Argentina`s "Cowboys" – Gaucho.

So here we have the Argentinian pesos, nominal - 10. The year of issue of this coin is 1963. Mint: Buenos Aires, Argentina. Total circulation – 136.792.000.

Gaucho, the nomadic and colourful horseman and cowhand of the Argentine and Uruguayan Pampas (grasslands), who flourished from the mid-18th to the mid-19th century and has remained a folk hero similar to the cowboy in western North America.

In the mid-18th century, when British, Dutch, French, and Portuguese traders provided a profitable contraband business in hides and tallow in the frontier regions around Buenos Aires, gauchos arose to hunt the large herds of escaped horses and cattle that had roamed freely, bred prodigiously, and remained safe from predators on the extensive Pampas. Gaucho weapons were the lasso, knife, and boleadoras (or bolas), a device made of leather cords and three iron balls or stones that was thrown at the legs of an animal to entwine and immobilize it. Gauchos subsisted largely on meat.

Their costume, still worn by modern Argentine cowhands, included a chiripa girding the waist, a woolen poncho, and long, accordion-pleated trousers, called bombachas, gathered at the ankles and covering the tops of high leather boots.

The gauchos lived in small mud huts roofed with grass mats and slept on piles of hides. Their marriages were seldom solemnized, and their religious beliefs consisted mainly of age-old superstitions varnished with Roman Catholicism. Their pastimes included gambling, drinking, playing the guitar, and singing doggerel verses about their prowess in hunting, fighting, and lovemaking.