A cattle prod?

Yeah, I could see it as that.

Sounds good to me.

Wayne brings up a very plausible contender-one I had mentioned at the start of this thread. Problem is, I can't seem to find any material on these lances. I learned about them awhile back when I acquired a weird bowie knife with an inscription of a gaucho with said lance. It might have even had a spike butt cap, but don't recall. While researching them I learned about French cowboys of the Comarge region...always thought that sounded like a Monty Python script ;)

the only reference i've found was one that they called their 'emergency' lances tacuara, they were made by tying their knives to a length of sugar cane. the rider on the right in the photo i inserted above seems to be carrying one, the others seem to be carrying more normal lances with pennants. way back in pre-history when i was a younger, i think i read that gauchos sometimes used lances with removable points that they then carried in scabbards, but now that i could afford to buy one i also cannot find any references. the gaucho roamed from brazil down to argentina, so i assume some customs varied and changed over time.