"California:  The land of fruits and nuts, steers and queers!"  ~~~ Anonymous

"We roped anything, anytime, anywhere...with a serene disregard for consequences..."   

                                                                                 ~~~~~ Attributed to Arnold Rojas

"Our cattle are all sold, Vaquero; Our bags are filled with gold, Vaquero

Don't let your heart grow cold Vaquero, the moon she will be shining tonight....

A senorita sighs, Vaquero...with a love light in her eyes, Vaquero..."  Roy Rogers, "Vaquero"

Above:  Some pretty damned happy vaqueros californios.  The Fandango c. 1873 by Charles Christian Nahl, collection of The Crocker Museum

  Los Osos by Old Cowdogs Silver   

 There are Californios...and then...there are californios.

Above:  The real deal(s).  The original Sons of the San Joaquin: Arnold "Cheif" Rojas, and Ernie "God" Morris...because yes Virginia...there is a God...and it's him....and Luis Ortega.  The originals.  You ran into these guys on the streets of Bakersfield, you took your hat off, stepped aside, asked - ASKED - if you could shake their hand...  Multi-generation californios and prodigious authors whos works documented and captured the stories and history of the Californio ranchos, buckaroos and vaqueros of an era past....  Rojas' books are now out of print....hard to find....expensive as hell.  Ernie Morris' books are still in print, and required reading for any self-respecting buckaroo: www.elvaquero.com .  Rojas and Ortega have been dead for years; The Man Morris is a fixture at vaquero/buckaroo events... Rosita Petit Marvel, wife of Tom, beautiful calfiornio who's grandfather's Rancho Callegueas was one of the few Spanish Land Grants made to a Spanish Don by the US; he was famous for his white Camarillo horses Rosita and her sisters rode in parades.  The family portrait of a legendary Nevada and California ranching dynasty: The Marvels: Tom, Rosita, Tommy, Mike, Joe, Sally, Pete, Suzy and Amy.

Before we dive into the current crop of The Self Annointed Californios, we thought we'd remind you...that before Red Bluff...before  DVD's and Big Medicine Bull Ropings and www.thecalifornios.com , there were these guys:  

http://www.loscalifornianos.org/index.html

You didn't hear much about them because they were always....out there....working.  Many of them made the prerequisite forays into Nevada, Oregon and Idaho where they were usually disdainfully referred to as "prunies", from "the land of fruits and nuts...steers and queers".  Feel the love!  Some stayed on with their raving packs of marauding head dogs; some went back; some...who weren't shot on sight...gravitated back and forth.  They became fixtures on the buckaroo circuit. Sometimes they caught a lot of flak for being who they were and where they were from, but most of them....made the grade....some....raised the bar a notch.  Dog packs or no dog packs.  Some of them, by Spanish parentage and blood, directly related to the Anza party...thus making them true californios by birth and heritage; some of them, related by blood to The Chief himself, Arnold Rojas....  Others, true californios by right of birth into multi-generational cattle ranching families of the richly fertile San Joaquin Valley or the lava rocked Modoc country.... 

We pause a moment here, to let you see them....and hear their names:

Father and son: from original Spanish stock dating back to ancestors who rode with the De Anza party, 8th and 9th generation Californios Bill and Cody Howe, now based out of Winnemucca, NV.  Bill's uncles Sam Howe and Dan Castro were friends with Arnold Rojas.  Bill buckarooed on the Tejon, The Land Company, the Hearst Ranch, Rancho San Fernando Rey (where he was fired for punching the foreman in the nose at the same time Bill's dog Reggie bit his boss in the ass), the Chiminez, Rudnicks, Mee Ranch (California Land and Cattle Co.), for John Lacey and his grandfather and father worked for Miller and Lux.  Cody's uncle Buddy Montes and Buddy's cousin Leonard Montes were descendants of Montes' who were born on the Tejon Ranch reservation.  Cat Montez, Leonard's father married Arnold Rojas' daughter.  Vicente Montez, Buddy's father was the last chief of the Tejon Indians, and he buckarooed his entire life for the Tejon Ranch. Bill and Cody - pictured here at a cowcamp at the YP Ranch in Nevada...

Below: Cody Howe, snakin' one on 'em at the YP in Nevada....

