1 adj. *smart, *experienced, *skillful or *ready.
This Friday, December 6, Argentina celebrates National Gaucho Day, commemorating the publication of the book El gaucho Martín Fierro, written by José Hernández in 1872.
The date was made official on December 15, 1993 through Law No. 24,303 and, in the field of this rule, Decree 1,096/96 was drawn up, which provides for the creation of a National Gaucho Commission in the field of the Ministry of Culture. of the Nation, the objective of carrying out acts and events to celebrate and publicize the gaucho tradition.
The Martin Iron
Hernández published the book in 1872 under the title El gaucho Martín Fierro, and it was so successful that he had little choice but to write the continuation of the story. The second part was published in 1879 and was called La Vuelta de Martín Fierro. It was also really well received by those who read it.
Today both parts are published together as if they were only one. The first book begins with Martín Fierro remembering how he lived happily with his family until he was forced to enlist in the army. He hates this situation and soon he riots and riots. Upon his return, he reveals that his house was destroyed and his family left. Tormented, he joins the Indians and becomes a bandit.
Gaucho, huachu, orphan
Although the name «gaúcho» was what was attributed to the result of the mixture between criollos or mestizos of Spanish blood and also Indians, the use of the word was regular, it is used to designate a way of life, although it also allocates a specific type of popular identity. The term comes from the Quechua word huachu which means «orphan» and for this reason, broadening its concept, it was used to offer these pampas individuals the inseparable quality of «destitute».
The nomadic life was the cause and the meaning of the subsistence of the gaucho. Free they roamed the plains of the seventeenth century, making each prey their lunch and each sky their roof. The horse was the means of transportation and the bolas and knives were their hunting tools. And since each pig gets its San Martín, all that independence ended one day with the arrival of the gate. The moment the feeling of private property reaches the countryside, the gaucho is cornered; not only because for the moment they could not examine the territories at will, but rather because they had to submit to the only means of subsistence that was proposed to them: the work employed. The much more graceful have begun to work as laborers, but several of these indomitable countrymen ran worse places; They were taken by force to protect national borders, to battle the Indians, frequently in subhuman or miserable conditions. The popular Martín Fierro realizes this, where he recounts throughout the book how he is uprooted from his land, his family and his situation to suffer the ravages of a trip that was not chosen.