Оңтүстік Американың шебер атшысы

Skilled horseman in South America

A gaucho (ˈɡawtʃo) or gaúcho (ɡaˈuʃu) is a skilled horseman, reputed to be brave and unruly. The figure of the gaucho is a folk symbol of Argentina, Uruguay, Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, the southern part of Bolivia, and the south of Chilean Patagonia. Gauchos became greatly admired and renowned in legend, folklore, and literature and became an important part of their regional cultural tradition. Beginning late in the 19th century, after the heyday of the gauchos, they were celebrated by South American writers. According to the Diccionario de la lengua española, in its historical sense a gaucho was a "mestizo who, in the 18th and 19th centuries, inhabited Argentina, Uruguay, and Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, and was a migratory horseman, and adept in cattle work". In Argentina and Uruguay today, gaucho can refer to any "country person, experienced in traditional livestock farming". Because historical gauchos were reputed to be brave, if unruly, the word is also applied metaphorically to mean "noble, brave and generous", but also "one who is skillful in subtle tricks, crafty". In Portuguese the word gaúcho means "an inhabitant of the plains of Rio Grande do Sul or the Pampas of Argentina of European and indigenous American descent who devotes himself to lassoing and raising cattle and horses"; gaúcho has also acquired a metonymic signification in Brazil, meaning anyone, even an urban dweller, who is a citizen of the state of Rio Grande do Sul.

Many explanations have been proposed, but no one really knows how the word "gaucho" originated. Already in 1933 an author counted 36 different theories; more recently, over fifty. They can proliferate because "there is no documentation of any sort that will fix its origin to any time, place or language".

Most seem to have been conjured up by finding a word that looks something like gaucho and guessing that it changed to its present form, perhaps without awareness that there are sound laws that describe how languages and words really evolve over time. The etymologist Joan Corominas said most of these theories were "not worthy of discussion". Of the following explanations, Rona said that only #5, #8 and #9 might be taken seriously. + Some proposed explanations for "gaucho" # Proposer Alleged root and evolution Objection(s) Discussed in 1 Emeric Essex Vidal Same root as English gawky (awkward, uncouth) Earliest theory (1820), dismissed as "humorous" Paullada 1961; Trifilo 1964 2 Monlau and Diez French gauche (rough, uncouth) > Argentine gaucho. French little spoken in region. Paullada 1961 3Emilio Daireaux Arabic chauch (herder) > Andalusian Spanish chaucho > guttural Amerindian gaucho Sp. chaucho is unattested. That Indians could not have pronounced "chaucho" is untenable. Groussac 1904; Paullada 1961; Trifilo 1964; Gibson 1892; 4 Rodolfo Lenz Pehuenche cachu (friend) or Araucanian kauchu (astute man) > Argentine gaucho No proof that it was not the other way round Paullada 1961; Hollinger 1928 5 Martiniano Leguizamón Quichua huajcho or wáhča (orphan, abandoned, maverick) > colonial Sp. guacho > Arg. gaucho by metathesis Guacho > gaucho is an improbable metathesis. Theory does not explain Braz. gaúcho Groussac 1893; Groussac 1904; Paullada 1961; Rona 1964; 6 Vicuña Mackenna Chilean Quichua or Araucanian guaso (modern sp. huaso) (countryman or cowboy) > guacho > gaucho Same as #5. Hollinger 1928 7 Lehmann Nitsche Gitano (i. e. Sp. Romani) gachó (foreigner) > Andalusian gachó (bohemian, wanderer) > Arg. gaucho or Braz. gaúcho Transition unexplained Lehmann Nitsche 1928 8 Paul Groussac Lat. gaudeo (I enjoy) > Sp. gauderio (peasant, one who enjoys life) > Urug. gauderio (low person, cattle rustler) > derisive *gauducho > gaúcho and gaucho *Gauducho unattested, linguistically improbable. Unlikely transition to gaucho Groussac 1904; Paullada 1961; Hollinger 1928; Rona 1964 9 Buenaventura Caviglia, Jr *Garrucho (supp. from Sp. garrocha, a cattle pole) > gaúcho, "under negroid influence" > gaucho Cattle pole origin implausible speculation; negroid theory untenable Rona 1964 10 Fernando O. Assunção Learned Sp. gaucho (in math. & architecture, "not level", "warped") Elite technical word unknown to the masses Assunção 2011; Hollinger 1928.

The historical "gaucho" is elusive, because there has been more than one kind. Mythologisation has obscured the topic.

