# Civilization and Barbarism/Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.
ORIGINALITY AND PECULIARITIES OF THE ARGENTINE PEOPLE.
"Ainsi que l'ocean, les Steppes remplessent l'esprit du sentiment de l'infini."—Humboldt.
"Like the ocean, the Pampas fill the mind with the impression of the infinite."—Humboldt.
​The only North American novelist who has gained a European reputation is Fenimore Cooper, and he succeeded in doing so by removing the scene of the events he described from the settled portion of the country to the border land between civilized life and that of the savage, the theatre of the war for the possession of the soil waged against each other, by the native tribes and the Saxon race.
It was in this manner that our young poet Echevarria succeeded in attracting the attention of the literary world of Spain by his poem entitled "The Captive." The subjects of "Dido and Argea" which his predecessors the Varelas had treated with classic art and poetic fire, but without success and ineffectively, because they added nothing to the stock of European ideas, were abandoned by this Argentine bard, who turned his eyes to the desert. In its immeasurable and boundless spaces, in its wastes traversed by wandering savages, in the distant belt of flame which the traveller sees approaching when a fire has broken out upon the plains, he found the inspiration derived by the imagination from the sight of such natural scenery as is solemn, imposing, unusual, and mysterious; and from this the echo of his verses resounded, and was applauded even in the Spanish Peninsula.
A fact which explains many of the social phenomena of nations deserves a passing notice. The natural peculiarities of any region give rise to customs and practices of a corresponding peculiarity, so that where the same circumstances reappear, we find the same means of controlling them invented by different nations. ​Thus, in my opinion, is to be explained the use of bows and arrows among all savage nations, whatever may be their race, their origin, and their geographical position. When I came to the passage in Cooper's "Last of the Mohicans," where Hawkeye and Uncas lose the trail of the Mingos in a brook, I said to myself: "They will dam up the brook." When the trapper in "The Prairie" waits in irresolute anxiety while the fire is threatening him and his companions, an Argentine would have recommended the same plan which the trapper finally proposes,—that of clearing a space for immediate protection, and setting a new fire, so as to be able to retire upon the ground over which it had passed beyond the reach of the approaching flames. Such is the practice of those who cross the pampa when they are in danger from fires in the grass.
When the fugitives in "The Prairie" arrive at a river, and Cooper describes the mysterious way in which the Pawnee gathers together the buffalo's hide, "he is making a pelota" said I to myself,—"it is a pity there is no woman to tow it,"—for among us it is the women who tow pelotas across rivers with lassos held between their teeth. The way in which a buffalo's head is roasted in the desert is the same which we use for cooking a cow's head or a loin of veal. I omit many other facts which prove the truth that analogies in the soil bring with them analogous customs, resources, and expedients. This explains our finding in Cooper's works accounts of practices and customs which seem plagiarized from the pampa; thus, too, we find reproduced among American herdsmen, the serious ​countenance, the hospitality, and the very garments of the Arab.
The country consequently derives a fund of poetry from its natural circumstances and the special customs resulting from them. To arouse the poetic sense (which, like religious feeling, is a faculty of the human mind), we need the sight of beauty, of terrible power, of immensity of extent, of something vague and incomprehensible; for the fables of the imagination, the ideal world, begin only where the actual and the commonplace end.
Now, I inquire, what impressions must be made upon the inhabitant of the Argentine Republic by the simple act of fixing his eyes upon the horizon, and seeing nothing?—for the deeper his gaze sinks into that shifting, hazy, undefined horizon, the further it withdraws from him, the more it fascinates and confuses him, and plunges him in contemplation and doubt. What is the end of that world which he vainly seeks to penetrate? He knows not! What is there beyond what he sees? The wilderness, danger, the savage, death! Here is poetry already; he who moves among such scenes is assailed by fantastic doubts and fears, by dreams which possess his waking hours.
