Abstract:
This article is about Tales of the
Pampas, a collection of short stories written and published by William
Bulfin in 1900. The book refers to the Irish settlers within the “porteño”
country, their days and works. My critical approach concerns language and
cultural interrelations between the Irish, the natives, and the South
American melting pot, exploring their behaviours, their attitudes and their
words. I point out the curious fact that Bulfin’s literary speech becomes
a strange mixture of Irish-English and Spanish. It was a slow process in
which bilingualism preceded biculturalism.
In Tales
of the Pampas –we read– Bulfin reissues Sarmiento’s antithesis
proclaimed in Civilización y Barbarie (1845): Barbarism (represented by the
countryside) vs Civilization (city), Natives vs. Europeans.
In a way the story of the language
and literature of the Irish in Argentina is the story of the Irish in
Argentina.
Within the context of the last period of
Irish migration to Argentina –which, in fact,
can be traced back to the Colonial epoch of our history, with its
highest point during and immediately after the Great Famine (1845-1850)– a
collection of short stories was serialized in “The Irish Argentine” and
“The Southern Cross”, Irish migrants newspapers. Eventually, in 1900,
the stories were published in book format under the title Tales of the Pampas, by William Bulfin.
Who was the man? The Mercier Companion to Irish Literature entry states:
Bulfin,
William (1864-1910), journalist,
was born in Derrinlough near Birr in County Offaly, and educated in Birr,
Banagher and Galway Grammar School. Emigrating to Argentina in 1884, he was
a pampas cowboy for four years before becoming a contributor to and eventual
editor of the Southern Cross
(sic), a paper run for the Irish community in Buenos Aires. Returning to
Ireland in 1902, be became a strong supporter of Arthur Griffith and
traveled about Ireland on his bicycle. The pieces written about his tours
for the United Irishman and Sinn Féin were collected in the slightly
misnamed Rambles in Eirinn (1907).
The book is nationalist, showing a strong bias against northern Protestants
and West Britons, and contains some of the unthinking anti-Semitism of the
day. He died at his birthplace.
Curiously, not a word is said about
Tales of the Pampas, his true
contribution to literature.
Let us add that he concluded his formal
education at the Royal Charter School in Banagher and at Queen’s College
in Galway and that in 1884 William and his brother Peter emigrated to
Argentina when the future writer was about twenty years old, and that they
stayed in Buenos Aires for twelve years. At the time the Bulfins stepped on
the country, their uncle, Father Vincent Grogan CP, was the Argentine
Provincial of the Passionist Fathers, a catholic congregation linked to the
Irish Community. The Passionist Fathers had (and still have) a Monastery in
Capitán Sarmiento (Carmen de Areco) next to San Antonio de Areco, one of
the principal centers of Irish settlers.
It was thanks to Father Grogan’s connections with
the Irish that the boys were able to start working in the “camp”, in
touch with their people and the “gauchos”. William Bulfin finally took a
position as a “capataz” in an Estancia owned by Juan Dowling (from
Longford) located in Ranchos (near Carmen de Areco). It was there that he
fell in love with Anne O’Rourke (from Ballacurra) whom he married in 1891.
At this time he moved to town, but it is clear that this experience in the
country, close to the Irish, natives, and different kinds of migrants, gave
him the material for what became Tales
of the Pampas.
In Buenos Aires he taught English, worked
as an employee for H. C. Thompson, a furniture maker, and started
contributing articles and stories to “The Southern Cross”. Founded in
1875 by Fr. Patrick Joseph Dillon, “The Southern Cross” became the true
thermometer of the relations of the Irish Argentineans and their descendants
with the local society. Bulfin was soon sub-editing the paper and quickly
became both proprietor and editor. It was in The
Southern Cross that in 1902 he wrote: “And now I am off for a change,
to look for the excitement of a sea-voyage (...)”. The result of this was
his best known and best-selling book, Rambles
in Eirinn, where we can find references to his South American
incursion.
Back in Ireland he got involved with the
nationalist cause, mainly with the language question. And although he wasn’t
a regular Gaelic speaker, he shared the idea that language was intrinsic to
identity and, in fact, he had financially helped the American Gaelic League
through The Southern
Cross:
“(...) what
surprised and heartened them was the support that the League received from
the Irish in South America, the Irish of Buenos Aires led by the editor of
its Irish immigrant paper, the Southern
Cross (1875–), William Bulfin. The Gaelic League would, in turn, shape
and focus Bulfin’s cultural nationalism.”
Bulfin’s personal interest in
language concerns our subject and since it is a leit-motiv in Tales of the Pampas we will go back to it further on.
