Читать книгу Conozcamos lo nuestro - The Gauchos's Heritage - Enrique Rapela - Страница 14

I present this work I titled The Gaucho’s Heritage (Conozcamos lo nuestro). Even though many things I talk about and illustrate have no practical application nowadays, all of them fulfilled an important function in their time. The gaucho did not do anything that did not have a relevant purpose. Everything that came from his skilled hands was an evidence of the significant ingenuity he possessed. Always people have talked about the skills of our gaucho to master his inseparable companion: the horse. In this work, I try to demonstrate that this was right. I think that knowing everything concerning the gaucho is necessary for new generations, and older people should remember it, because, in this way, we will learn how to respect him once we know him. Thus, we will understand that this wonderful country was not inhabited by useless barbarians, lazy people with bad habits, as a huge systematic and perfectly organized campaign supported by people who only conceived as civilized what comes from overseas, rejecting the Latin Hispanic origin, repeated.

The gaucho, who inherited everything from the Spaniard people, crashed with the man from the city who did not understand him, and backed with energy the urban man who did not look down on him, and did not try to demonstrate ostensively their different way of living.

We will see how and why they wore this or that piece of clothing, its origin and adaptation. How and why tacks are different in each part of such a vast country. Their way to work with a horse, the way to deal with cattle and sheep; and what draws more attention is the intelligence they showed when they created the different ways to use “the ropes” to master the horse.

All this and many other things concerning the life of our ancestors will be seen in this work. In this way, we will have a pretty large view of all of it, and we will add to this an overview of the customs and habits of the indigenous people, those brave owners of the land they defended with courage and pride fighting against the gaucho, who was the first instrument the “illustrated people” used to free those vast extensions of rich land that passed to them without risking anything but the blood of these great gauchos. I want to believe that this modest work will be useful so that many readers will not have to remain silent when they should answer questions about customs and habits of our countryside, but, mainly, it is a tribute I pay to the gaucho with this work The Gaucho’s Heritage.

ENRIQUE RAPELA