Arriero

A muleteer loading a pack horse in southern Chile

A muleteer, or more informally a muleskinner[1] (Spanish: arriero; Catalan: traginer) is a person who transports goods using pack animals, especially mules. In South America, muleskinners transport coffee, maize (corn), cork, wheat and myriad other items. They remain common in the Paisa Region (Antioquia and the Colombian Coffee-Growers Axis) of Colombia. In California, muleteers work out of pack stations. In Europe, there are still muleteers in the south of Portugal and the southwest of Spain, in the cork producing area. Their role is now limited to transporting the cork with their mules, out of the Mediterranean oak forest to more accessible routes, where modern means of transport are available.

Names and etymology

The English word muleteer comes from the French muletier, from Old French, from mulet, diminutive of mul, mule. The term muleskinner means someone who can "skin", or outsmart, a mule.

The Spanish word arriero is derived from the verb arrear, which means to urge cattle or other stock to walk. The verb itself is derived from 'arre', which is the call used to cry out to animals for this purpose. In English, an arriero is one type of muleteer, a wrangler of pack animals.

The Catalan word traginer comes from the Latin word tragīnare, a variant of tragĕre which means "to transport".

Arrieros (1836) by Carl Nebel; three Mexican muleteers attempting to move a heavily loaded mule

Outfits

Typical muleteer outfits vary from country to country:

The fictional Juan Valdez, brand representative of the Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia, is an archetypal muleteer carrying coffee sacks with his mule.

In Cormac McCarthy's second Border Trilogy novel, The Crossing, Billy's wolf upsets the muleteers' burros, which wreaks substantial havoc before Billy moves on.[2]

"Mule Skinner Blues" is a country music song first recorded in 1930 by Jimmy Rodgers, which has inspired may subsequent variations.

Monument to the Arriero in Envigado, Colombia

See also

References

  1. "Mule skinner | Define Mule skinner at Dictionary.com". Dictionary.reference.com. Retrieved 2015-06-01.
  2. McCarthy, Cormack. The Crossing. pp. 24–25 (Book Index 5).
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.