A buttero is a shepherd

Shepherd

A shepherd is a person who tends, feeds or guards flocks of sheep.- Origins :Shepherding is one of the oldest occupations, beginning some 6,000 years ago in Asia Minor. Sheep were kept for their milk, meat and especially their wool...

 or cowboy in the region of Maremma

Maremma

The Maremma is a vast area in Italy bordering the Tyrrhenian Sea, consisting of part of south-western Tuscany - Maremma Livornese and Maremma Grossetana , and part of northern Lazio - Maremma Laziale .The poet Dante Alighieri in his Divina Commedia places the...

, in Tuscany

Tuscany

Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....

 in the Northern Latium

Latium

Lazio is one of the 20 administrative regions of Italy, situated in the central peninsular section of the country. With about 5.7 million residents and a GDP of more than 170 billion euros, Lazio is the third most populated and the second richest region of Italy...

 and in the Pontine Marshes

Pontine Marshes

thumb|250px|Lake Fogliano, a coastal lagoon in the Pontine Plain.The Pontine Marshes, termed in Latin Pomptinus Ager by Titus Livius, Pomptina Palus and Pomptinae Paludes by Pliny the Elder, today the Agro Pontino in Italian, is an approximately quadrangular area of former marshland in the Lazio...

.

The buttero habitually rides the horse

Horse

The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

 typical of the Maremma, a Maremmano

Maremmano

The Maremmano is a breed of horse originating in the Maremma area of Tuscany and Lazio in Italy. Traditionally a hardy working horse used by the Butteri for livestock management, it is today principally a saddle horse...

, and tends livestock

Livestock

Livestock refers to one or more domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to produce commodities such as food, fiber and labor. The term "livestock" as used in this article does not include poultry or farmed fish; however the inclusion of these, especially poultry, within the meaning...

, especially cattle

Cattle

Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...

 (such as the native Maremmana

Maremmana

thumb|A Maremmana cow.The Maremmana is a breed of cattle reared in the Maremma, a prairie region extending in western central Italy from southern Tuscany to northern Lazio, usually in the provinces of Grosseto and Viterbo respectively....

 breed) and sheep. The characteristic saddle is called a bardella. The buttero's attire consists of coarse cotton pants, leggings, a velvet jacket and a black hat. He protects himself from the rain with a large mantle called the "pastràno". He carries the "mazzarella

Mazzarella

A mazzarella is a stick used to herd cattle , sheep, and horses in northern Italy.It is carried by a buttero, a cowboy or shepherd in the regions of Maremma, in Tuscany and in the bordering zones of the Northern Latium....

", a stick employed for herding oxen and horses.

They are still present in the memory of older Tuscans and in folk celebrations. On the day of Sant'Antonio Abate (January 17) for the benediction of the animals, they parade in the centers of Tarquinia

Tarquinia

Tarquinia, formerly Corneto and in Antiquity Tarquinii, is an ancient city in the province of Viterbo, Lazio, Italy.- History :Tarquinii is said to have been already a flourishing city when Demaratus of Corinth brought in Greek workmen...

, Tuscania

Tuscania

Tuscania is a town and comune in the province of Viterbo, Lazio Region, Italy. Until the late 19th century the town was known as Toscanella.-Ancient times:...

, Marta and Valentano

Valentano

thumb|250px|View of Valentano.Valentano is a town and comune of the province of Viterbo, in the Lazio region of central Italy. It is 33 km from the provincial capital, Viterbo.left|thumb|220px|Rocca Farnese in Valentano....

. Butteri participate in the various fetes of the merca

Merca

Merca is a port city on the coast of southern Somalia, facing the Indian Ocean. It is the main town in the Shabeellaha Hoose region, and is located approximately southwest of the nation's capital, Mogadishu.-History:...

 in Alberese

Alberese

Alberese is a rural town in southern Tuscany, a frazione of the comune of Grosseto. It is situated 20 km south-east of the capital, in the heart of the Natural Park of Maremma...