In 1904 he returned to Argentine where he
was conferred with the papal title of Knight of Saint Gregory for what he
had achieved in favor of the Irish Catholic community. In 1909, he left
definitely and that same year he sailed off to the United States tying to
interest wealthy Irish Americans in founding a Sinn Féin newspaper. He
failed.
After a few months in Ireland, he died in
February 1910.
Tales
of the Pampas was published in
London, in 1910, by T. Fisher Unwin for the series which included other “exotic”
books like The Ipané, by R. B.
Cunninghame Graham; In Guiana
Wilds, by James Rodway; A Corner
of Asia, by Hugh Clifford; Negro
Nobodies, by Noël de Montagnac
and Among the Man-Eaters, by John
Gaggin. These titles are enough to give an idea of the publisher’s
intention. (Some people believe that it was Robert Cunninghame Graham who
introduced Bulfin to the publisher). Bulfin’s collection belongs to the
same literary tradition of Anglo-Argentine writers such as Cunninghame
Graham (1852-1936) and William Henry Hudson (1841-1922) but he differs from
them in his concern for language and strong literary intention.
The book consists of eight narrations:
“A Bad Character”: the story of Sailor John, “a deserter from the crew
of a British merchant vessel” who “was a knockabout, or camp atorrante”,
very unpopular among Irish, Gallegos and natives; “The Enchanted Toad”,
a funny story of the fantastic that Maureen Murphy links to Mark Twain’s
“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”;
“El High-Life”: an effective tragedy rich in symbolic elements with the
following melting-pot performers: Basques, Spanish, Irish and Criollos; “Castro
Telleth of Tavalonghi’s Horse”: a wonderful short piece of Bildungsroman
and a song to the horse as symbol of freedom, with “The Defeat of Barragan”
as a sequel which concludes with “Campeando”, perhaps the weakest in
spite of the significant and polemic last lines: “If you’re always stuck
with the natives behind the galpon
(sic) instead of attendin’ to your good name, you’ll be sent with them,
and you’ll get into their ways, and the day’ll come when the dickens a
decent man in the country will have anything to say or do with you”; “The
Fall of Don José”: a very funny story in which we learn that “In the
camp, any man who speaks English is an Inglés” and “The Course of True
Love”, the best story in the collection: an account of a humorous love
story which concentrates Bulfin’s best components of his writing: colorful
descriptions, credible characters, strong verisimil dialogues, humor and an
effective structure.
The stories were serialized neither with
additional explanations, nor footnotes. When the book was released
publishers did not consider a preface necessary. In relation to the local
series, nothing of this was necessary since Bulfin was addressing the
Irish-Argentine community whose language was the one the writer was
conveying.
Who were these Irish? In her brief and
clear Introduction to the second edition of the book, Susan Wilkinson gives
the proper answer:
The Irish who emigrated to
Argentina in the mid 19th century, at the time of Bulfin’s tales, were
essentially from the midland counties of Westmeath, Offaly and Longford.
Like Bulfin, most gravitated to the pampas where so many of their countrymen
were establishing themselves in sheep and cattle farming and where wages
were high and land prices low. The “seven parishes” alluded to in “The
Course of True Love” were most likely the towns around Salto in the
province of Buenos Aires –Carmen de Areco, San Antonio de Areco, Navarro,
San Andrés de Giles, Chacabuco, Chivilcoy and, of course, Salto itself.
Once inhabited by Indians and beyond the pale of European settlement, these
towns attracted Irish immigrants– so much so that the Irish had their own
schools and their own churches with priests sent out from Ireland.”
The other characters are members of the
South American melting pot –mainly Italians and Spaniards, but also
Basques and British– turning up on the pampa at the time the gauchos were
vanishing. The wire fence –introduced by Richard Newton in 1845 and
expanded by Francisco Halbach ten years later– is certainly a symbol of
the limitations the gauchos were going through. The book is clearly written
in the tradition of realism. However, the gaucho and his situation provide a
somewhat romantic atmosphere.
Andrew Graham–Yooll wrote that the
stories “were so well received that The
Review of the River Plate declared them far better and more up-to-date
than the writings of Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham”. The editor of the
Buenos Aires Herald also gives his
own opinion:
“The fascination of Tales
of the Pampas lies in that many a descendent of Irish stock will
recognize their own forebears in these tales. Honest farmers, struggling to
make a decent living and give their families a future, come face to face
with congenital rogues, thieves, fantasists and a gallery of colourful
vagrants. The clash and contrasts of cultures and customs is told always
with underlying humour, and the recreation of the language of origin is
constant brain-teaser”.