Itinerant horsemen, hunting wild cattle on the pampas, originated as a social class during the 17th century. "The great natural abundance of the pampa", wrote Richard W. Slatta,

The original gaucho was typically descended from unions between Iberian men and Amerindian women, although he might also have African ancestry. A DNA analysis study of rural inhabitants of Rio Grande do Sul, who style themselves gaúchos, has claimed to discern, not only Amerindian (Charrúa and Guaraní) ancestry in the female line but, in the male line, a higher proportion of Spanish ancestry than is usual in Brazil. However, gauchos were a social class, not an ethnic group. Gauchos are first mentioned by name in the 18th century records of the Spanish colonial authorities who administered the Banda Oriental (present day Uruguay). For them, he is an outlaw, cattle thief, robber and smuggler. Félix de Azara (1790) said gauchos were "the dregs of the Rio de la Plata and of Brazil". Summarised one scholar: "Fundamentally [the gaucho of the time] was a colonial bootlegger whose business was contraband trade in cattle hides. His work was highly illegal; his character lamentably reprehensible; his social standing exceedingly low. "Gaucho" was an insult; yet it was possible to use the word to refer, without animosity, to country people in general. Furthermore the gaucho's skills, though useful in banditry or smuggling, were just as useful for serving in the frontier police. The Spanish administration recruited its antismuggling Cuerpo de Blandengues from among the outlaws themselves. The Uruguayan patriot José Gervasio Artigas made precisely that career transition.

As cattle estates grew bigger the freely wandering gaucho became a nuisance to landed proprietors, except when his casual labour was wanted e. g. at branding. Furthermore his services were needed in the armies that were fighting on the Indian frontiers, or in the frequent civil wars. Hence in Argentina, vagrancy laws required rural workers to carry employment documents. Some restrictions on the gaucho's freedom of movement were imposed under Spanish Viceroy Sobremonte, but they were greatly intensified under Bernardino Rivadavia, and were enforced more vigorously still under Juan Manuel de Rosas. Those who did not carry the documentation could be sentenced to years in the military. From 1822 to 1873 even internal passports were required. According to Marxist and other scholars the gaucho became "proletarianized", preferring life as a salaried peon on an estancia to forced enlistment, irregular pay and harsh discipline. However, some resisted. "In words and deeds, soldiers contested the state's disciplinary model", frequently deserting. Deserters often fled to the Indian frontier, or even took refuge with the Indians themselves. José Hernández described the bitter fate of just such a gaucho protagonist in his poem Martín Fierro (1872), a great popular success in the countryside. One estimate was that renegade gauchos comprised half of all Indian raiding parties. Lucio Victorio Mansilla (1877) thought he could discern two types of gaucho in the soldiers under his command: The paisano gaucho (country worker) has a home, a fixed abode, work habits, respect for authority, on whose side he will always be, even against his better feelings. But the gaucho neto (out and out gaucho) is the typical wandering criollo, here today, there tomorrow; gambler, quarreler, enemy of discipline; who flees military service when it is his turn, takes refuge among the Indians if he knifes someone, or joins the montonera (armed rabble) if it shows up. The first has the instincts of civilization; he imitates the man of the cities in his dress, in his customs. The second loves tradition; he hates foreigners; his luxury is his spurs, his flash gear, his leather sash, his facón (dagger sword). The first takes off his poncho to go into town, the second goes there flaunting his trappings. The first is a cultivator, oxcart driver, cattle drover, herdsman, a peon. The second hires himself out for cattle branding. The first has been a soldier several times. The second was once part of a squadron and as soon as he saw his chance he deserted. The first is always federal, the second is no longer anything. The first still believes in something; the second believes in nothing. He has suffered more than the city slicker, and so has been disillusioned quicker. He votes, because the Commander or the Mayor tells him to, and with that universal suffrage is achieved. If he has a claim, he drops it because he thinks it is frankly a waste of time. In a word, the first is a useful man for industry and work — the second is a dangerous inhabitant anywhere. If he resorts to the courts, it is because he has the instinct to believe that they will do him justice out of fear – and there are examples, if they don't do it he takes revenge — he wounds or kills. The former makes up the Argentine social mass; the second is disappearing. Already in 1845 a local dialect dictionary, by a knowledgeable compiler, gave "gaucho" as meaning any kind of rural worker, including one who cultivated the soil. To refer to the wandering sort, one had to specify further. Documentary research has shown the great majority of rural workers in Buenos Aires province were not herdsmen, but cultivators or shepherds. Thus, the gaucho that survives in today's popular imagination — the galloping horseman — was not typical.

