gaucho knives

[Chris Evans]

Hi,

Jim: I feel flattered by you generous remarks and will here try to add a little to the excellent post by Gonzalo and very informative article by Jones.

Discussing `gaucho'knives is a bit like discussing cowboy revolvers - The Colt SA 45 is the one most associated with the Wild West, but there were any number of others in circulation, and rarely used as depicted by Zane Gray or in the movies.

The gaucho knife that nowadays we recognize as such very much emerged in the course of the 19th century and the lore associated with it with, is enextricably bound with the stories of Martin Fierro by Hernandez http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Fierroand and Juan Moreira by Gutierrez http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Moreira. These two characters, one entirely fictional and the other depicted much larger than in life, epitomized an idealized stereotype of life on the land that the population of an emerging nation could identify with.

I hold with those who believe that the true era of the `gaucho' was before 19th century, by which time, save the outlaws in the furthest frontier regions, he was reduced to a mere `peon', an agricultural labourer, often gang-pressed into the provincial wars and afterwards disarmed - Various edicts having denied him the freedom to roam. The knife for the gaucho was primarily a tool, which could be turned to violent usage if required, but a tool nevertheless - The often made assertion that it was it was his weapon of choice over all others is sheer nonsense promulgated my literary myth makers. In real life, sabres and firearms were very much coveted, but hard to get. A humorous depiction of this fall from grace was given by George Mikes which goes something like this: The downfall of the gaucho was the fork - He was a free man as long as he was content to eat solely with his knife - But a fork requires a plate, a plate a table, a table a chair, and all this a roof and a steady job!

BTW. As Gonzalo reminds us, the ornate silver mounted knives that nowadays we associate with the genre were very much confined to the wealthy landowners, their overseers and the well to do.But the common man on the land had to content himself with whatever he could lay his hand on. With the introduction of `German silver' (Spanish:Alpaca) this style of mounting affordable knives became the norm only in the 20th century.

Until WWII, blades were imported from Europe, everything from discarded swords, bayonets and trade butchers blades, mostly German and French, which were hilted and given sheaths by local craftsmen. Blade lengths varied from the diminutive 4" `Verijero' to the sword length `Facon Caronero' mentioned by Gonzalo. Bernard Levine tells us, that as WWII interrupted the importation of trade blades, in 1943 local manufacture of the same commenced in the in the province of Buenos Aires at Tandil.

The term most often associated with gaucho cutlery is the long bladed `facon', invariably made from a discarded sword or bayonet. Its primary purpose was probably that of a slaughtering tool, but it is also the most often variant mentioned in fights. In his regard, it is worth mentioning that by the middle of the 19th century the wearing of facons was severely discouraged by landowners, or even outright prohibited, as exemplified by the rules set down by the rancher and later president Rosas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Manuel_Rosas. Nowadays the facon is completely obsolete, except as a collector's item.

The facon made from sword and bayonet blades made for a poor knife because its temper and cross sectional geometry was less than ideal. As such, the predominant form in day to day usage was what we would call a stiff butcher's knife, somewhere between 6" and 12" in blade length.

Gaucho knives were known by several names, and these were until fairly recently used loosely. Domenech has attempted to make a stricter and more meaningful classification, distinguishing between the various forms by attributes such as blade length, general shape, number of edges and hand-guard.

In closing, I refer interested readers to Osrnio's Esgrima Criolla (Creole Fencing) and Abel Domenech's Dagas De Plata.

Cheers
Chris

[Gonzalo G]

Chris, a very precise description. The gaucho was a frontierman, a nomad usually living and sleeping in the open, hunting wild cattle and trading with the indians, form whom he learnt many things, as the use of the boleadoras to chase cows and cimarron horses. Like a mountainman in the USA, but in another geography, la pampa, the great plains with pastures, just like the big plains in Dakota, USA. He was also a bootlegger form Argentina to Chile, a bandit, an occasional cowboy for the landowners and a cavalry soldier in the civil wars and the wars against the colonial powers. However, I want to make some precisions. The real gaucho endured maybe to the middle of the 19th Century, as a nomad and occasional cowbow, bandit and bootlegger. Blades made industrially were imported from Europe, but there was also a local blacksmithing production which made several blades for the market, mainly from used files. Facones were not always made from broken swords or sabers (there are also antique curved facones made in this way), and discarded bayonets, but also with blades made by local blacksmiths, sometimes with fullers, sometimes without them. The gaucho was ultimately finished by the private appropriation of the land, the wire fences surrounding the land and their prosecuting by the government authorities. The gaucho usually carried more than one knife. He carried usually a small criollo or verijero and a facon, or a puñal criollo and a facon. I read the article about the facon here, The part of the buttons must be reworked. Argentineans also uses rounded buttons, but are different from the uruguayans. The description of the buttons can be made with precision to identify their origin without doubts, and there is another type of button, not mentioned, the riograndense button, from the region of Rio Grande (Great River). Faca in portuguese just means "knife", and facon means big knife. As reference, the books are:

