The Life and Knife of the Argentine Gaucho

THE LIFE AND KNIFE OF THE ARGENTINE GAUCHO contains a selection of excerpts from

textbooks and journals published in the 19th and early 2oth centuries. These accounts represent the

candid observations of British and American researchers, journalists, and travelers to South America,

and their first hand impressions of the Gauchos of Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil.

The accounts paint a vivid picture of these somber and solitary riders who roamed the Pampas, and of

the large knife-the facon-that was every Gaucho's faithful companion. The Gaucho was an exotic

cowboy of mythical proportions, one who spoke a foreign language but who shared the cowboy's love

of self-reliance, rugged independence, and autonomous freedom. Although today the Argentine Gaucho

has followed the American cowboy into the setting sun, we still have a record of their deeds-whether

real or fanciful-to fuel the desire for independence and freedom in future generations of rugged

individualists.