, Blera

Blera

Blera is a small town and comune in the northern Lazio region of Italy near Rome, known during the Middle Ages as Bieda, an evolved form of its ancient name, which was restored in the 20th century...

, Monte Romano

Monte Romano

Monte Romano is a comune in the Province of Viterbo in the Italian region Latium, located about northwest of Rome and about southwest of Viterbo.-Main sights:*Civic Tower *Fontana del Mascherone...

, Tarquinia

Tarquinia

Tarquinia, formerly Corneto and in Antiquity Tarquinii, is an ancient city in the province of Viterbo, Lazio, Italy.- History :Tarquinii is said to have been already a flourishing city when Demaratus of Corinth brought in Greek workmen...

 and Tuscania

Tuscania

Tuscania is a town and comune in the province of Viterbo, Lazio Region, Italy. Until the late 19th century the town was known as Toscanella.-Ancient times:...

. In the merca held in April at the Roccaccia, not far from Tarquinia, after having branded the young calves born in the year, the butteri compete in games of ability.

Solemn participation in various celebrations of Jesus Christ's Passion

Passion (Christianity)

The Passion is the Christian theological term used for the events and suffering – physical, spiritual, and mental – of Jesus in the hours before and including his trial and execution by crucifixion...

 assumes particular color and vivacity in the procession of the Resurrected Christ held in Tarquinia

Tarquinia

Tarquinia, formerly Corneto and in Antiquity Tarquinii, is an ancient city in the province of Viterbo, Lazio, Italy.- History :Tarquinii is said to have been already a flourishing city when Demaratus of Corinth brought in Greek workmen...

 in the late afternoon of Easter

Easter

Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

. The mounted butteri precede the statue through the crowd, firing salvoes with their maremmana shotguns.

The life of the buttero of other times was not to be envied from a qualitative point of view: the hard job in the marshes of the Maremma began before dawn, with rounding up the herds on horseback. They would take a unique meal before midday:

We made loaf with bread and chicory accompanied (but not always) from a piece of ventresca or budellone. We picked up tomatoes, chicory, potatoes and ferlenghi for the acquacotta. At dusk, after the return to the barn, the only comfort was the rapazzola , a rudimentary bed, close to the beasts. The town was sometimes visited, for the inn, to warm up themselves with the wine of the wine cellar, to discuss livestock and to tune up a song "a braccio".

Roots in Northern Italian military history

The image of the military mercenary of the 14th and 15th centuries in Northern Italy (called cavalieri) riding in suits of armor wielding the mazza (mace) persists in that of the buttero. Many pastoralists of Northern Italy found better pay as mercenaries of the period, but when unemployed returned to their pastoral lifestyle. They brought back their accoutrements of battle and adapted them, whimsically, to their herding lifestyles.

Current roles in Italian society

With only 5 or 6 large herds still tended by butteri today in the unspoiled national park of Maremma (the rest of Italy's livestock largely raised by commercial concerns), the tradition of the butteri is still relived outside the park in small demonstrations in the region's rural towns and in the Italian equivalent of rodeo

Rodeo

Rodeo is a competitive sport which arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain, Mexico, and later the United States, Canada, South America and Australia. It was based on the skills required of the working vaqueros and later, cowboys, in what today is the western United States,...

s.

It is still possible to ride with the butteri as they check their cattle in the Parco Regionale della Maremma (Maremma regional park).

Buffalo Bill and the Butteri

In 1890, Buffalo Bill took his Wild West show to Rome and northern Italy (during his tour of Europe) to display cowboy skills, such as the capture of young cattle and the taming of wild horses. Unimpressed, the Italian cowboys (the butteri) challenged Buffalo Bill and his show to a contest of skill. As the story is told, the butteri proved far more experienced than the Buffalo Bill troupe and the national moment of glory for the butteri was savored for many years.

Remembrance

The first Sunday in August in Tuscany still provides an annual festival to commemorate the skills of the butteri.

Existence outside of Italy

Italian emigrants to California brought the tradition of the buttero with them, where they called themselves cavalcanti. They brought with them skills in rounding up large herds of cattle, usage of the lasso, and horsemanship.