Bruce Negri, John Estill, George Lawrence and Roy Shannon, Clovis, CA in the 1980's...Calorvada Cowboys contract crew.  Negri, Estill and Shannon were familiar sights in Nevada, Oregon and Idaho and worked on numerous big outfits from the IL to the Gamble; Estill's father Jack ran the HC Ranch out of Likely; son John had Soldier Meadows and now ranches out of Eagleville.

Two Rein Jane: The famous Markus photo.  A flippant californio baquera rumored to be somehow connected with this website...but if you believe that...well....we'll sell you a hotel in Tonopah with a giant green iguana, included at no cost....  In the late '70s and throughout the 80's she was the Poster Girl for The Whole Californio Look Goin' On.  A shirttail cousin to the Howes on her Spanish father's side, the Marins, who came into Mexico from Spain, and were also with the Anza party, and probably hung out with Arnold Rojas' predecessors as well as the Howes' - the Berrelleza's.  In other words, inbreeding...a californio specialty....

Pat and Deb Puckett - Pat is an awesome californio style horse trainer, respects the traditions....has a great sense of humor....and keeps losing his car keys in the oddest places. 

Tsk tsk tsk Pat..what's we to do with you....  Or as someone else quipped: Nah, he's just placing a reata in there to curl.....

  "Damn. They were in here yesterday...."

Pretty shadow:  John Harrison, another californio who did the Nevada circuit in the 1980's.....

The Californio Buckaroo is a gaudy, gorgeous and garish type, a mostly serious, very often arrogant, over-the-top, money-is-no-object, mega-traditionalist. Thought to be extinct until just recently - this type was just another shotgun chap wearing, rubber horn wrapped rodeo cowboy who ran around groveling at the feet of Benny Guitron – they suddenly became “reincarnated” sometime in the mid to late ‘90’s after having multiple religious-like epiphanies reading Kurt Markus’ Western Horseman articles on buckaroos. They are presently going full bore re-claiming their turf, their traditions and their egos. Former and present haunts include The Tejon Ranch, the HC, Miller and Lux, Flournoy’s, the Niles Hotel and Saloon; this type has been also sighted in Visalia and at the Truck America truck stop out of Bakersfield at the foot of the Grapevine on 99 (but those seen there should not be confused with one of Buck Owens’ buckaroos).

"I found a function for the long fringe on the california armitas! The other day my chicago screws fell out of my snaffle bit while i was riding and I used the fringe to fix it up, and then I was riding that gray horse in the hackamore and the strap (headstall thing) kept getting in his eyes and if only I had the 42" fringe on my gwynn weavers* (armitas) I'd have been able to run the line under his chin and hold it out of his eyes with out tieing four of my fringe pieces together. Too bad I guess...."   ~~~~~ M**********

Armitas - the creme de la creme by Tim Shatraw of Sacred Heart Saddlery, Hitching Post Supply and Carlos Macias of Lost Buckaroo.  No self-respecting Ernie Morris worshiping, Arnold Rojas ape-ing, Gwynn Turnbull Weaver ass kissing, Buck Banana Bread groupie and shufly swishing Californio would be caught dead without a pair..but then...neither...would we.  And you know what they say: the longer the fringe...well...the shorter the...never mind. 

Left: For the Californio who has it all...when money...and sanity...are no object: when you want Sheila Varian...eating...out of your hands...and John Estill...pays your tab at the Niles....you have a pair built with the Great State Herself emblazoned on the side.  Eat your heart out, Arnold Rojas.  It gets no forked-er than this. Right: We pause to roast ourself: our fringe...may actually be longer...than yours?  Armitas given to us as a gift from Sacred Heart Saddlery.  To complete The Look: howabout some to die for Angora saddle pockets to pack salsa with you....

If you want 20 inch fringed armitas, 30 inch tapaderos, $1,000 North Valley Hat Co. made to order flat black vaquero hats trimmed in gray satin ribbon with Frank Hansen stampede strings, hours of serious lectures on horsemanship enough to make you gag and enough Jeremiah Watt, Leon Gage, Larry Fuegen, Les Iveson and Mark Dahl silver inlaid and plated gear to be visible from the space shuttle, look no further. When Californios go to Mass, instead of lighting candles for Mom and Father O’Malley, they light them for the Dorrance Brothers, Joaquin Murrieta and Arnold Rojas. Their hats are the classic Californio style: black with either beige or gray ribbon binding - a style that Nevada Types were into before this latest reincarnation of Left Coast Cowboys.  Their tapaderos are longer than long, perhaps a mere five inches off the ground if they are riding the typical California sawed off Quarter Horse. The record length shu-flys hang from their mane hair cinches and the longest Luis Ortega riatas swing from their hands, but reportedly, some of the shortest male appendages swing elsewhere; note that although widely spoken of, this anomaly has not been verified.