Hence it follows that the disposition and nature of the Argentine people are poetic. How can such feelings fail to exist, when a black storm-cloud rises, no one knows whence, in the midst of a calm, pleasant afternoon, and spreads over the sky before a word can be uttered? The traveller shudders as the crashing thunder announces the tempest, and holds his breath ​in the fear of bringing upon himself one of the thousand bolts which flash around him. The light is followed by thick darkness; death is on every side; a fearful and irresistible power has instantaneously driven the soul back upon itself, and made it feel its nothingness in the midst of angry nature; made it feel God himself in the terrible magnificence of his works. What more coloring could the brush of fancy need? Masses of darkness which obscure the sun; masses of tremulous livid light which shine through the darkness for an instant and bring to view far distant portions of the pampa, across which suddenly dart vivid lightnings, symbols of irresistible power. These images must remain deeply engraved on the soul. When the storm passes by, it leaves the gaucho sad, thoughtful, and serious, and the alternation of light and darkness continues in his imagination, as the disk of the sun long remains upon the retina after we have been looking at it fixedly.
​How can he be otherwise than a poet who witnesses these impressive scenes?
"Jira en vano, reconcentra Su inmensidad, i no encuentra La vista en su vivo anhelo Dó fijar su fugaz vuelo, Como el pajaro en la mar. Doquier campo i heredades Del ave i bruto guaridas; Doquier cielo i soledades De Dios solo conocidas, Que él solo puede sondear." — Echevarria.
Or he who thus sees Nature in her gala dress?
"De las entrañas de América Dos raudales se desatan; El Paraná, faz de perlas, I el Uruguai, faz de nácar. Los dos entre bosques corren entre floridas barrancas, Como dos grandes espejos Entre marcos de esmeraldas. Salúdanlos en su paso La melancólica pava, El picaflor i jilguero, El zorzal i la torcaza. Como ante reyes se inclinan Ante ellos seibos i palmas, I le arrojan flor del aire, Aroma i flor de naranja. Luego en el Guazú se encuentran I reuniendo sus aguas, Mezclando nácar i perlas, Se derraman en el Plata." — Dominguez.
But this is cultivated poetry, the poetry of the city. There is another poetry which echoes over the solitary plains the popular, natural, and irregular poetry of the gaucho. Music, too, is found among our people. It is a national taste recognized by all our neighbors. When ​an Argentine is first introduced to a Christian family, they at once invite him to the piano, or hand him a guitar, and if he excuses himself on the ground that he not know how to play, they express wonder and incredulity, saying, "An Argentine, and not understand music!" This general supposition bears witness to our national habits. It is the fact, that the young city people of the better classes, play the piano, flute, violin, or guitar: the half-breeds devote themselves almost wholly to music, and many skillful composers and players have sprung up among them. Guitars are constantly heard at the shop-doors on summer evenings; and late in the night, one's sleep is pleasantly disturbed by serenades and peripatetic concerts.
The country people have songs peculiar to themselves. The "Ariste," prevalent among the people of the northern districts, is a fugue melody expressive of lamentation, such as Rousseau considers natural to man in his primitive state of barbarism.
The "Vidalita" is a popular song with a chorus, accompanied by the guitar and tabor, in the refrain of which the bystanders join, and the number and volume of the voices increase. I suppose this melody originated with the aborigines, for I once heard it at an Indian festival at Copiapo, held to celebrate Candlemas. As a religious song it must be very old, and the Indians of Chili can hardly have adopted it from the Spaniards of the Argentine Republic.
The "Vidalita" is the popular measure for songs about the topics of the day, or for warlike odes; the gauchos compose the words which they sing, and trust to the associations which the song arouses, to make ​them understood by the people. Thus, then, amidst the rudeness of the national customs, two arts which embellish civilized life and give vent to many generous passions, are honored and favored, even by the lowest classes, who exercise their uncultured genius in lyrical and poetic composition.
In 1840, Echevarria, then a young man, lived some months in the country, where the fame of his verses upon the pampa had already preceded him; the gauchos surrounded him with respect and affection, and when a new-comer showed symptoms of the scorn he felt for the little minstrel, some one whispered, "He is a poet," and that word dispelled every prejudice.
It is well known that the guitar is the popular instrument of the Spanish race; it is also common in South America. The majo or troubadour, the type of a large class of Spaniards, is still found there, and in Buenos Ayres especially. He is discoverable in the gaucho of the country, and in the townsman of the same class. The cielito, the dance of the pampas, is animated by the same spirit as the Spanish jaleo, the dance of Andalusia; the dancer makes castanets of his fingers; all his movements disclose the majo; the action of his shoulders, his gestures, all his ways, from that in which he puts on his hat, to his style of spitting through his teeth, all are of the pure Andalusian type.