The historical context in which the
stories by Bulfin are settled is that of the modernization of Argentina, the
successful attempt to become
part of the wealthy civilized world. Led by General Julio Argentino Roca –head
of the extermination of the Indians in what was called the “Campaña del
Desierto” (a genocide to others)– the visible face of this process was
the so-called “Generación del ochenta”: a prominent ruling class
inspired by the European-inspired ideas of Juan Baustista Alberdi and
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento. It was in this process that the liberal credo,
the development of political parties and the European immigration were
promoted. In more than one way Tales
of the pampas reissues Sarmiento’s antithesis proclaimed in Civilización
y Barbarie (1845): Barbarism
(represented by the countryside) vs. Civilization (city), Natives vs.
Europeans.
In this singular collection of
short stories related to the Irish-Argentine people working in the Buenos
Aires “campaña”, country or “camp”
Bulfin reproduces Irish-Porteños’ way of speaking, which results a mix of
Irish-English, Spanish and certain Gaelic voices. His
stories show that the Irish were doing with language what they had already
done with their lives, namely they were trying to adapt it to their new
situation. The aim of what comes next is to show in what way this
happens and what social and cultural implications are revealed by the
linguistic phenomenon conveyed by Bulfin.
“The Course of True Love”, the
last (and best) story of the collection, opens with a series of
considerations on the Irish settlers; let us focus on the ones related to
language:
“(...) Exile
has, of course, modified some of their idiosyncrasies and accentuated
others. The wilderness has taught them some of its mysteries, has sharpened
some of their senses and faculties that would in other conditions of life
have remained comparatively dull; has, to some extent, increased their
natural sensitiveness and deprived them of some of their spirituality, as
well as taken the corners and angles off their Celtic mysticism. Spanish
phrases and idioms have inflected the English which they habitually use; but
the brogue of Leinster and Munster has remained intact. Spanish and Creole
customs have, in a greater or less degree, insensibly woven themselves into
their life; but they are unwilling to admit this, and their struggle to
preserve the traditions of the motherland is constant and earnest. (...).
The writer affirms that exile
modified “some of their idiosyncrasies and accentuated others.” Although
he does not give further information on this, and since “idiosyncrasy”
means a particular way of thinking and behaving, it is understandable that
the moving to a different culture must have modified certain ideas on human
relations and behavior. A gregarious attitude seems to have been the easy
and regular attitude of those migrants: this is what we guess reading Bulfin’s
stories and what can be found in chronicles; it is ratified when the author
assures that the Irish settlers were surpassed by the strong influence of
the native “idiosyncrasy”, a violent force able to deprive them “of
some of their spirituality, as well as taken the corners and angles off
their Celtic mysticism”. And because the writer believes that language and
identity are linked, he points out that the process admits a linguistic
correlation: “Spanish phrases and idioms have inflected the English which
they habitually use; but the brogue of Leinster and Munster has remained
intact.” As Susan Wilkinson writes:
“Bulfin delighted in the midlands
brogue of his fellow countrymen’s speech, and he strove to reproduce it by
his pen as it fell upon his ears. “Wan” means “one”, “wance” is
“once”, “tay” is “tea”, “yez” means “you” (plural) “sez”
is common for “says”. The “t” in the middle of a word is frequently
thickened as in “sthraight” for “straight”, etc. while “d” at
the end of a word is often pronounced as a “t”, such as “beyant” for
“beyond”. “When”, “men”, “them”, etc. are written as they
were pronounced (“whin”, “min”, “thim”). Some of his phrases are
old English and are no longer or rarely used, such as “for the nonce”,
meaning “at the moment”, “for the particular purpose” and “without”,
meaning “outside”.
In spite of the fact that Bulfin
does not refer to the Irish language, the volume is invaded by solitary
Irish words threading through the English speech. It is curious that the
Irish tried to preserve their identity by protecting themselves with the
language which was actually not their own.
Let us see a few examples:
“Musha the dickens a doubt, Misther Tim Shannahan, yerself and your
frog!”. (Page 41).
“What the dickens
are you lookin’ at, you snakin’ undherhad bocaugh?”.
(Page 43).
“I’m going over to
Joe Hagan’s to give him a hand to coort that garrahalya he’s afther, and I won’t be back until late”.
(Page 137).
“Don’t be goin’
gabblin’ an’ makin’ an oncha
of yourself whin we go over to Dooley’s,” (...). (Page 138).
“It’s Julia that
will have somethin’ to say to it wan way or t’hother. Eh, Julia, alannah,
what would you say to gettin’ an offer of a fine presintable rock of a
husband?”. (Page 146).
