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Film, Video Rancher Les Stewart Explains the Strategy for Sorting the Herd

About this Item

Title

  • Rancher Les Stewart Explains the Strategy for Sorting the Herd

Names

  • Stewart, Leslie J. (Narrator)
  • Fleischhauer, Carl (Interviewer)
  • Wilson, William A. (William Albert), 1933- (Interviewer)

Created / Published

  • May 9, 1981

Headings

  • -  Maps
  • -  Ninety-Six Ranch
  • -  Activities
  • -  Buckarooing
  • -  Cattle sorting
  • -  Ethnography
  • -  Motion Pictures

Genre

  • Ethnography
  • Motion Pictures

Notes

  • -  Les Stewart diagrams the 96 Ranch's strategy for parting and sorting the herd.
  • -  Les's description of how to part cattle mixes technique and protocol. In 1983, as he watched this segment in the Library of Congress exhibition The American Cowboy, he joked that he ought to show it to the foremen and buckaroos on a couple of ranches in the valley. He said he had recently observed the men on one ranch parting cattle in disorderly fashion, with shouting riders pushing into the bunched cattle willy-nilly.
  • -  Les uses the word "rodera" to refer to the group of bunched cattle from which specific categories of animals are segregated. The term has currency in Nevada; some buckaroos pronounce it "rodeer." The term is derived from the Spanish rodear, meaning "to surround," also the source of rodeo. Usage of prada, parada, or paratha varies. Here Les uses the term to name the group of animals, often dry cows, cut from the rodera. Clues to this usage and derivation may be found in Jo Mora's Californios (Mora 1949, 90-93). Mora describes early nineteenth-century rodeos--a kind of publicly administered roundup--in Spanish California in which small rancheros parted their stock from the larger holdings of the missions. According to Mora, the cut herd was called an apartado. This term is derived from the Spanish apartar, meaning to set apart or separate, and a cognate of English part. Alternatively, the word may be derived from parar and parada, meaning "to stop" and "stopping place."
  • -  Les said that parada can also name a group of horses, a meaning reported by folklorist Gary Stanton after interviewing other cowboys from the region. One former mustanger told Gary that he had used tame horses to lure wild horses into a trap, and called the bunch of tame animals a parada. (Personal communication from Gary Stanton, August 13, 1984)

Medium

  • 3/4 inch video

Call Number/Physical Location

  • AFC 1991/021: NV81-VT1

Source Collection

  • Paradise Valley Folklife Project Collection (AFC 1991/021)

Repository

  • American Folklife Center

Digital Id

Online Format

  • video

Rights & Access

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The Buckaroos in Paradise collection includes copy photographs of numerous historical still photographs, works of art, and other objects that are owned by the families or individuals identified in bibliographic records for those objects. The collection also includes audio and video interviews with individuals who consented to the inclusion of these selections here.

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Credit line

Paradise Valley Folklife Project collection, 1978-1982 (AFC 1991/021), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Stewart, Leslie J, Carl Fleischhauer, and William A Wilson. Rancher Les Stewart Explains the Strategy for Sorting the Herd. May 9, 1981. Video. https://www.loc.gov/item/ncr002410/.

APA citation style:

Stewart, L. J., Fleischhauer, C. & Wilson, W. A. (1981) Rancher Les Stewart Explains the Strategy for Sorting the Herd. May 9. [Video] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/ncr002410/.

MLA citation style:

Stewart, Leslie J, Carl Fleischhauer, and William A Wilson. Rancher Les Stewart Explains the Strategy for Sorting the Herd. May 9, 1981. Video. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/ncr002410/>.