Gaucho
The horseback herder of the pampas of Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil.
Also: gaúcho
Gauchos were the free-roaming horsemen of the grasslands of the Río de la Plata from the eighteenth century, living off the wild cattle and horses that had multiplied there after the Spanish arrived. They became skilled riders and hands with the lasso and the boleadoras, and later worked on the great estancias. Their dress of poncho, wide bombachas trousers and facón knife, and their habits of drinking mate and cooking asado, are national symbols. José Hernández's poem Martín Fierro, published in 1872, made the gaucho a literary figure. In southern Brazil the word is spelt gaúcho.