Gauchos north of the Río de la Plata were similar to their Argentine counterparts; however there were some differences, particularly in the region straddling Brazil and Uruguay. The Portuguese Crown, in order to conquer southern Brazil — it was disputed with the Spanish Empire — distributed vast tracts of land to a few hundred families. Labour in this region was scarce, so great landowners acquired it by allowing a social class, called agregados, to settle on their land with their own animals. Values were martial and paternalistic, for the territory went back and forth between Portugal and Spain. Brazilian inheritance laws compelled landowners to leave their lands in equal shares to their sons and daughters, and since they were numerous, and those laws were hard to evade, great landholdings fractured in a few generations. There were not the huge cattle estates of Buenos Aires province where, as an extreme example, the Anchorena family owned in 1864. Unlike Argentina, cattlemen in Rio Grande do Sul did not have vagrancy laws to tie gaúchos to their ranches. However, slavery was legal in Brazil; in Rio Grande do Sul it existed until 1884; and perhaps a majority of permanent ranch workers were enslaved. Thus many horse riding campeiros (cowboys) were black slaves. They enjoyed sharply better living conditions than the slaves who worked in the brutal xarqueadas (beef salting plants). John Charles Chasteen explained why:
Ranching requires mounted workers who are not easily supervised and have ample opportunities to escape. To hold on to their slaves, estancieiros considered the dictates of humanity the most economical policy. They could easily afford it. Land hungry Rio Grande cattlemen bought up estates cheaply in neighbouring Uruguay until they owned about 30% of that country, which they ranched with their slaves and cattle. The border area was fluid, bilingual and lawless. Though slavery was abolished in Uruguay in 1846, and there were laws against human trafficking, weak governments poorly enforced those laws. Often Brazilian ranchers simply ignored them, even crossing and re crossing the border with their slaves and cattle. An 1851 extradition treaty required Uruguay to return fugitive Brazilian slaves. Governments found it hard to establish a monopoly of violence in the border area. In the Federalist Revolution of 1893 gaúcho manned armies led by elite families fought each other with exceptional barbarity. Powerful Brazilian Uruguayan families, like the Saraivas, led mounted insurrections in both countries, even in the 20th century. In the satirical cartoon (1904) Aparicio Saravia says it is time for "another little revolution": they have been at peace long enough and are starting to look ridiculous. This time, however, his mobile, lance wielding horsemen were put down, and decisively, by Uruguayan troops armed with Mauser rifles and Krupp cannon, efficiently deployed by telegraph and rail.

It was official government policy, enshrined in the Argentine Constitution of 1853, to encourage European immigration. The purpose, which was not concealed, was to supplant the "lower races" of the sparsely populated interior, including gauchos, whom the elite believed to be hopelessly backward. Famously, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Argentina's second elected president, had written (in Facundo: Civilización y Barbarie) that gauchos, although audacious and skilled in country lore, were brutal, feckless, lived indolently in squalor, and — by upholding the caudillos (provincial strongmen) — were obstacles to national unity. The population was so thinly spread it was impossible to educate. They were barbarians, inimical to progress. Juan Bautista Alberdi, deviser of the Constitution, held that "to govern is to populate". Once political stability was achieved the results were dramatic. From around 1875 a flood of immigrants altered the country's ethnic composition. In 1914, 40% of Argentina's residents were foreign born. Today, Italian surnames are more common than Spanish. Barbed wire, cheap from 1876, fenced the pampa "and thus eliminated the need for gaucho cowboys". Gauchos were forced off the land, drifting into rural towns to look for work, though a few were retained as peon labourers. Cunninghame Graham, after whom a Buenos Aires street is named, and who had lived as a gaucho in the 1870s, returned in 1914 to "his first love, Argentina" and found it had greatly changed. "Progress, which he constantly lambasted, had rendered the gaucho virtually extinct". Wote S. Samuel Trifilo (1964): "The gaucho of today working on the pampas of Argentina is no more a real gaucho than is our own present day cowboy the cowboy of the Wild West; both have gone forever." Two thirds of Uruguay lies south of the Río Negro, and this part was fenced most intensively in the decade 1870 1880. The gaucho was marginalised and was frequently driven to live in pueblos de ratas (rural slums, literally rat towns). North of the Río Negro mobile gauchos survived rather longer. A Scottish anthropologist in the central region (1882) saw many of them as unsettled. European immigration to the countryside was smaller. The central government failed to consolidate its power over the countryside, and gaucho manned armies continued to defy it until 1904. The turbulent gaucho leaders e. g. the Saravias had connections with the cattlemen over the Brazilian border, where there was much less European immigration; Wire fences did not become common in the borderland until the close of the 19th century. The revolutionary battles in Brazil ended by 1930 under the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas, who disarmed the private gaúcho armies and prohibited the carrying of guns in public.

