[Originally given as a Cultural Studies presentation at the Technical University of Liberec, Czech Republic, 2004. The original had links to the lingo as well as to the cultural and historical allusions.]
From the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada in California and the Cascades in Oregon and Washington, to St. Louis and the banks of the Missouri River at the Mississippi, from Calgary in Canada to the Mexican border, this is (still) cowboy country. Well after it was tamed under what was then an imperative, today there is a myth about the American cowboy, that he is a disappearing breed. For as long as ranchers and settlers journeyed to the frontier for exploration and expansion in the eighteenth century till, in some senses, today, cowboys, their work and their play have endured, albeit with a few changes.
I grew up in these parts, mostly Colorado, Nevada, and Washington. I was born and raised actually in the Far West. The polite society and civilized places in this region: for me these were Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle. But then in my late teens there was Denver, although I always fittingly thought of Denver as just a big cow town. I can attest to the living presence of what we may call an enduring culture and heritage of the ranch, cattle, horses, and cowboys, and their womenfolk.
If only from a birds-eye view, the evidence is clear. Get on a plane in Denver and travel to Missoula, Montana, Rapid City, South Dakota, Albuquerque, New Mexico, or Dallas or Reno. Fellow passengers likely as not will be wearing cowboy gear, cleaned to be sure of the dust, dirt, and dung of the ranch. Or travel the blue highways and open spaces of the West, and stop in any wide spot in the road. The people you'll find--these people are as genuine as can be, wearing the outfits that their lifestyle and callings have found practical if not comfortable: boots, canvass shirts, cowboy hats, jeans.
So I admit I am not a cowboy. But I have known a few and lived among them. Jack Morgan, legendary Nevada stable manager, Steve Jones, Colorado wrangler caterin' now to tourists by givin' hay rides, Bob Barry, ranch boy turned server-bronc buster, Bill Cowden, professional bull rider, Kent Jodrie, hired hand, Odie, one of the original Marlboro men, and Gil the rough-'round-the-edges, chain-smoking drifter tending horses here and there for dudes. But it was never my calling.
Ranchin' and ropin' was my uncle's longin', although he was a frustrated cowboy, born about a century too late and not into the life direct-like. My sister could be mistaken today for a cowgirl. She and her daughter, trailing horses behind a gas-guzzling, three-quarter ton pickup all over the western states with a horse savy dog in the back guarding truck, trailer, and tack--her English riding gear and getup give her away as a different class of horsewoman.
Cowboys and, yes, cowgirls, country and western music, line dancing and cowboy bars, the cattle and the horses and the great western landscapes are all there today. You can go and see for yourself. Order a red beer in Rangely "fer medicinal purposes." (You'd be surprised. Ain't bad to the taste!) Try to find classical or pop or rock music on the radio in the open expanses of these states. Not to be found, although a good dose of Christian fervor will be. This territory is full of God-fearin' folk, and Mormons, and lots of C-n-W.
Notions and misnotions about the American cowboy come from many sources. Clint Eastwood in the last thirty years, and John Wayne before him come to mind, as does Alan Ladd in perhaps the best western ever made, "Shane" (1953). Clint's "Unforgiven" (1992 Academy Award winner) and "The Outlaw Josie Wales" come specifically to my mind, and I recommend these as attempts to portray it like it was. But I am not qualified to say this without saying at the same time there are US and western historians in-country and abroad who are more qualified. I am reasonably certain, though, that John Wayne's "McClintock," or any of his western characters, was not accurate but mostly entertainment and hyperbole.
Zane Gray in the 20s and 30s did as much to capture and romanticize and mythologize the American cowboy as any writer of westerns, a genre now typically published in pulp fiction form. His _Riders of the Purple Sage_ is among the best, and it is perhaps from him we get the idea of the lonesome stranger and other melodramatic tones of Old West ranch life. Max Brand, another prolific writer of this period and later, made his mark, but he was German, if I am not mistaken. Then there is Karl May.
May, well, he is a special case. You might be surprised to know that Vinetou and Old Shatterhand are virtually unheard of in the US and the American West, even though May's works have been translated from German into thirty languages. Gray, Louis L'Amour, and many others overfill the reading hunger today for western fiction in the US.