But compared to the Spanish ones that
regulary sprinkle the stories, not many words of Irish (gaelic) origin can
be found in the book. This is symptomatic of a deeper experience: that of
the speakers who in a slow but inevitable process were been possessed by the
language of the new land; it also explains the weakening of the Gaelic,
finally dropped.
Mainly referred to camp activities, gauchos, their sayings and habits, a range of about
forty Spanish words (sometimes misspelled) contribute to enrich the
linguistic melting pot:
“The dirty
blackguard! to go away like that, and quien
sabe (sic) if he hasn’t taken some of my things with him.” (Page
22)
“Francisco was
behind the counter when I went into the pulperia
(sic), an to see the grin on that crooked ould
Gallego’s face when he bid me good morning, would make you sick.”
(Page 23)
“You consider it
strange, eh? Ah! but my companero
(sic), (companion), ‘did I not say that the horse was an animal the most
intelligent? And, all the same, this Tavalonghi’s bayo had never demonstrated any surpassing cleverness.” (Page
76).
“ ‘Entre
bueyes no hay cornadas,’ he corrected with a smile, quoting the
time-honoured pampa refran (sic). (Page 81).
“Beardless boys in alpargatas,
whose riding gear would not sell for a dollar, called “pago” (translated
as done) for fifty cents; and they called each other “señor,” and “compañero,”
and “amigo” with as much style and swagger as their elders showed in
arranging for bets of $ 50 or more.” (Page 84).
“Alpargatas” went through two
stages: a) Originally a trade mark, it became a synonym of a local slipper;
b) Bulfin incorporates the word to his Irish-English text.
Note in the two following lines the
typical rhetoric Spanish questions stuck into the English sentence:
“That’s it, compañero;
but do it softly, eh? and do it
soon. (Page 85).
“What an early start
the old bayo wanted to make, no?
(Page 93).
The speech is gradually invaded by
the Spanish language:
“Está
bien, señores, then!” (Page
95).
Including the famous porteño vocative:
“Who was he, che?”
(Page 115).
“La
gran siete! Don Tomás, what intelligence!” (Page 124).
I wonder did Bulfin know the
meaning of this last porteño expression; he probably didn’t since it has
a clear sexual connotation the conservative Irish community he was
addressing would not take. (By the way, he drops the initial exclamation
point).
These samples show what the whole book
reveals: the slow but inevitable process of linguistic incorporation on
behalf of the Irish settlers, an operation that implied a social and
cultural interaction.
Due to conscious and unconscious reasons
it will be a very slow course, and for years it was the English in its
Westmeath version which prevailed. Bulfin himself explains this and his
writing successfully shows its different inflections, accents and
intonations:
“What’s that? In
the name of goodness can’t you spake in plain language and thry to make it
easy for yourself to get out what you want to say and make it easy for them
that’s listenin’ to you to understand what you mean?”. (Page 21).
“ ‘Good mornin’,
gintlemin,’ sez he in Spanish, ‘how goes it, Miguel? sez he to me.
“ ‘Purty well,’
sez I. ‘Have you any news? ‘sez I.
“ ‘No,’ sez he,
‘nothin’ sthrange, Miguel, sez he. I asked him to have a tot, and while
the Gallego was fillin’ it out for him, what do you think he doesn’t up
and ask if the sailor was around the place”. (Page 23).
“None of them knew
that he was stoppin’ at my house, or that the pot was mine, and I kept my
tooth on it, for I didn’t see any use in
cryin’ over spilt milk and makin’ a laughin’ stock of myself.”
(Page 28).
‘ “Give the dogs
plenty of grub, Delaney, and lots of wather three times a day. This red pup’s
name is Blunderbuss, and that brindled fellah there is Watch. Th’ other
fellah’s name is Sodger.”
‘ “All rigth!
Never fear. I’ll stuff them. Lave ‘em to me wud all confidence, Tim”.’
“Well, you’ll be
seein’ a frog, too, hoppin’ about the flure. Don’t molest him. Lave
him to himself. He’s an owld friend. If you intherfare wud him or
inconvanience him in any way, I’ll shake the livers out of you whin I come
back – d’ye hear?”.’ (Page
38).
“(...) don’t go
about the house like a gandher afther a sick goslin’ makin’ up to the
girl. Be as indepindent as if you were doin’ thim a favour, an’ carry on
just the same as if you didn’t care the bark of a dog whether they gave
you the garrahalya or not... are
you listenin’ to me, Joe?”. (Page 139).
