Review of \u3ci\u3eFlint Hills Cowboys: Tales of the Tallgrass Prairie\u3c/i\u3e By Jame F. Hoy

Jim Hoy, professor of English at Emporia State University, has ridden and written about the Flint Hills region of east-central Kansas since the 1970s. His earlier works include The Cattle Guard: Its History and Lore (1982), Prairie Poetry: Cowboy Verse of Kansas, with Vada Snider (1995), and a prequel to the present book, Cowboys and Kansas: Stories from the Tallgrass Prairie (1997). Hoy aptly describes his work as part memoir, part history, part ethnography. Moreover, this paean to the Flint Hills is my thanks to the land that has nurtured my life and nourished my soul. After introducing the reader to Flint Hills geology and sociology, Hoy rounds up his thirty chapters into five parts treating cowboys, cattle and horses, ranching, rodeo and other fun, and a rough country, the latter focused on criminals and crimes in the region. Each section blends bits of history (mostly without citations), folklore, tales (short, medium, and tall), poetry, and reminiscences from a wide range of Flint Hills inhabitants. Readers interested in any of the topics listed above anywhere in the Great Plains will profit by comparing their special region with Hoy\u27s. For example, we learn that In the Flint Hills the farmer and cowboy can be, and often are, the same person. Sounds a bit different from the range wars that raged elsewhere between sodbusters, cattle ranchers, and sometimes sheep ranchers. We also get vignettes of celebrities of the past, including Casey Tibbs, Lucille Mulhall, Bill Pickett, and, of course, William Allen White. My favorite sections of the book describe frontier pastimes, such as the venerable card games of pitch, pond fishing, early rodeo, and, yes, polo during the 1920s. Hoy also illuminates frontier dangers, such as prairie fires, conflicts, and the changes that gradually transformed the Flint Hills. Given his understandable boosterism, we can forgive him an occasional exaggeration, such as terming the region the best grazing land in the world. That honor surely would be contested by the rich pampas of Argentina. A few photographs, many more valuable for flavor than hard information, complement the text. After finishing Hoy\u27s paean, many readers will likely pull out an atlas and ask, Now, where do I fly into to visit this strange and wondrous land

Review of \u3ci\u3eThe Drifting Cowboy\u3c/i\u3eBy Will James \u3ci\u3eI See By Your Outfit: Historic Cowboy Gear of the Northern Plains\u3c/i\u3e By Tom Lindmier and Steve Mount

Will James (1892-1942) served as living proof that prison can reform a man. Convicted of rustling in 1915, he used his writing and drawing ability in prison to prove his social worth and rehabilitation. By the time alcohol abuse ended his life, he had illustrated and written twenty-four entertaining volumes. Most of James\u27s books have been long out of print. Thanks to joint efforts by the Will James Society (PO Box 8207, Roswell, MN 88202) and Mountain Press Publishing, all of his works will be reprinted. The Drifting Cowboy, first published in 1925, joins his first book, Cowboys North and South, in this welcome reprint series. Like the best of the cowpoke scribes, James understood how to tell an entertaining story. His folksy language, humor, and actionpacked pen-and-ink and charcoal drawings bring the sound and look of authentic cowboy life to the reader. James wrote the kind of stories that have entertained cowboys around campfires for more than a century. Some of his tales are autobiographical, but even the fabrications show an intimate, thoroughgoing knowledge of range and ranch life. This is not to say that one can read J ames as history. After all, he changed his name and created a new fictive birthplace for himself to hide his not-so-western origins in Quebec. James set his seven stories of Bill, The Drifting Cowboy, during the time he was writing. Thus instead of epic cattle drives, we get tales of early Hollywood westerns and rodeo. Bill also tries his hand at Desert Range Riding (he greatly prefers the Plains) . We also get the inevitable story of a great bronc rider who finally meets His Waterloo. The Drifting Cowboy never achieved the popular acclaim of Smoky (1926) or the semi-autobiographical Lone Cowboy (1930). Nevertheless, any fan of cowboy literature will enjoy riding along with James in this handsomely produced, welcome new edition. An added bonus for aging eyes is the book\u27s large, clear typeface. Texas cowboys get more than their fair share of attention from historians and other writers. I See By Your Outfit, with its focus on Wyoming cowboys, provides a welcome northern Plains counterpoint. The authors, both Wyoming natives, have scoured archives and libraries across the state to round up more than a hundred photographs \u27and catalog illustrations showing all aspects of cowboy dress and tack. The focus is the cowboy; women\u27s clothing gets a scant two pages. Far more than a mere picture book, I See By Your Outfit includes well researched and accurate written descriptions of nineteenth century hats, boots, and everything in between. The authors explain how cowboys came to call their yellow rain slicker a fish (an early brand name). We also get colorful asides, such as the fate of Big Nose George Parrott, a cowboy gone bad, hanged in 1881. Parrott\u27s skin was tanned and made into a pair of shoes worn by Wyoming\u27s first Democratic Governor, John Osborne, during his inauguration

Comparative Frontier Scoial Life: Western Saloons and Argentine Pulperias

In sparsely populated cattle frontier regions of the nineteenth century, only a limited number of social institutions functioned. The ranch, as a central socioeconomic complex, took on added importance. Ranch owners often took upon themselves political and legal powers exercised by civic officials in more settled areas. In the cattle regions of the American West and the pampas of Argentina, taverns were important local institutions. A comparison of social activities in the western saloon and the Argentine pulperi\u27a-a combination country store and tavern-reveals strong similarities. As frontier institutions, they served analogous multiple functions, and their cowboy and gaucho patrons behaved according to the norms of similar saloon cultures.