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Payadores Mendocinos Legend


A couple of Spanish troubadours and a six-year-old boy were travelling on a sailing ship. The ship sank on the Patagonian coast and the only survivors were two sailors and a boy whose parents had given him a guitar before a wave would take them to the bottom of the sea. They were taken prisoners by the Indians of the region and they lived several long years in the Indian village until the two men could escape.

The boy was brought up by an Indian woman, and he slowly began to love the guitar and the music. He became a good rider and he learnt to use the lasso with balls. He got to know the immense Patagonian tableland, and together with the Chief’s son, who had helped him to sweeten the hard years of captivity, he arrived to the present Mendoza land, singing a song in every hut. According to the legend, this boy, authentic son of the first Spanish troubadours who died in America, fraternal and sincerely joined to his Indian brother, formed the first pair of "gauchos payadores" or "payadores" who sang with a guitar in the southern valleys of Mendoza.