From these general customs and tastes are developed remarkable peculiarities, which will hereafter embellish the national dramas and romances, and give them an original shade of color. I propose at present only to notice a few of these special developments, in order to ​complete the idea of the customs of the country, and so to explain subsequently the nature, causes, and effects of its civil wars.
THE RASTREADOR.
The most conspicuous and extraordinary of the occupations to be described, is that of the Rastreador, or track-finder. All the gauchos of the interior are Rastreadores. In such extensive plains, where paths and lines of travel cross each other in all directions, and where the pastures in which the herds feed are unfenced, it is necessary often to follow the tracks of an animal, and to distinguish them among a thousand others, and to know whether it was going at an easy or a rapid pace, at liberty or led, laden or carrying no weight.
​The Rastreador proper is a grave, circumspect personage, whose declarations are considered conclusive evidence in the inferior courts. Consciousness of the knowledge he possesses, gives him a certain reserved and mysterious dignity. Every one treats him with respect; the poor man because he fears to offend one who might injure him by a slander or an accusation; and the proprietor because of the possible value of his testimony. A theft has been committed during the night; no one knows anything of it; the victims of it hasten to look for one of the robber's footprints, and on finding it, they cover it with something to keep the wind from disturbing it. They then send for the Rastreador, who detects the track and follows it, only occasionally looking at the ground as if his eyes saw in full relief the footsteps invisible to others. He follows the course of the streets, crosses gardens, enters a house, and pointing to a man whom he finds there, says, coldly, "That is he!" The crime is proved, and the criminal seldom denies the charge. In his estimation, even more than in that of the judge, the Rastreador's deposition is a positive demonstration; it would be ridiculous and absurd to dispute it. The culprit accordingly yields to a witness whom he regards as the finger of God pointing him out. I have had some acquaintance myself with Calibar, who has practiced his profession for forty consecutive years in one province. He is now about eighty years old, and of venerable and dignified appearance, though bowed down by age. When his fabulous reputation is mentioned to him, he replies, "I am good for nothing now; there are the boys." The "boys," who have studied under ​so famous a master, are his sons. The story is that his best horse-trappings were once stolen while he was absent on a journey to Buenos Ayres. His wife covered one of the thief's footprints with a tray. Two months afterwards Calibar returned, looked at the footprint, which by that time had become blurred, and could not have been made out by other eyes, after which he spoke no more of the circumstance. A year and a half later, Calibar might have been seen walking through a street in the outskirts of the town with his eyes on the ground. He turned into a house, where he found his trappings, by that time blackened by use and nearly worn out. He had come upon the trail of the thief nearly two years after the robbery.
In 1830, a criminal under sentence of death having escaped from prison, Calibar was employed to search for him. The unhappy man, aware that he would be tracked, had taken all the precautions suggested to him by the image of the scaffold, but they were taken in vain. Perhaps they only assured his destruction; for as Calibar's reputation was hazarded, his jealous self-esteem made him ardent in accomplishing a task which would demonstrate the wonderful sharpness of his sight, though it insured the destruction of another man. The fugitive had left as few traces as the nature of the ground would permit; he had crossed whole squares on tiptoe; afterwards he had leaped upon low walls; he had turned back after crossing one place; but Calibar followed without losing the trail. If he missed the way for a moment, he found it again, exclaiming, "Where are you?" Finally, the trail entered a water-course in the suburbs, in which the ​fugitive had sought to elude the Rastreador. In vain! Calibar went along the bank without uneasiness or hesitation. At last he stops, examines some plants, and says, "He came out here; there are no footprints, but these drops of water on the herbage are the sign!" On coming to a vineyard, Calibar reconnoitered the mud walls around it, and said, "He is in there." The party of soldiers looked till they were tired, and came back to report the failure of the search. "He has not come out," was the only answer of the Rastreador, who would not even take the trouble to make a second investigation. In fact, he had not come out, but he was taken and executed the next day.
In 1831, some political prisoners were planning an escape; all was ready, and outside help had been secured. On the point of making the attempt, "What shall be done about Calibar?" said one. "To be sure, Calibar!" said the others, in dismay. Their relations prevailed upon Calibar to be ill for four full days after the escape, which was thus without difficulty effected.