‘ “Yis, it’s
thrue. Tom and me came to ax yez for Julia. I have the house ready beyant,
and I can go and see the priest any day–tomorrow mornin’ if it comes to
that. I’m ready to marry this minit, so I am, and I’ll take the girl if
she comes. If yez give her to me, well and good; ef not, thez as good fish
in say as ever was–I mane–no, I don’t mane that– I mane that I want
the girl–as I was tellin’ Tom– and as he sez to me–about it– ‘If
it comes to that,’ sez he, and I say the same–I don’t care the bark of
a dog whether I get the girl or not!”.’ (Page 146).
‘ “Let me out, Joe
– me mother’ll kill me. Well then– I’ll say yis, but don’t tell
nobody –oh! stop, will you; put me up and let me go home”.’ (Page
156).
Even nowadays Irish visitors are
surprised at the Irish-porteño’s brogue, their strong accent and outdated
locutions. The Irish community in this country became, then,
a kind of a linguistic Noah’s ark.
Words in Tales of the Pampas also show how the Irish migrants organized
themselves and how they managed to survive in a far off country, within a
remote culture, interacting with people who spoke a different language. It
was not easy. They preserved
their identity by preserving their Irish-English language. Sporadic
linguistic fissures gradually set up Spanish voices in what constituted an
analogy with what was going on in real life, namely the social integration
with Argentine people.
The opposition between Barbarism and
Civilization –perhaps the main or basic question in Argentine literature–
is clearly disclosed in Tales
of the Pampas, inhabited by the people who created the South American
Melting Pot, natives and gauchos included. “Fatalist”, “Scamp”, “Barbarian”,
“Bucktoe” and other words of negative connotation are regularly endorsed
to the gauchos. The confrontation between formal education and intuition is
one more relevant component that defines migrants and natives’ behaviors.
It is at the end of “Campeando” where
one of the Irish characters goes to the medullar question and attitude
towards the natives:
‘ “You’re gettin’
too much of the country into you, me boy– racin’, and bettin’, and
helpin’ the natives to cut each other to pieces, and galavantin’ round
the seven parishes suckin’ mate
an’ colloguerin’ with the gauchos– that’s all right while it lasts.
But you’ll get a bad name for yourself, take my words for it. (...)
“That’s all
collywest. Of course they sent you. If you’re always stuck with the
natives behind the galpon (sic)
instead of attendin’ to your good name, you’ll be sent with them, and
you’ll get into their ways, and the day’ll come when the dickens a
decent man in the country will have anything to say or do with you”.’
(Page 110).
Notes
of discord also crept into the Europeans relationship.
“This Tavalonghi he
was an Italian hide-buyer in Lujan (sic) ten years ago and he made a fortune
out of your countrymen, the sheep-farmers, buying their produce at half
nothing and selling it in Buenos Aires at high prices. He was a man of
ambition, and when he found himself wealthy he took the notion of going home
to his country to be a personage, no? They say when Italians go home rich
they become notabilities– count and princes and folks of that style. I do
not know if they become kins; but I have always heard it said that they buy
pieces of parchment which make them noble.” (Page 74).
In “The Defeat
of Barragan”, a story in which money and power are the main subjects, we
read:
“Horsemen arrived at
every momento from every direction– horsemen in picturesque finery,
horsemen in picturesque raggedness– whitebeards and youngsters,
stock-masters and workmen, Irish landowners and shpherds, criollo
rough-riders– all assembled to have some sport, to kill time, and, if
possible, to win one another’s money to the last quarter of a cent.”
(Page 82).
Even the Irish and British antagonism is
been transferred to the Pampa:
“What are you talkin’
about, you H-H-Hirish hass?’ sez the sailor”. (Page 32).
By reading Bulfin’s stories we learn
that ethical misbehavior mainly on politics and justice is a long story in
this country.
“To him (to Castro,
the gaucho) no more than to his fellows did a wire fence convey any idea of
the right of property: it merely constituted an impediment”. (Page 70).
“Why not? Does not
all the world know that Don Barragan is the best man to ask for information
about missing stock– being an alcalde?”. (Page 88).
“This fellow sent my
father to prison three years ago on false charge”. (Page 97).
“It was not law. It
was not morality. Psychologically it was the attitude of people who had
never seen justice come but from themselves”. (Page 98).
In this context where “ages of twisted
theology and warped religious tradition” mislead people, to the Irish
settlers the Catholic church appears to be the only true authority.
Tales
of the Pampas, by William Bulfin
should be considered an important literary document mainly because of its
social and cultural implications. Bulfin’s rendition of the Irish in the
Argentina countryside and their attitude towards society and reality through
a linguistic point of view becomes an original contribution to the
understanding of bilingualism. Presumably thwithout knowing it, through his
stories the writer was able to give an eloquent account of the Irish in
Argentina ate beginning† of the 20th century, a slow process in which
bilingualism preceded biculturalism.
