So I’m watching The Magnificent Seven on TV last night, and I’m struck by the headwear. Specifically–why do Mexicans wear sombreros, and Texans wear cowboy hats?
Given two groups of people filling the same jobs, in the same climate, and the cross-cultural exchange that went on across the border–why would they wear different hats?
Possible answers:
a) It’s a movie thing–IRL old west, the hats really were interchangeable.
b) It’s a marketing thing–Stetsons weren’t sold in Mexico.
I am not a historian, but knowing a bit of culture of the late 1860’s up to the present from this area in Texas ( I am not sure where the Magnificent Seven story took place), I think it’s just a stereotypical way of telling the characters apart. Mexican vaqueros and Texan cowboys wore basically the same type of hats (though with some variances). If my history is correct, the Anglo settlers, who were brought it with special permission from the Spaniards and later the Mexican goverment, borrowed many of the attire worn by the ranch workers (vaqueros) in the South West.
The stereotypical hat found in westerns used by Mexicans is usually found in the Central to Southern region of Mexico.
Speaking from the ranch part of the Southwest, let me throw in my two bits or so.
According to my grandfather who would have been alive and spry at the time of the Magnificant Seven (if it were real) (I used to ask him questions like this when I was young and he was alive), the cowboy hat tends to be able to move faster than the sombrero. While there is a way of tying the sombrero firmly and while it shades better, and protects from vertical rain better, it did not “work” as well. It caught the wind far too much and it was markedly heavier to wear and tended to get in the way when swinging a lasso. So he said that most cowboys prefered the cowboy hat. He also suggested that American cowboys regularly worked in a windier environment than the vaquero. He said when the Vaquero worked further north for cattle outfits they would wear cowboy hats more often than not for work, but keep the sombrero for social situations (I have no idea if this is true or was just his memory).
Having done my share of work atop a horse, I tend to agree that the felt western hat is a good piece of gear.
From other things he said, he also implied that there was a certain amount of nationalism involved in what was worn. He said that no “American” would wear a sombrero and most Mexican at the time didn’t want to be confused with Yankees and they were hesitent to wear the cowboy hat.
The hat he never understood for a cattleman was the one the South American gauchos’ wore (wear). He claimed it made them look like “sissies”.