gaucho knives

[Gonzalo G]

First of all, I must excuse myself for my writting errors. In other post I worotte "whithe" instead of "white" and so on. The name of the schools are School of Olavarria and School of Rio de la Plata. You can refer to them as the olavarriense and rioplatense schools "ense" meaning "belonging to". As you know, Olavarria and Rio de la Plata are two places on Argentina. Those are "modern" schools, from the 19th Century, and are only related to the schools mentioned by Abel in some way. As I understand, and I´m not argentinean or a truly expert on this weapons, you can relate the rioplatense school to the old Pampa school mentioned by Abel, but only in relation with the sobriety of motifs, not in relation with their origin in the araucano or pampa motifs, which are indian. The schools mentioned by Abel are the old schools, but when coming to classify the above cuchillos criollos, which are modern, the old schools classification does not apply in the same form, as the motifs have been mixed in modern times. Anyway, the olavarriense school uses predominantly renaissance style motivs.

I meant the buttons paragraph needed reworking in the sense it needs more explanation. Your translation is correct, but it only touches very lightly the subject. For example, the uruguayan button is a round ball, but it has two symmetrical rounded rings in it´s sides at the same height of the ball, so it is really a rounded ball and not an octagonal piece. Some argentinean buttons are round, but with one ring, or with two rings but not symmetrical or rounded, with a flat spine. The specific uruguayan culture have been differenciating in more measure from the last half of the 19th C from the argentinean. Maybe the specific uruguayan button comes from this period, maybe not. It is a subject I must research.

The riograndese button has the rings and the "ball" in an octagonal form, but it can be also just a rounded ring (not a ball) between two flat (flat on their spines) rings, more narrow. Sometimes the main ring can be rounded on the spine, but oblong in the general form. There are many variations you must deal with, and so the classification must be detailed in a further direction. It would need somo more extense decription and illustration. This classification of the rings which I mention is related to the most modern puñales criollos, as I said, from the 19th C, and you must take on account that it is a live tradition in which the work on the buttons and silver motifs mixes elements and add new ones. If you see the book from Abel, you will find those variations.