gaucho Info
- A peasant of the pampas of Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil. Modern gauchos work as foremen on farms and ranches and take part in rodeos.
Gauchos fought for Argentine independence from Spain, but later became involved in political disputes and suffered persecution.
A literary genre, literatura gauchesca, grew up in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The most famous work is Martín Fierro, an epic poem by José Hernández about the misfortunes of an Argentine gaucho when the huge pampas are divided into ranches.
Traditionally gauchos wore baggy trousers, leather chaps, a chiripá, a garment that went over their trousers and came up around their waist, boots, a hat, a leather waistcoat, a belt with a large buckle. They carried a facón - a large knife with a curved blade, and used boleadoras, ropes weighted at each end and thrown like lassos, to catch cattle.