According to history, gauchos would traverse long distances with their cattle through the sweeping plains of the Pampas, swinging lassoes with fervour, their whoops and whistles echoing for miles. At night they would gather around the fire cooking steak, glugging red wine and singing folk songs in the flickering light.
This balance between hardship and the idyllic is all part of the poetry narrated by Argentina’s historic landscape which has both been fought over and romanticised. The gaucho has always played an inherent role in creating the country’s identity.
In the 18th Century, when Argentina was under European influence, the Portugese, Spanish and French traders provided contraband businesses selling hides and tallow. The gauchos would ride around the Pampas gathering free roaming cattle and wild horses to trade, covering lengthy distances, vast terrain and wildly opposing seasons. At the end of the century, business was successful and acres of land were acquired privately by the Europeans who had by then built a number of estancias (ranches). The role of the gaucho was that of a skilled horseman maintaining the cattle and the land and a vital part of the country’s economics.
In the 19th Century the gaucho became a hero in the War of Independence and the Argentine Civil War. Forming what was known as the Montaneras, these were essentially groups of rural born men from the Rio de la Plata region fighting against centralism of Buenos Aires.
Their involvement in this tumultuous time was not unsung. Nearing the end of the century, gauchos became protagonists in South American folklore and literature. In Jose Hernandez’s 2,316 line poem, Martin Fierro, the gaucho symbolises Argentine freedom and tradition against Europeanisation. Similarly, La Guerra Gaucha (1942) is a black and white film based in Salta, Northwestern Argentina and visually recounts the Gaucho war against Spanish royalists. It remains an example of classic Argentine cinema.
Centuries have passed since the gauchos flourished in Argentina but their traditions and legacy have remained a powerful identity and one which is internationally recognised. Visit the estancias that remain in the Pampas and Patagonia where they still thrive, herding cattle, sheep shearing and working on the land. Long horse rides on sturdy criollo horses take guests through liberating and endless layers of greenery and windswept mountains returning to a glass of aromatic Malbec and an asado of beef under the stars.
Although the life of a gaucho is solitary and simple, it has through the ages transcended the finer things in life.