The native agricultural labourer or “peon” is a very free and easy and light-hearted kind of person, and must be treated accordingly if his services are to be retained. He is never rude unless in answer to obviously intentional offence offered to himself, and will work very much harder for an employer he likes than for one he finds unsympathetic. Indeed he will only remain with the latter on his own tacit understanding that he takes things easily.
When he has accumulated a few dollars of wages he will take himself off to the nearest store or township and indulge in such dissipation as the place affords. From thence he departs with perhaps a few cheap handkerchiefs or other small finery, in the breast of his blouse, which he bestows as gifts at various friendly cottages; at each of which he may while away a day, partaking of pot luck, a shake down on the floor, and innumerable mates and cigarettes, making himself merrily agreeable to his hosts. When he gets tired of this, or has exhausted the immediate circle of his friends, he will return to work on the property on which he left off; or somewhere else should he find himself not as well received on his return as he had hoped.
It is pretty much all one to him. An experienced native peon need never go far begging for a job.
These men are strong and wiry, capable of spurts of very hard work indeed; so that, even with frequent intervals for chat with everyone available, their average day’s work is usually by no means a bad one. Severity in an employer they will take with perfect good humour; but any affected superiority, or “side,” on his part will meet with a very contemptuous resentment. They are true sons of a Republic, though holding school-learning in the deep respect observable in peasantry almost all the world over.
The Argentine peon inherits much of the ready wit and extraordinary gift of repartee of his immediate ancestor the GAUCHO; of whom he is the modern representative. With whom, however, a concertina has most unfortunately taken the place of the guitar. But as a bachelor he is the same flirtatious, lady-killing scamp; loving often and riding away from, most frequently instead of with, the lady of his ephemeral choice.
His wit, and hers, most frequently take the form of double entente. An interchange of chaff has always one perfectly innocent superficial meaning and another the realization of which would redden the ears of a British bargee. Both parties to this skilled contest of phrases keep perfectly immobile countenances and neither gives a sign, except by his or her, always latent, reply, of any perception of the underlying significance of the conversation.
This exchange of wit is a form of art derived from the gaucho Payadores or minstrels, who improvised their songs in verses which, on the face of them, were hymns to Nature in its purer forms, and contrived simultaneously to either hugely amuse ribald company or else to convey insult to a present rival payador who answered in like manner in his turn; hidden insult being thus intentionally heaped on insult till a fight with knives succeeded singing. A fight in which all present took sides and joined.
Thus were Sundays enjoyed in the PULPERIAS (canteens) of the older times, over a quarter of a century ago.
A now almost lost art of those days was the knife play in which the gaucho was then an extraordinary adept. Even now gauchos may be found, in the distant northern Provinces, who in a duel, according as it be a serious or a playful one, can kill or just draw a pin-prick’s show of blood at will from their adversary. In these duels the knife is kept in constant rapid, dazzling movement, while the poncho or gaucho shawl, with a slit through which the head is passed when wearing, is wrapped round the left arm which is used as a guard.
The gaucho was a picturesque figure in his chiripá[4] or festal, wide-bottomed, lace-frilled trousers, a broad leathern girdle studded with silver coins and his silver-mounted, high-pommelled saddle. The chiripá and girdle remain; and one may still see a camp dandy glorious on feast-days in a saddle adorned with silver mountings.