The Cowboy

Seen from behind, a working cowboy is mostly equipment: hat, saddle, rope, chaps. Nearly all of it, and most of the words for it, came north from Mexico.

Spanish vaqueros were working cattle from horseback in Mexico, Texas and California generations before the first Anglo cowboy. When Americans took up the trade they took the vocabulary too, bending it into English as they went. La reata became lariat. Chaparreras, leather leggings made for riding through chaparral, became chaps. Dar la vuelta, to take a turn of rope around the saddle horn, became dally. Vaquero itself, said fast enough, became buckaroo. Remuda, rodeo, ranch and mustang all made the same trip.

The craft came along with the words. The big roping horn, the long braided rawhide rope and the whole habit of working cattle from a quick horse were vaquero ideas long before they were American ones.

The drawing is charcoal on warm buff paper, built from fast hatching and smudged tone. Horse and rider stand in tall grass, both turned toward something off to the left, and the rider's bearded profile shows under a wide hat. A loop of rope hangs by the stirrup, fringe trails from the chaps, and the background dissolves into loose gray haze.