The Gaucho's Skill at Knife Throwing

A facón worn at the rear of the belt.

The following excerpt from Lewis R. Freeman's "On the Pampas,”  an article in a 1920 issue of Living Age magazine, describes the Argentinian gaucho's fabled skill at throwing his facón, a large knife carried for fighting and general tasks, much like the bowie.

The danger zone encircling a gaucho with his knife in his hand is by no means limited to the circle he sweeps with his extended arm. I am not sure just how far it does go, nor have I the least desire to find out. I heard, however, a crack revolver shot, a man who could blot out the spots on a ten of spades at a dozen paces, say that he would be extremely reluctant to take his chance at a draw-and-let-go with a gaucho at any distance under twenty yards. An illuminative case in point came to my attention in Buenos Aires. As a class the American agricultural machinery experts sent to Argentina are as handy with six-shooters as any I have ever met. They are mostly Westerners, have used revolvers from their childhood, and their arms, from which they never separate themselves for a moment while in campo, are always of the best and latest pattern.

Not once or twice, but on dozens of occasions, have I seen one or another of these men with his Colt's or Mauser 'automatic,' after a preliminary shot or two to get the range, bowl over a rabbit running at full speed across the pampa. This is good shooting, as will be appreciated by anyone who has had experience of the revolver. Yet the case I have in mind is that of a threshing machine expert from Texas - a crack shot - who had trouble with his Argentine maquinista [machine operator], had an even break on a draw at twenty-five or thirty feet, and was retired from action with a knife through his shoulder before his revolver was clear of its holster.

My own experience of the gaucho's skill in knife-throwing, though not as serious, was quite as convincing as the one I have just detailed. It chanced that a man at an estancia [ranch] I visited was famous for his skill in this particular, and one day I was ill-advised enough to admire the marvelous deftness with which he was plotting out the outline of a human profile upon the woodwork of a threshing machine by chucking his facón into it from a distance of eight or ten feet. He acknowledged my compliments with a characteristic gaucho bow and smile, but assured me that what I had seen was nothing, since it required no exercise of nerve on his own part nor that of anybody else; but if I would do him the honor to walk off about fifteen paces and hold up the little piece of paper I saw on the ground there, he would perhaps be able to show me a feat that was really worth while.

I walked meekly off as directed, but with a sinking heart, for I didn't need to be told that I was to hold that accursed bit of paper up while my blackbearded, careless-eyed friend tried to hurl his eighteen-inch-bladed knife through the middle of it without amputating my hand, and I was never so lacking in enthusiasm for any proposition in my life. Courage to hold the thing up I knew I had -- that was a small matter -- but I didn't want to hold it up, and of courage to refuse I had none at all. Besides, I had admired the fellow's skill, and he undoubtedly figured he was doing me no small honor in permitting me to be a party to his exhibition; to refuse to act the part of a passive foil would be, under the circumstances, an offence unpardonable.

Inwardly, I was in a terrible turmoil, but focussing all my attention upon the parts that showed, I managed to present a fairly unruffled exterior. The piece of paper I found to be a page from the popular Buenos Aires weekly, Caras y Caretas, measuring, I should say, about five inches by eight. This, after cramming my pipe in my mouth, I held out in one hand with all the appearance of nonchalance I could muster, but grasping no bigger a piece of the corner than was absolutely necessary to keep it from fluttering away. With my free hand I scratched a match; then nodded what was intended for an indifferent acquiescence in response to the gaucho's interrogation as to whether or not I was 'listo,' and at the moment when the knife went 'whicking' through the paper without so much as tearing its edges I was vigorously puffing away for a light. I continued to puff until my match went out before I discovered that I was trying to light an empty pipe. For the next two weeks I had 'facón' nightmares every time I dropped off to sleep.

This little incident, in no consequence of itself, was the immediate cause of another that resulted more seriously. It appears that scarcely had I left the harvesting outfit to return to the estancia house, when one of the Italian hands declared that he, too, was an expert in knife-throwing, and called for a volunteer to hold up the paper that he might give proof of his skill. The gauchos and Argentine peons laughed at his pretensions, but an English sailor, who had deserted his ship in Bahia Blanca to take advantage of the high wages paid in harvest time, foolishly walked over and held up the punctured sheet. Probably he did not appreciate how difficult a thing the feat really was. If he had, after the Italian had missed the paper by a foot the first throw, he would have seen he was dealing with a novice and withdrawn before it was too late. As it was, the knife, at the second trial, struck the unfortunate fellow upon the inside of the wrist, tore its way through bone and sinew, to leave the hand hanging by only a few shreds of flesh and tendon. We saved him from bleeding to death with a tourniquet, but the hand, of course, had to be sacrificed.