What a mystery is this of the Rastreador! What microscopic power is developed in the visual organs of these men! How sublime a creature is that which God made in his image and likeness!
THE BAQUEANO, OR PATH-FINDER.
Next to the Rastreador comes the Baqueano, a personage of distinction, and one who controls the fate of individuals and of provinces. The Baqueano is a grave and reserved gaucho, who knows every span of twenty thousand square leagues of plain, wood, and ​mountain! He is the most thorough topographer, the only map which a general consults in directing the movements of his campaign. The Baqueano is always at his side. Modest and mute as a garden-wall, he is in possession of every secret of the campaign; the fate of the army, the issue of a battle, the conquest of a province, all depend upon him. The Baqueano almost always discharges his duty with fidelity, but the general does not place full confidence in him.
Conceive the situation of a commander condemned to be attended by a traitor, from whom he has to obtain the information without which he cannot succeed. A Baqueano finds a little path crossing the road which he is following; he knows to what distant watering-place it leads. If he finds a thousand such paths, some of them even a hundred leagues apart, he is acquainted with each, and knows whence it comes and whither it goes. He knows the hidden fords of a hundred rivers and streams, above or below the ordinary places of crossing. He can point out a convenient path through a hundred distinct and extensive swamps. In the deepest darkness of the night, surrounded by boundless plains or by forests, while his companions rare astray and at a loss, he rides round them inspecting the trees; if there are none, he dismounts and stoops to examine the shrubs, and satisfies himself of his points of compass. He then mounts, and reassures his party by saying, "We are in a straight line from such a place, so many leagues from the houses; we must travel southwards." And he sets out in the direction he has indicated, without uneasiness, without hurrying to confirm his judgment by arriving at the ​town, and without answering the objections suggested to the others by fear or bewilderment.
If even this is insufficient, or if he finds himself upon the pampa in impenetrable darkness, he pulls up herbs from different places, smells their roots and the earth about them, chews their foliage, and by often repeating this proceeding, assures himself of the neighborhood of some lake or stream, either of salt or of fresh water, of which he avails himself, upon finding it, to set himself exactly right. It is said that General Rosas knows the pasturage of every estate in the south of Buenos Ayres by its taste.
If the Baqueano belongs to the pampa, where no roads exist, and a traveller asks him to show the way straight to a place fifty leagues off, he pauses a moment, reconnoitres the horizon, examines the ground, fixes his eyes upon some point, and gallops off straight as an arrow, until he changes his course for reasons known only to himself, and keeps up his gallop day and night till he arrives at the place named.
The Baqueano also announces the approach of the enemy; that is, that they are within ten leagues; and he also detects the direction in which they are approaching by means of the movements of the ostriches, deer, and guanacos, which fly in certain directions. At shorter distances he notices the clouds of dust, and estimates the number of the hostile force by their density. "They have two thousand men," he says; "five hundred," "two hundred;" and the commander acts upon this assumption, which is almost always infallible. If the condors and crows are wheeling in circles through the air, he can tell whether there are troops hidden ​thereabouts, or whether a recently abandoned camp, or simply a dead animal is the attractive object. The Baqueano knows how far one place is from another, the number of days and hours which the journey requires, and besides, some unknown by-way through which the passage may be made in half the time, so as to end in a surprise; and expeditions for the surprise of towns fifty leagues away are thus undertaken, and generally with success, by parties of peasants. This may be thought an exaggeration. No! General Rivera, of the Banda Oriental, is a simple Baqueano, who knows every tree that grows anywhere in the Republic of Uruguay. The Brazilians would not have occupied that country if he had not aided them; nor, but for him, would the Argentines have set it free.
This man, at once general and Baqueano, overpowered Oribe, who was supported by Rosas, after a contest of three years; and at the present day were he in the field against it, the whole power of Buenos Ayres, with its numerous armies, which are spread all over Uruguay, might gradually fade away by means of a surprise to-day, by a post cut off to-morrow, by some victory which he could turn to his own advantage by his knowledge of some route to the enemy's rear, or by some other unnoticed or trifling circumstance.
