ARGENTINA+-+Culture

CULTURE OF ARGENTIN**A**
This site is all on the culture of Argentina. On this site there is information on Argentina's religion, art, music, people, festivals, language, and food.

Religious beliefs were deeply ingrained in the spirit of the Argentines. They were a prayful people. During the fight for independence, the battle flag of General Jose de San Martin carried the name and image of Buenos Aires patron saint, Martin of Tours. The Hungarian saint lived and died in France, his adopted country, and never visited Argentina. He was canonized (made a saint) for his work with the poor and downtrodden. About 90% of Argentina is Catholic. Other religions included Protestants, Judaism and Orthodox Christians.

Argentines enjoy many cultural activities. For instance there is ballet, opera, poetry, and symphony. The famous dance, the tango came from Argentina. Argentina is famous for it's tango music. The songs are usually dramatic, passionate, and sad. The songs are played on the violin, guitar, piano, and the bandonio. (The Argentine stile of the accordion.) A famous writer for the music of the tango is Jorges Luis Borges. Nobel-Prize Winner Garcia-Marques inspired him.

Argentina has many churches, statues, and monuments. They are all artwork because of the stain-glass windows; the statue and the monuments were created by the hammer and chizzle. (which is kind of like artwork) There are also a lot of museums in Buenos Aires.

In Argentina there are many kinds of festivals. There is the National Immigrant festival. It's about the immigrants all around the world. There is the National Gaucho festival. The Gauchos are just like cowboys. Carnival is the biggest of them all//.// It's like a giant parade. Everyone is in colorful costumes. There was once 80,000 people in six small streets celebrating Carnival.

In Argentina, most people speak Castellano. (It's Spanish with some Italian words thrown in.) The natives speak 17 different languages. Most of them were taught by the immigrants that came to Argentina from Spain trying to seek independence.



The main food of Argentina is beef because of all of the cattle ranches in Argentina. So most of the foods are steaks, stews, and roasts. (And tacos.) Italian foods are also popular**.** Noquis is one of them. It's Italian bread with sauce on it. The national drink is yerba mate which is a drink made from herbs in near by forests. There is also dulce de lecha, which is made of milk and honey.


 * THE SPORTS OF ARGENTINA**

Many here in the United States may not think of Argentina as a sports powerhouse, but they are well known of having one of the best Futball teams (soccer) and Pato teams in the world.

Pato, the Spanish word for duck. A game that was created in the 1700's. It used to be played in the Olympics. The team with the most points in eight minutes wins. The game is played on horseback. People have to use a large net and have your arm out stretched. People ride across a field the size of a football stadium with out letting the other team taking it out of your net. Back when the game was first invented they used a duck instead of a ball.

Futball, also known as soccer, is still played in the Olympics, was created in the 1800's by Alexander Watson Hutton, is still play everywhere in the world. In 1930 the world cup went to Argentina. A year later it was the most popular sport in the world. Then the women started to play it. It lead to the world's first futball team. In 1986 the streets were flooded with people waiting to see the game.