Abel Domenech
Dagas de Plata
privately edited by the author
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2005

Mario López Osornio
Esgrima Criolla
Ediciones Nuevo Siglo (Biblioteca de la Cultura Argentina No. 9),
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1995

The last, is in fact a smal manual about knife, rebenque (the leather tool used to incentivate the horse, I don´t remember the name in english in this moment), poncho and chuza (a spear) combat techniques. A very small manual in fact, and difficult to get. But Abel has his own page and you can purchase his books from there:

http://www.domenech.com.ar/

He´s also one of the moderators of the Forum Armas Blancas.

My regards

Gonzalo

[Gonzalo G]

A. G. Maisey you have some brazilians facas over there, and mostly puñales criollos. The puñal usually have a drop point with a false edge, and a button where the blade ends, at the beginning of the hilt. No guards. There is silverwork from the Olavarriense school, and the Rioplantense School. The facas look like made from bayonets, but I´m not sure. The last puñal criollo on the photo, below, has a piece of silver or alpaca covering the ricasso of the blade. This piece is called "empatilladura", and it has similar functions as in the yataghans: it is an ornament, but also a pice which gives more rigidity to the blade and absorbs part of the vibrations when you chop with the kife or parry another knife. It also serves to avoid rubbing the blade against the metal entrance of the sheat and secures the knife in there.

The blade from Adolfo Panizza & Cia is from the end of the 19th C to the beginning of the 20th C. Panizza was an importer.

The sixth is Scholberg, Joucla & Silva, a variant of the Broqua & Scholberg, a Liege, Belgium, blademaker. Probably the knife is from the fist quart of the 20th C

The seventh is a Juca, Tandil, an argentinean blademaker from the mid of the 20th C, still working today.

The others I can´t remember right now, I must search in Abel´s books.
My regards

Gonzalo

[Gonzalo G]

Kronckew, your first is a free interpretation of the criollo, not really a criollo, but a modern style knife inspired on. The puñal criollo has no guard, but it has always a button. This kife was mounted by poor children in a kind of special institution in Argentina (Misiones). The second is a verijero and the third a puñal, those last made in the real tradition of the puñales criollos.
My regards

Gonzalo

[A. G. Maisey]

Thanks for your comments, Gonzalo.

The two RHS vertical knives could be from bayonets, but if they are, they have been extensively reworked, as both have a strong distal taper and some spring in the blade.

The bottom knife that looks as if it has silver over the ricasso is in fact a early European knife, not a South American knife. What looks like ornamental silver is in fact an ornamented steel ricasso, an integral part of the blade

[Chris Evans]

Hi Gonzalo,

Great post - Your differentiation between the Olavarriense school, and the Rioplantense school is raising this thread to the next level!

Originally Posted by Gonzalo G

.I read the article about the facon here, The part of the buttons must be reworked. Argentineans also uses rounded buttons, but are different from the uruguayans. The description of the buttons can be made with precision to identify their origin without doubts, and there is another type of button, not mentioned, the riograndense button, from the region of Rio Grande (Great River).

Quoting from Domenech's Dagas de Plata pg79 (Apologies for my rough translation):

"The button can take a semi round form, known by collectors as round, little ball or oriental, and which define the blades used in Uruguay, Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil) and the mesopotamic zone of our country (CE: North East Argentina)... The "porteño" (CE: From Buenos Aires city) button is known as quadrangualr, though in reality it is more or less octagonal......although there is no definitive explanation that accounts for the different shapes adapted in the various regions"

Could you please throw a bit more light on the subject of buttons?

Abel Domenech
Dagas de Plata
privately edited by the author
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2005

Mario López Osornio
Esgrima Criolla
Ediciones Nuevo Siglo (Biblioteca de la Cultura Argentina No. 9),
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1995

I have them both and consider them essential reading for anyone seriously interested in this subject. Do you know of any other well regarded books?

