courage, sadly they were quickly followed by the exploiters, and the creators of Treatys that would be broken before the ink was dry.