More on gauchos and their knives here.

The Gaucho and His Knife

The following sketch of the South American gaucho comes from Monte-Video, Buenos Ayres, and the River Plate (1845), by General O'brien. If the portrait seems intended to be unflattering, it is nevertheless redolent of romance; the gaucho sounds like the quintessential hero of an American Western.

The readiness to shed blood--a ferocity which is at the same time obdurate and brutal--constitutes the prominent feature in the character of the pure gaucho.

The first instrument that the infantile hand of the gaucho grasps is the knife--the first things that attract his attention as a child, are the pouring out of blood, and the palpitating flesh of expiring animals. From his earliest years, as soon as he is able to walk, he is taught how he may with the greatest skill approach the living beast, hough it [sic], and if he has the strength, kill it. Such are the sports of his childhood--he pursues them ardently, and amid the approving smiles of his family. As soon as he acquires sufficient strength, he takes part in the labours of the estancia; they are the sole arts he has to study, and he concentrates all his intellectual powers in mastering them. From that time forth he arms himself with a large knife, and for a single moment of his life he never parts with it. It is to his hand an additional limb--he makes use of it always, in all cases, in every circumstance, and constantly with wonderful skill and address. The same knife that in the morning had been used to slaughter a bullock, or to kill a tiger, aids him in the day time to cut his dinner, and at night to carve out a skin tent, or else to repair his saddle, or to mend his mandoline. With the gaucho the knife is often used as an argument in support of his opinions. In the midst of a conversation apparently carried on in amity, the formidable knife glitters on a sudden in the hand of one of the speakers, the ponchos are rolled around the left arm, and a conflict commences. Soon deep gashes are seen on the face, the blood gushes forth, and not unfrequently one of the combatants falls lifeless to the earth; but no one thinks of interfering with the combat, and when it is over the conversation is resumed as if nothing extraordinary had occurred. No person is disturbed by it--not even the women, who remain as cold unmoved spectators of the affray! It may easily be surmised what sort of persons they must be, of which such a scene is but a specimen of their domestic manners. Thus the savage education of the estancia produces in the gaucho a complete indifference as to human life, by familiarizing him from his most tender years to the contemplation of a violent death, whether it is that he inflicts it on another or receives it himself. He lifts his knife against a man with the same indifference that he strikes down a bullock: the idea which everywhere else attaches to the crime of homicide does not exist in his mind ; for in slaying another he yields not less to habit than to the impulse of his wild and barbarous nature.

If, perchance, a murder of this kind is committed so close to a town that there is reason to apprehend the pursuit of justice, everyone is eager to favour the flight of the guilty person. The fleetest horse is at his service, and he departs certain to find wherever he goes, the favour and sympathy of all. Then, with that marvellous instinct which is common to all the savage races, he feels no hesitation in venturing into the numerous plains of the pampas. Alone, in the midst of a boundless desert, and in which the eye strains itself in vain to discover a boundary, he advances without the slightest feeling of uneasiness--he does so watching the course of the stars, listening to the winds, watching, interrogating, discovering the cause of the slightest noise that reaches his ears, and he at length arrives at the place he sought, without ever straying for it, even for a moment. The lasso which is rolled around his horse's neck; the bolus suspended to his saddle, and the inseparable knife suffice to assure him food, and to secure him against every danger--even against the tiger. When he is hungry, he selects one out of the herd of beeves that cover the plain, pursues it, lassos it, kills it, cuts out of it a piece of flesh, which he eats raw, or cooks, and thus refreshes himself for the journey of the following day.

If murder be a common incident in the life of a gaucho, it often also becomes the means to him of emerging from obscurity, and of obtaining renown amongst his associates. When a gaucho has rendered himself remarkable by his audacity and address in single combats, companions gather around him, and he soon finds himself at the head of a considerable party. He ‘commences a campaign,’ sets himself in open defiance to the laws, and in a short time acquires a celebrity which rallies a crowd about him.