The Cowboy and Chili Pepper is 4½ inches tall and made of polymer clay. The Cowboy is wearing a red hat with tan band, tan shirt, blue pants and tan boots. He is playing a fiddle like instrument. There is a large red chili pepper behind him with a green stem on the top. Select this link to view our Western Christmas Ornaments.
Chili Peppers.
The chili pepper, chilli pepper, or more simply just "chili", is the fruit of the plants from the genus Capsicum, which are members of the nightshade family, Solanaceae. Even though chilis may be thought of as a vegetable, their culinary usage is generally as a spice. The name, which is spelled differently in many regions, comes from Nahuatl via the Spanish word chile. The term chili in most of the world refers exclusively to the smaller, hot types. The mild larger types are called bell pepper in the United States, Canada (and sometimes the United Kingdom), sweet pepper in Britain and Ireland, capsicum in India and Australasia, and paprika in many European countries. Select this link to view our Santa in a Cowboy Boot.
Cowboys.
During the 16th century, the Conquistadors and other Spanish settlers brought their cattle raising traditions as well as their horses and cattle to the Americas, starting with their arrival in what today is Mexico and Florida. The traditions of Spain were transformed by the geographic, environmental and cultural circumstances of New Spain, which later became Mexico and the southwestern United States. In turn, the land and people of the Americas also saw dramatic changes due to Spanish influence. Select this link to view our Cowboy Santa.
The arrival of horses was particularly significant. Horses quickly multiplied in America and became crucial to the success of the Spanish and later settlers from other nations. The earliest horses were originally of Andalusian, Barb and Arabian ancestry, but a number of uniquely American horse breeds developed in North and South America through selective breeding and by natural selection of animals that escaped to the wild. The Mustang and other colonial horse breeds are now called "wild," but in reality are feral horses, descendants of domesticated animals. Select this link to view our Gingerbread Cowboy.
As English speaking traders and settlers moved into the Western United States, English and Spanish traditions, language and culture merged to some degree, with the vaquero tradition providing the foundation of the American cowboy. Before the Mexican American War in 1848, New England merchants who traveled by ship to California encountered both hacendados and vaqueros, trading manufactured goods for the hides and tallow produced from vast cattle ranches. American traders along what later became known as the Santa Fe Trail had similar contacts with vaquero life. Starting with these early encounters, the lifestyle and lingo of the vaquero began a transformation which merged with English cultural traditions and produced what became known in American culture as the "cowboy". Select this link to view our Cattle Skull on Wagon Wheel.