“At the pampas, the impressions are rapid, spasmodic, to then
disappear in the width of the environment, leaving no trace.”
Ricardo Güiraldes. Don Segundo Sombra.

Gallery 3
The horse: Travel, commerce and power

The diversity and sophistication of riding crops, wide belts, knives, stirrups and headstalls demonstrate the prominence of the horse in 19th Century Pampa. The custom of ornamentation highlighted the power and development the horse brought to a territory where, before its arrival, inhabitants traveled the vast plains on foot. 

“[…] one thing is the Indian on foot, whom we know of because of the first chroniclers; another is the Indian with a horse. The native settler of the pampas was the one who better resisted conquest attempts. The cause of this was not solely his indomitable nature, his courage, his greed and his ability to become accustomed to the landscape. The true cause was that the Indian of the pampas was an Indian on a horse. He was a rider. And what a rider and what horses!” states Alvaro Yunque in the prologue to Fronteras y Territorios de las Pampas del Sur (Frontiers and territories from the South of the pampas), of Alvaro Barros.
 
Lucio V. Mansilla wrote in Una excursión a los indios ranqueles (An expedition to the Ranquel Indians), published in 1870: “The horse of the Indian is unique. It was trained in a way that combined tameness, strength and speed, which made him unbeatable […]. We believed that the extraordinary characteristics of this animal were due, in a large extent, to the particular respect that the Indian felt for him [...]. It was, above all, his friend. Around it, he created a true culture, in which the use of silver was deeply involved”.

This friendship typified the image of the pampas, and the horse reached a status of his own: “Horse’s bones and teeth were part of grave goods […] while, in other parts of America, people lived surrounded by Chinese silk and porcelains”, comments Ruth Corcuera in Herencia textil andina (Textile Inheritance of the Andes).

This gallery displays silver pieces used by caciques to lustily decorate their horses, and manufactured by the same goldsmiths that worked their wives’ jewelry. Silversmiths in Argentinean and Chilean Patagonia designed different patters, some floral, and others with less ornamentation.

The horse and the woman indicated -depending on their ornamentation- the cacique’s status and hierarchy. A cacique riding his horse on the plain, covered in his jewels and followed by a numerous group of women, with the sound and sparkle of their silverwork, seemed to be a common striking image narrated by the chroniclers of the pampas.    

The horse and silverwork modified the landscape and enabled commerce with the Creole world. As Raúl Mandrini refers to in Los pueblos originarios de las regiones meridionales en el siglo XIX (The native settlers of the meridian regions of the pampas): “The relation between both societies, which had known moment of extreme violence and periods of relative peace, had an impact on the lives of native settlers by introducing new products, goods, unknown economic, social and political practices, other beliefs and ways of thinking to their customs, which were soon incorporated and adapted to their interests and life conditions [...] native settlers transformed their economy, their sociopolitical organization and their belief system.”

Bibliography:
- Claudia Caraballo de Quentin, De los metales precolombinos a la platería pampa
- Ruth Corcuera, Herencia textil andina, Fund. CEPPA, Buenos Aires, 2010
- Raúl Mandrini, Los pueblos originarios de las regiones meridionales en el siglo XIX
- Lucio V. Mansilla, Una excursión a los indios ranqueles, Buenos Aires, 1870. http://es.wikisource.org/wiki/Una_excursión_a_los_indios_ranqueles