In Rio Grande do Sul the gaúcho has been mythified too, not in reaction to massive immigration as in Argentina, but to give the state a regional identity. The main celebration is the Semana Farroupilha, a week of festivities, mass horseback parades, churrasco, rodeos and dances. It refers to the Ragamuffin War (1835–45), an elite led separatist war against the Brazilian Empire; politicians have reinterpreted it as democratic movement. Hence, wrote Luciano Bornholdt,

The Movimento Tradicionalista Gaúcho (MTG) has an active participation of two million people, and claims to be the largest popular culture movement in the Western world. Essentially urban, rooted in nostalgia for rural life, the MTG fosters gaúcho culture. There are 2,000 Centres for Gaúcho Traditions, not only in the state, but elsewhere, even Los Angeles and Osaka, Japan. Gaúcho products include television and radio programs, articles, books, dance halls, performers, records, theme restaurants, and clothing. The movement was founded by intellectuals, apparently sons of downwardly mobile small landowners who had moved to the cities to study. Since gaúcho culture was seen as male, only later were women invited to participate. Though the real gaúchos of history lived in the Campanha (plains region), some of the first to join were of German or Italian ethnicity from outside that area, a social class who had idealised the gaúcho rancher as a type superior to themselves.

The gaucho plays an important symbolic role in the nationalist feelings of this region, especially that of Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The epic poem Martín Fierro by José Hernández (considered by some the national epic of Argentina) used the gaucho as a symbol against corruption and of Argentine national tradition, pitted against Europeanising tendencies. Martín Fierro, the hero of the poem, is drafted into the Argentine military for a border war, deserts, and becomes an outlaw and fugitive. The image of the free gaucho is often contrasted to the slaves who worked the northern Brazilian lands. Further literary descriptions are found in Ricardo Güiraldes' Don Segundo Sombra. Gauchos were generally reputed to be strong, honest, silent types, but proud and capable of violence when provoked. The gaucho tendency to violence over petty matters is also recognized as a typical trait. Gauchos' use of the facón—a large knife generally tucked into the rear of the gaucho's sash—is legendary, often associated with considerable bloodletting. Historically, the facón was typically the only eating instrument that a gaucho carried. The gaucho diet was composed almost entirely of beef while on the range, supplemented by [[Mate (drink), an herbal infusion made from the leaves of yerba mate, a type of holly rich in caffeine and nutrients. The water for mate was heated short of boiling on a stove in a kettle, and traditionally served in a hollowed out gourd and sipped through a metal straw called a bombilla. Gauchos dressed and wielded tools quite distinct from North American cowboys. In addition to the lariat, gauchos used bolas or boleadoras (boleadeiras in Portuguese)—three leather bound rocks tied together with leather straps. The typical gaucho outfit would include a poncho, which doubled as a saddle blanket and as sleeping gear; a facón (dagger); a leather whip called a rebenque; and loose fitting trousers called [[wikt:bombacha or a poncho or blanket wrapped around the loins like a diaper called a [[wikt:chiripá, belted with a sash called a faja. A leather belt, sometimes decorated with coins and elaborate buckles, is often worn over the sash. During winters, gauchos wore heavy wool ponchos to protect against cold. Their tasks were to move the cattle between grazing fields, or to market sites such as the port of Buenos Aires. The yerra consists of branding the animal with the owner's sign. The taming of animals was another of their usual activities. Taming was a trade especially appreciated throughout Argentina and competitions to domesticate wild foal remained in force at festivals. The majority of gauchos were illiterate and considered as countrymen.

The gaucho in some respects resembled members of other nineteenth century rural, horse based cultures such as the North American cowboy (vaquero in Spanish), huaso of Central Chile, the Peruvian chalan or morochuco, the Venezuelan and Colombian llanero, the Ecuadorian chagra, the Hawaiian paniolo, the Mexican charro, and the Portuguese [[Campino (profession).