~ FRONT ~

• The Lariat Dance

~ BACK ~

• The Lariat Dance
  

TRANSCRIPTION: All cowboys have to be more or less skillful with the rope known in some locations as the lariat or reata. The most expert users of it in the world are the Mexican cowboys, or vaqueros. They practice from childhood, and when grown up and working as full-fledged vaqueros on a ranch, are always playing tricks on each other with the reata. Like all Mexicans, the vaqueros like to go where there is music and dancing, and from a trick some of them had of flourishing their lariats about the “baille,” was evolved the famous lariat dance. As done by an expert in full vaquero costume, every muscle responsive to the music of the half-breed orchestra, he keeps his reata in the air all the time, cutting queer and intricate figures with it. A clever and unusually active comedian who saw this dance and determined to master it had to practice continuously for six months before he could imitate it.