If accosted by a Californio they are easily placated if you remember to insert the word brio into your conversation several times, being mindful to roll the “r”. Never comment on their back cinch - remember, its only a figment of your over-active imagination - and if they prod you, say something like “Nice centerfire you're riding there”. Observe closely as their demeanor quickly softens, their eyes glaze over, they get that faraway look in their eyes and swell up like a toad.  Name dropping should always include Dave and Gwynn Weaver, Ernie "God" Morris, “Father” Pat “Punchy” Puckett, “Monsignor” Martin Black, “Friar” Richard Caldwell, Arnold “Chief” Rojas, Duane Rossi, the Roesers, John Estill, John Lacy, Henry Miller and the Harris Ranch.  And of course, Buck Branaman, or Brahman, or Banana Bread, whatever.

Californios are big into manana.  It usually takes them till the next day to finish coiling up their 95 ft reatas.  What, me hurry?:  is their mantra.  They don't particularly work well with others in a profit-driven outfit as they are usually too busy perfecting their over the left shoulder double-triple overhand six coil de la lookout you suckah that they will throw fifty yards out in order to try and snag some unknowing calf at a branding.  In the old days (that is anything before 1990) Californios were regularly seen making the Nevada circuit and those who weren't run off for being complete jackasses, stayed with some form or consistency (that being anything over four weeks).  But those were pre Weaver years - and the mystique had not quite sunk in west of Reno.  Most big outfit desert ranches paid little attention to these types...mostly because...that was all they really deserved....and them that deserved more...didn't give a rat's ass.  They just out rode and out roped everybody else....

Dave Weaver, pre Californio stage, when he was 'just' a buckaroo in Oregon...but he actually originated in Idaho, like Clark and Brian Morris, who ended up in Nevada with Claude Dallas and as we know, Dave Weaver was there too, but did Oregon for awhile but should be technically called an Idaho Clan Type, even though he was in Nevada and Oregon but now passes for a Californian, where he met wife Gwynn Turnbull Weaver, diva of www.thecalifornios.com  Another confusing linebreeding story, yes....  

This type today, when not gazing contently at their crisply pressed white-shirted image in a silver inlaid hand held mirror or a reflective pick up truck window, can be found at the Californios Ranch Roping and Stock Horse Contest sucking up to Gwynn Turnbull Weaver and Ernie Morris, the Red Bluff Bull and Gelding Sale, Rancho Santa Margarita Ranch Roping, Paso Robles Gathering, the Monterey Cowboy Festival or the Descanso Vaquero Show. They are frequently seen at Buck "Banana Bread" Branaman clinics and Peter “Soup” Campbell flat hat fests. They are found as far south as the San Diego area; central valley and the central coastal areas are ‘hotspots’, and they range as far north as Modoc County where they can be found on ranches near Susanville, Likely, Alturas, Ravendale and Madeline. More areas that one is likely to run into a Californio, or a replica thereof, include Templeton, Bakersfield, Taft, Weed, Lancaster, Bishop, Willows, Lone Pine, Big Pine, Fish Lake Valley, Coalinga, Hollister, Salinas, Visalia, Tollhouse, Fresno, Paso Robles, Ft. Tejon, Lee Vining, Mariposa, Bridgeport, Onyx, Dos Palos, Turlock, Porterville, Coalinga, Termo, Orick, Red Bluff, Dunsmuir, Quincy, Mojave, Willits, Biggs, Cantil, Inyokern, Marysville, Tehachapi, Santa Maria, Arvin, Santa Clarita, Gorman, Taft, Buttonwillow, Shoshone, Searles Valley, Eagleville, Gorman, Santa Barbara, Camarillo, San Juan Capistrano, Lake Crowley....to name a few spots...

Ricotti Saddle, straight up single rigged Californio style - yup, there ain't' no back cinch on that suckah...no squaw tits...and no stinkin' Cheyenne roll, neither....

Some Tejon Ranch branding pics...my my..note the marked absence of "The Californio Costume" here...what, no vest?  No stampede strings?????  Yeah, well they all don't look like they stepped out from under the lights at Red Bluff, but they get'er done, too..Mike Echeverria and Dale Cummins stickin' it on 'em...