"There, among the pampas ..." What is the pampas?

According to the writer Nadezhda Teffi, pampas were famous for their forests. And J. Rousseau, who proclaimed the famous slogan "Back to Nature," sometimes jokingly paraphrases: "Back to the Pampas!" Another famous character - the literary cine Ostap Bender paints tempting pictures of the exotic landscape. In his pampas, "the buffalo are running around ...", baobabs are growing and serious passions are raging between the pirate, the Creole and the cowboy. So, what does it mean - pampas? What are they unique about?

Mysterious Pampas of the Southern Hemisphere

On our planet there is only one place, combining a flat relief and a subtropical seaside climate, so this steppe spacious territory has become attractive to the colonialists of South America. This is the so-called pampa , bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and the Andes, covered with grassy vegetation. On the map, the pampas are a solid green spot on the territory of modern states - Argentina, Uruguay and a small part of Brazil.

Origin and meaning of the word pampas

What does the word pampas mean? Dictionaries give several different interpretations of his etymology. For example, the pre-revolutionary edition of the Dictionary of Foreign Words by A. N. Chudinov raises this toponym to the Peruvian language, in which he denotes a plain. Modern works of linguists and lexicographers are unanimous: pampas is a Spanish word, a plural form from the noun "steppe". And in Spanish, perhaps, it appeared as a borrowing from the Quechua language. Thus, the meaning of the word pampas is as follows: it is the name of a geographical object in the subtropics of South America, the totality of terrain on the plain, steppes, solonchaks. In their own way, these expanses are beautiful: for most of the year the pampas look like virgin soil, covered with dense tall grass. Apparently, therefore youth jargon has rethought this space in its own way. The expression "go into the pampas" has two meanings: "get drunk, lose your head" and "hide from sight, get lost to others, leave society".

A popular Internet resource "Electronic Pampas" contains wonderful literary works for children (of all ages!). What is the pampas in this case? It is a symbol of infinite space for creativity, games, adventures and fantasy!

History of the conquest of pampas

Before the invasion of the Spanish colonizers in the XVI century, life in picturesque pampas for millennia flowed peacefully and moderately, in harmony with nature. The local population - the Quechua Indians - was vigorously fighting against the conquerors, but despite the bitter resistance, European values were still planted, and local aborigines were exterminated. What is the pampas for the Indians? The vast expanses of the steppes, a unique natural world, fertile lands ... In the mythology of the indigenous population of South America, the pampas symbolized the infinity of life and at the same time its frailty, the insignificance of one living being before eternity.

During the last centuries of pampas development, the local flora became completely different, because for the European colonizers these steppes were another source of enrichment and future prosperity. The Spaniards brought with them not only the militant spirit and traditions of farming, but also cattle, mustang horses, which in South America had not existed until then. Now they also embody the spirit of the Pampas: grazing herds, the edge of the Andes, the grass on the slopes and the wide plain ... And somewhere, along a single known path, a gaucho rider, a descendant of Spaniards and Indians, gallops. Modern Criollo horses are also feral descendants of those legendary Spanish baguales.

Nature and climate of pampas

What is a pampas, will understand the one who in childhood had to play and hide in the tall grass. Only here is the endless boundless expanse covered with grassy grasses (feather grass, bearded fescue, fescue).

The territory of modern pampas occupies about 750,000 square meters. Km, it is slightly less than the area of Turkey. But this does not mean that the steppes in the basin of La Plata are completely overgrown with herbs. Closer to the Brazilian uplands, the climate becomes more continental, arid, mixed vegetation begins, resembling a forest-steppe with islets of evergreen bushes and man-made plantations (maple, poplar).

Protected Area

What are pampas for modern South Americans? A significant part of the land is occupied by farmland with crops of cereals and other crops, farms and pastures for cattle (especially in the Argentine part). But also the inhabitants take care of the well-being of the reserves - after all, the active activity of a person must be restrained, otherwise, by transforming the world around him, he can find himself in the desert. In the remote areas of the pampas, far from the roads, untouched islands of virgin nature have been preserved along the banks of the rivers.

The animal world of the pampas is made up of unique representatives of the fauna of our planet - the pampas deer, the rodents of nutria and viskasha, the Pampas cat, the Patagonian mara, the greyish wolf, the ostrich nandu, the armadillos, the scarlet ibis.

Trees in the pampa do not grow, rarely in the foothill part there are white mesquites (kalden).

The world famous was the pampas grass of the cortaderia. Due to the unpretentiousness and good adaptability to environmental changes, perennial was used as an ornamental plant. Bushes of the cottadier reach a height of three meters, they are long-lived - they can grow up to 40 years and even longer.