General Rivera began his study of the ground in 1804, when making war upon the government as an outlaw; afterwards he waged war upon the outlaws as a government officer; next, upon the king as a patriot; and later upon the patriots as a peasant; upon the Argentines as a Brazilian chieftain; and upon the Brazilians, as an Argentine general; upon Lavalleja, ​as President; upon President Oribe, as a proscribed chieftain; and, finally, upon Rosas, the ally of Oribe, as a general of Uruguay; in all which positions he has had abundance of time to learn something of the art of the Baqueano.
THE GAUCHO OUTLAW.
The example of this type of character, to be found in certain places, is an outlaw, a squatter, a kind of misanthrope. He is Cooper's Hawkeye or Trapper, with all the knowledge of the wilderness possessed by the latter; and with all his aversion to the settlements of the whites, but without his natural jnorality or his friendly relations with the savages. The name of gaucho outlaw is not applied to him wholly as an uncomplimentary epithet. The law has been for many years in pursuit of him. His name is dreaded—spoken under the breath, but not in hate, and almost respectfully. He is a mysterious personage; his abode is the pampa; his lodgings are the thistle fields; he lives on partridges and hedgehogs, and whenever he is disposed to regale himself upon a tongue, he lassos a cow, throws her without assistance, kills her, takes his favorite morsel, and leaves the rest for the carrion birds. The gaucho outlaw will make his appearance in a place just left by soldiers, will talk in a friendly way with the admiring group of good gauchos around him; provide himself with tobacco, yerba maté, which makes a refreshing beverage, and if he discovers the soldiers, he mounts his horse quietly and directs his steps leisurely to the wilderness, not even deigning to look back. He is seldom pursued; that would be ​killing horses to ho purpose, for the beast of the gaucho outlaw is a bay courser, as noted in his own way as his master. If he ever happens to fall unawares into the hands of the soldiers, he sets upon the densest masses of his assailants, and breaks through them, with the help of a few slashes left by his knife upon the faces or bodies of his opponents; and lying along the ridge of his horse's back to avoid the bullets sent after him, he hastens towards the wilderness, until, having left his pursuers at a convenient distance, he pulls up and travels at his ease. The poets of the vicinity add this new exploit to the biography of the desert hero, and his renown flies through all the vast region around. Sometimes he appears before the scene of a rustic festival with a young woman whom he has carried off, and takes a place in the dance with his partner, goes through the figures of the cielito, and disappears, unnoticed. Another day he brings the girl he has seduced, to the house of her offended family, sets her down from his horse's croup, and reckless of the parents' curses by which he is followed, quietly betakes himself to his boundless abode.
This white-skinned savage, at war with society and proscribed by the laws, is no more depraved at heart than the inhabitants of the settlements. The reckless outlaw who attacks a whole troop, does no harm to the traveller. The gaucho outlaw is no bandit, or highwayman; murderous assaults do not suit his temper, as robbery would not suit the character of the churriador (sheep-stealer). To be sure, he steals; but this is his profession, his trade, his science. He steals horses. He arrives, for instance, at the camp of a train from the ​interior; its master offers to buy of him a horse of some unusual color, of a particular shape and quality, with a white star on the shoulder. The gaucho collects his thoughts, considers a moment, and replies, after a short silence: "There is no such horse alive." What thoughts have been passing through the gaucho's mind? In that moment his memory has traversed a thousand estates upon the pampa; has seen and examined every horse in the province, with its marks, color, and special traits, and he has convinced himself that not one of them has a star on its shoulder; some have one on their foreheads, others have white spots on their haunches. Is this power of memory amazing? No! Napoleon knew two hundred thousand soldiers by name, and remembered, when he saw any one of them, all the facts relating to him. Therefore, if nothing impossible is required of him, the gaucho will deliver upon a designated day and spot, just such a horse as has been asked for, and with no less punctuality if he has been paid in advance. His honor is as sensitive upon this point as that of a gambler about his debts. Sometimes he travels to the country about Cordova or Santa Fé. Then he may be seen crossing the pampa behind a small body of horses; if any one meets him, he follows his course without approaching the new comer unless he is requested to do so.
THE CANTOR (THE MINSTREL).
