Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
A VAQUERÍA ON THE PAMPAS,
CA. 1760
The Spaniards, finding that the trade in hides was by far the most
profitable to them of any, were possessed with a blind rage for
killing all the [wild cattle] they could lay hands on. . . . The horsemen
employed have each separate tasks assigned them. Some furnished with
swift horses attack a herd of oxen, and with a long spear, to which is
added a sharp semicircular scythe, disable the older bulls by cutting
the nerve of the hinder foot; others throw the [lasso] on them whilst
they are staggering, and others follow behind to knock down and slay
the captive bulls. The rest are employed in stripping the hides off the
slaughtered animals, conveying them to an appointed place, fixing them
to the ground with pegs, and taking out and carrying away the tongues,
suet, and fat. The rest of the flesh, which would suffice to feed a numer-
ous army in Europe, is left on the plain to be devoured by tigers, wild
dogs and ravens; and indeed one might almost fear lest the air should
be corrupted by such a quantity of dead bodies.
Source:
Dobrizhoffer, Martin.
An Account of the Abipones, an Equestrian
People of Paraguay
. 3 vols. (London: J. Murray, 1822), vol. 1, p. 221.
cooking. A large
vaquería
might last two or three weeks and produce
several thousand hides. This wasteful method of production could
not satisfy a rise in demand and by the late 18th century was largely
replaced by more rational cattle raising techniques on the famous
estancias
of the Pampas.
Reorganization of the Southern Hunters
The Spanish silver trail through the Río de la Plata did not become
established nor did it function without challenge from the original
inhabitants of the land. Tucumán and Córdoba represented a European
wedge between two areas of indigenous hostility, and to the north
extended the Gran Chaco, home of proud peoples whom the Spaniards
neither conquered nor assimilated. Bands of seminomadic groups
resisted displacement from their ancient hunting lands in Mendoza
and Córdoba and periodically raided Spanish cart and mule trains and
outlying cattle haciendas. Though disease was ravaging their numbers,