Cheers
Chris

[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.

[Chris Evans]

Hi Gonzalo,

And yet another excellent post on the subject . Thanks from all of us here - We greatly appreciate your contribution.

Apart from Domenech, is there anybody else seriously researching these knives? I regularly read the posting on armasblancas.com, but so far, the best postings always come from Domenech. As an aside, did you read the one on San Martin's sabre?

Originally Posted by Gonzalo G

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. .

Now, I understand you. At first I thought that you found fault with Jones statements about the buttons as an identifier, for which I apologize - Yes, there is much more to it, but this kind of detailed knowledge is very hard to access.

Cheers
Chris

[Gonzalo G]

I wrotte in the San Martín sabre thread. I´m Yataghan there. I only saw the thinny picture of the sabre, but a week latter, in other place, I saw a reproduction. It was made as a mameluke shamshir. The point of the hilt is VERY different from the one you can see on the unclear picture posted in the thread. Without good pictures, an authentic story and a metallurgical analysis made public, one can only make very wide (and wild) speculations.

It is not difficult to know the details of the buttons, if you speak spanish. Marcial, on that forum, knows very well the buttons, and also, you can communicate with Abel throught the forum. If you open a thread, I´m sure you will find several people who can add rich contributions. Some plateros (silversmiths) knows very well the schools and the type of buttons. There is a subfora there dedicated to the silversmithing. They make sheats and hilts just like the ones you see here, in this thread, and some of the silversmiths also have a good knowledge of the button styles. Marcial is a bladesmith, not a researcher, but he has made some research and knows very well the old and new criollo blades. I can give you my modest support to help you with your thread over there. Abel is semiretired from the forum because he´s in the last stages of the publication of his last book, about folder knives, but we can send him an invitation to participate. I don´t know any other serious research about this subject. In fact, I think I´m going to send him a message with a link to this thread.
My regards

Gonzalo

[Jim McDougall]

When Chevalier first presented the query that is the topic of this thread, the knives of the Gauchos, the esoterica of the subject itself was intriguing. I was immediately drawn to try to find any material I could so I could respond. I began poring through resources and what notes I had available as usual to try to compose as responsible a response as possible, but found that trying to quickly put together a brief synopsis on these was much more formidable than I realized!

I noticed in checking through searches of previous discussions that Chris Evans clearly knows these weapons, and presented numerous outstandlingly detailed posts. Then Gonzalo's post revealed he too had excellent knowledge on these knives.The following posts by Mr.Maisey, Kronckew, Nagawarrior and Ferguson added beautiful examples to add to the great information and discussion that Chris and Gonzalo continue to develop.


I just wanted to say that this thread is 'textbook'!!!! That is exactly the kind of discussion and interaction I always look for here. A prefectly gentlemanly discourse with detailed and sound information presenting comprehensive material focused on a weapon form that will stand as a usable resource for collectors and future research.
It is fantastic because here not only is published material available on the topic noted, but the results of active research, field study and the experience of active collectors bring the entire topic 'up to speed'.

Gentlemen, please keep this thread going, its terrific to see this topic developing from an intriguing knife seldom discussed to that of an ethnographic utilitarian weapon that distinctly represents a colorful and fascinating history much more complex than I had ever realized. Fantastic!
Thank you very much!!!

All best regards,
Jim

[Chris Evans]

Hi Gonzalo,

Originally Posted by Gonzalo G

I wrotte in the San Martín sabre thread. I´m Yataghan there.

Not knowing that Yathanag is your good self, I was mightily impressed with your contributions to that thread. For the readers of this forum, the discussion in question was bout the sabre of the great Sth American General, Jose de San Martin, used during the wars of independence in the early decades of the 19th century. I should add that Gonzalo not only knows Creole knives, but also writes with an excellent command on the subjects of eastern swords, Wootz and Damascus steels.

I can give you my modest support to help you with your thread over there.

Thank you, but I have already corresponded with him briefly on a matter to do with a `Verijero' . And if I may boast a little, also have a copy of his Dagas de Plata with his handwritten dedication and autograph.

In fact, I think I´m going to send him a message with a link to this thread.

Now, if you could entice him to write something here, that would be truly wonderful.

Cheers
Chris

[Gonzalo G]

Originally Posted by Gonzalo G

It was made as a mameluke shamshir.

Well, it would be more properly called "kiliç", as this is the word used by the mamluks.

Gonzalo