A sport deriving from the 19th-century folk games of the American cowboy, particularly
as those games involved the work skills of roping and riding. Possessing the
characteristics of community involvement, celebration, and ritual, rodeo is perhaps the only true folk
festival to have sprung entirely from North American roots. While Wild West shows
were instrumental in its popularization, rodeo is unique among American sports in having
developed from the daily work of a manual-laboring occupation into a major spectator
and participant sport.
Just as much of the cowboy’s working methods and equipment derived from the
Spanish vaquero, so, too, rodeolike activities are first recorded, as early as 1792, in
Spanish North America. By the 1860s, and particularly following the onset of the great
Texas-to-Kansas cattle drives that followed the Civil War, exhibitions and competitions
of steer roping and bronc riding, the two most difficult and dangerous parts of a cowboy’s
job, became a common feature of range-country celebrations. The first modern rodeo was
held at Prescott, Arizona, in 1888, a Fourth of July event that featured cash prizes for
steer-roping and bronc-riding contests, engraved trophies for the winners, and an
admission charge for spectators. Canadian rodeo, developed around the turn of the 20th
century largely through American influences, is interchangeable with the American
version. The earliest Canadian “stampede,” as the sport is usually termed there, was at Raymond, Alberta, in 1902; the largest rodeo in Canada is the Calgary Stampede. Two of
the largest, most important rodeos in the United States are the Pendleton, Oregon,
Roundup and the Cheyenne, Wyoming, Frontier Days. The most prestigious rodeo,
however, is the National Finals Rodeo of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association,
held annually since 1959 and featuring the top fifteen contestants in each event.
A contemporary rodeo is generally composed of three rough-stock events and up to
five timed events. In bareback bronc riding, saddle bronc riding, and bull riding,
contestants must ride for eight seconds, with equal points being given for both the quality
of the ride and the bucking ability of the animal. Bareback riders use a surcingle called a
bucking rig; saddle bronc riders, an association-approved saddle; and bull riders, a loose
rope that is pulled tightly around the back of the bull; when released it is pulled off by a
bell, whose clanging adds to the spectacle of the ride. In the two standard timed events
(calf roping and steer wrestling, also called bulldogging) and the three optional timed
events (team roping, single-steer roping, and cowgirls’ barrel racing), winners are
determined by speed. A calf must be roped, thrown by hand, and three legs tied, while a
singlesteer roper must rope and trip the steer from horseback, then tie the animal before
he regains his feet. Team roping consists of a “header,” who ropes the horns, and a
“heeler,” who ropes the two hind feet. Contestants must “dally”—that is, wrap the tail of
the rope around the saddle horn after catching the animal—rather than tie the rope hard
and fast before roping. Barrel racers run a cloverleaf pattern around three barrels set to
form a triangle in the arena. Of these eight events, only saddle bronc riding and the three
roping events are derived from actual ranch work.
Early-day rodeos often featured a dozen or more contest events, many of them directly
related to ranch work: wild horse racing, wild cow milking, calf branding, relay racing,
and chuck wagon racing. Trick and fancy roping and riding, at one time contest events,
are now staged strictly as exhibitions. Earlier competitions for men and women were
separate, as they are in the 1990s, but until the time of World War II women’s events at
regular rodeos included bronc and steer riding, relay races, roping events, and
bulldogging. Today cowgirls compete primarily against one another in barrel races or in
roping and rough-stock events at all-women rodeos.
A feature of nearly all rodeos is the clown. In the early years of rodeo, when cows or
steers were ridden, clowns provided humor, but since the 1930s, when bulls were first
introduced to the sport, rodeo clowns have also performed a pragmatic function:
distracting bulls from fallen riders. This serious function difFerentiates die rodeo clown
from the clown figure in other folk groups or festivals.
As are many athletes, rodeo cowboys are subject to a number of superstitions. The
color yellow, for instance, is unlucky, as is eating peanuts at a rodeo or placing a hat on a
bed. Spitting in a hat just before a ride, on the other hand, is said to bring good luck. The
customs and language of rodeo are also distinctive. A “go-round” is one complete cycle
of competition at a particular rodeo, while the “average” is won by the cowboy with the
best combined score in all go-rounds. “Two wraps and a hooey” describes the tie made
on a calf’s legs, while “missed him out” means that a bronc rider has been disqualified
because he failed to spur the horse in the shoulders on the first jump out of the chute.
“There’s never a horse that can’t be rode and never a man that can’t be throwed” is a
traditional saying illustrating the spirit that led to the development of rodeo, a spirit
depicted in the story line of the folksong “The Strawberry Roan.” As rodeo has become more and more slick and professional, there has been a
movement, which began in the Southern and Central Plains, to return, through “ranch
rodeos,” to the type of cowboy folk games from which rodeo originally sprang.
Contestants (usually four to a team rather than individual competitors) are working
cowboys competing under the sponsorship of the ranch they work for and riding their
own horses or those of the ranch. The events, which vary from locale to locale depending
upon the ranching practices of that particular area, often include such things as calf
branding, wild horse racing, cattle sorting and penning, bronc riding (using a stock saddle
and both hands), cattle doctoring, and trailer loading.
James E.Hoy
References
Clayton, Lawrence. 1990. Ranch Rodeo: An Expansion of Ranch Life Ritual. Western Folklore
49:292–293.
Fredriksson, Kristine. 1985. American Rodeo: From Buffalo Bill to Big Business. College Station:
Texas A&M University Press.
Hall, Douglas Kent. 1973. Let ‘Er Buck! New York: Dutton.
Hoy, James F. 1978. The Origins and Originality of Rodeo. Journal of the West 17:16–33.
LeCompte, Mary Lou. 1989. Champion Cowgirls of Rodeo’s Golden Age. Journal of the West
28:88–94.
Stoeltje, Beverly J. 1989. Rodeo: From Custom to Ritual. Western Folklore 48:244–255.
Westermeier, Clifford P. 1947. Man, Beast, Dust: The Story of Rodeo. Denver. World Press.