The Cowboy Lifestyle
You can buy the style. The spirit is passed down, and the rest has to be earned.
There is the costume, and there is the man inside it.
We all know the costume by heart: the hat, the boots, the buckle, the neckerchief snapping in the wind. You see it in advertising, on festival stages, in the aisles of big-box stores. It sells well. It's easy to copy. And it says almost nothing about what it covers.
Because the cowboy was never just a silhouette. First and foremost, it's a trade: one of the toughest there is, poorly paid, lonely, carried out in freezing cold and in 104°F (40°C) heat alike. It's also a way of standing in the world: a word that's as good as a contract, a door never opened halfway to a passing stranger, a respect for cattle and land that has nothing sentimental about it and everything to do with necessity. And finally, it's a culture, with its own language, its songs, its poems recited aloud around a campfire, its codes that nobody ever wrote down and everybody knows.
This culture didn't freeze in place when the great cattle drives came to an end. It is still at work every morning, on ranches in Nevada, Texas, and Alberta, and, closer to home for us, in riding arenas across Europe and on breeding farms in French-speaking Switzerland. It crossed borders without being watered down, because it never depended on the scenery but on a state of mind.
And that's where things get complicated, in the best possible way. Behind the most reproduced image of the 20th century lies a reality that is harsher, more diverse, and more alive than the legend ever let on. The reality of men and women whom the screen long left in the shadows. The reality of a culture we think we know but have never truly looked in the eye.
The cowboy lifestyle is everything that remains once you take off the costume.
It's what is passed down, lived, and earned. And it's what this series invites you to discover.
✦ This series is part of a larger undertaking: several themes are being explored at once, with research and writing always underway. New articles are added regularly, so come back and take a look. To keep up with everything new, head to The Gazette, which gathers the latest updates, or sign up for the newsletter to get them delivered straight to you.