And now we have the idealization of this life of resistance, civilization, barbarism, and danger. The gaucho Cantor corresponds to the singer, bard, or troubadour of the Middle Ages, and moves in the same ​scenes, amidst the struggles of the cities with provincial feudalism, between the life which is passing away and the new life gradually arising. The Cantor goes from one settlement to another "de tapera en galpon," singing the deeds of the heroes of the pampa whom the law persecutes, the lament of the widow whose sons have been taken off by the Indians in a recent raid, the defeat and death of the brave Ranch, the final overthrow of Facundo Quiroga, and the fate of Santos Perez.
The Cantor is performing in his simple way the same labor of recording customs, history, and biography, which was performed by the mediæval bard, and his verses would hereafter be collected as documents and authorities for the future historian, but that there stands beside him another more cultivated form of society with a knowledge of events superior to that displayed by this less favored chronicler in his artless rhapsodies. Two distinct forms of civilization meet upon a common ground in the Argentine Republic: one, still in its infancy, which, ignorant of that so far above it, goes on repeating the crude efforts of the Middle Ages; the other, disregarding what lies at its feet, while it strives to realize in itself the latest results of European civilization; the nineteenth and twelfth centuries dwell together one inside the cities,—the other without them.
The Cantor has no fixed abode; he lodges where night surprises him; his fortune consists in his verses and in his voice. Wherever the wild mazes of the cielito are threaded, wherever there is a glass of wine to drink, the Cantor has his place and his particular ​part in the festival. The Argentine gaucho only drinks when excited by music and verse, and every grocery has its guitar ready for the hands of the Cantor who perceives from afar where the help of his "gay science" is needed, by the group of horses about the door. The Cantor intersperses his heroic songs with the tale of his own exploits. Unluckily his profession of Argentine bard does not shield him from the law. He can tell of a couple of stabs he has dealt, of one or two misfortunes (homicides!) of his, and of some horse or girl he has carried off.
In 1840, a Cantor was sitting on the ground, cross-legged, on the banks of the majestic Paraná, in the midst of a group of gauchos whom he was keeping in eager suspense by the long and animated tale of his labors and adventures. He had already related the abduction of his love, with the difficulties overcome on the occasion; also his misfortune and the dispute that led to it; and was relating his encounter with the soldiery, and the stabs with which he defended himself, when the noisy advance and the shouts of a body of troops made him aware that this time he was ​surrounded. The troops had, in fact, closed up in the form of a horseshoe, open towards the Paraná, the steep banks of which rose twenty yards above the water. The Cantor, undismayed by the outcry, was mounted in an instant, and after casting a searching look at the ring of soldiers and their ready pieces, he wheeled his horse towards the river's bank, covered the animal's eyes with his poncho, and drove his spurs into him. A few moments after, the horse, freed from his bit so that he could swim more easily, emerged from the depths of the Paraná, the minstrel holding him by the tail, and looking back to the scene on shore which he had quitted, as composedly as if he had been in an eight-oared boat. Some shots fired by the troops did not hinder him from arriving safe and sound at the first island in sight.
​To these original types might be added many others of equal peculiarity, but they would not, like the former, illustrate the national customs, a knowledge of which is necessary for the right comprehension of our political personages and of the primitive and American nature of the bloody strife which distracts the Argentine Republic. In the course of this narrative the reader will himself discover where are to be met the Track-viewer, Path-finder, Gaucho-outlaw, and Minstrel. He will see in the chieftains whose fame has passed the Argentine frontiers, and even in those who have filled the world with the horror of their names, the vivid reflection of the internal condition, customs, and organization of the country.
* ↑ Batear.
* ↑ Cajeteija, little musical box.
* ↑ Without wandering from our subject, we may here call to mind the noteworthy resemblance between the Argentines and the Arabs. In Algiers, Oran, Mascara, and the desert encampments, I constantly saw the Arabs collected in coffee-shops—strong drink being forbidden them,—closely crowded about the singer, or more usually two singers, who accompany themselves with guitars in a duet, and recite national songs of a mournful character like our tristes before mentioned. The Arabian bridle is of plaited leather thongs, continued into a whip-lash like ours; the bit which we use is that of the Arabs, and many of our customs show the intercourse of our ancestors with the Moors of Andalusia. I have met some Arabs whom I could have sworn I had seen in my own country.