But ranch folk are not known to read westerns or have time fer goin' to town and seein' movies. They are living the life they chose, or more than likely these days were born into. Cowboys and some cowgirls are wage earners and not rich. The gun fighting and killing Indians? These are matters of the nineteenth century. These tall tales about him in his free time are not, because of necessity or what cowboys are today, the truth, as far as I know.
During the nineteenth century ranchers settled the West just as sod busters did. Landowners with huge unfenced spreads raised and grazed herds of cattle where buffalo once roamed. It is a small mystery that they didn't tame the buffalo; and they and the plains Indians could have thrived in peace, but that is another story full of explanations particular to the times, and shame.
On these land holdings cowpokes are still paid per day or month to do all manner of physical labor to increase the power and profits of their employers, the landowners. In your mind's eye you can follow the cowboy figure from dawn till dusk tending and driving and rounding up the doggies and fetchin' strays. Today he and she still do this work, but not as much from the backs of horses as from dirt bikes, four wheelers, pickup trucks, and even helicopters.
The job in many ways is the same. Join some landowner's outfit and earn a day's wage the hard way. Cowhands make ends meet; in a good year with good beef prices owners make a profit. It is a 365 day-a-year job, mostly with unending chores done outside in all kinds of elements. The rough hewn features of the strong-jawed silent type persists. Marlboro gets it almost right except the male models are a bit too sanitized to pass as real McCoys.
The diversions continue. Rodeo and music and a fondness for a simple, everyman's homespun wisdom. Among those who popularized this enduring dimension to the cowboy, and cowgirl, are Will Rogers and, after him, Baxter Black. Baxter is perhaps the most well known among cowboy poets and media personalities today. He comments on current affairs and turns a rhyme or two. He hails from the hot state of Arizona but is heard throughout the US on National Public Radio. And he makes quite a living just tellin' yarns.
Annually there are many cowboy poetry round-ups, or gatherings, in the West. The most famous is the annual round-up in Elko, Nevada. And there are poetry contests.
Yes, poets and cowgirls. A lot of 'em both. Those not familiar with the West are surprised at these facts. But is it any wonder that in America, or anywhere else, that there are cowpokes doin' guy things with the girls watchin'? Or in the land of the free and open spaces, the gals also doin' their thing? And ranches need womenfolk just as they do men folk.
Among the venues--still--for meeting and having good, clean fun is the annual rodeo, in almost every town and still some occasionally at railway sidings. It is said by some that the birth of rodeo was in Colorado. But others more famous have taken the credit, rightly or wrongly, like Buffalo Bill and his Wild West show.
Time does not permit me to go on about country and western music. Suffice to say it is found now throughout the world, sung in as many languages as there are countries with radios. And this bears witness to an interest in and continuing cowboy culture, albeit sometimes hardly recognizable in its American character outside the Old West. But if you go West, young person, you will see and hear for yerself.
Cowboys and cowgirls are not known to talk a lot, or to be repetitive like English teachers. So I will just end with this.
Can you imagine riding a million dollar cutting, roping, or barrel horse for a living? My niece does just that. She recently won a cutting horse competition in Texas, almost $200,000 for three weeks' and nights' work. But consistent with what I have said about the Old and still genuine rough and ready West, she is just a hired hand. She won the money for her boss, a wealthy gentlewoman rancher whose hobby is breeding and showing prize quarter horses with cow savy, so much so that the average price for one is close to a million bucks.
My niece recently had a suitor from down Las Vegas way; there are big Nevada ranches there with casino and other money behind them. He drove across three states just to have a date with her. She said she'd never fall in love with a cowboy, or that she'd become a cowgirl. It looks like cowboys and cowgirls are not a dying breed. They are still being made. The resilience and toughness of the American West. . . .
It is indeed a myth that there are no more cowboys. The calling is just too darn nice to give up for some citified kinda life. Cowboys? They'll still be askin' fer their boots to be wearing so they can die easy and give the next generations the independence and freedom they enjoyed out West, on the frontier.
