Reframing Latin America: A Cultural Theory Reading ... - BGSU Blogs

civilized folk defeat the barbarians 199
with all his aversion to the settlements of the whites, but without his natural
morality 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 fi elds; 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 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 fi nal overthrow of Facundo Quiroga, and the fate of
Santos Perez [. . .].
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 [. . .].
To conclude, the original poetry of the minstrel is clumsy, monotonous,
and irregular, when he resigns himself to the inspiration of the moment. It
is occupied rather with narration than with the expression of feeling, and is
replete with imagery relating to the open country, to the horse, and to the
scenes of the wilderness, which makes it metaphorical and grandiose [. . .].
The life of the Argentine country people as I have exhibited it is not
a mere accident; it is the order of things, a characteristic, normal, and in
my judgment unparalleled system of association and in itself affords a full
explanation of our revolution. Before 1810, two distinct, rival, and incompatible
forms of society, two differing kinds of civilization existed in the
Argentine Republic: one being Spanish, European, and cultivated, the other
barbarous, American, and almost wholly of native growth [. . .].