Bullfighting on the Border

Bullfighting on the Border: A Tale of Texan Rejoneadora, Georgiana Knowles

Charlie McCormick

I.

“If a bullfighter wants to be completely safe,” Georgiana tells me, “all she has to do is stand perfectly still. If she stands still, the bull will lose track of her and be distracted by something else. As long as you don’t move, the bull will run all over the arena and not see you standing right there in the middle of the ring.” It is a lot like life. It is safest to stand still and not draw attention. But it’s a sorry way to fight a bull, a disgraceful way, even, and certainly not a way to gain favor in any respectable bullring. Some would say that it is a sorry way to lead a life, too. Sooner or later, a well-lived life has to be noticed.

From the early1950s to the late 1960s, some dozen U.S. women—Georgiana Knowles among them—appeared in bullrings along the Texas/Mexico border, not as curious onlookers but as bullfighters of note. In the borderlands between the American Southwest and northern Mexico (Ciudad Acuna, Juarez, and Tijuana), these women bullfighters enjoyed brief but brilliant careers as toreras and rejoneadoras. Most were from Texas or spent a substantial amount of their life in Texas where fans filled border arenas to watch them perform.

The most accomplished of these women was Patricia McCormick. Joining her in the arenas was the flamboyant Bette Ford, from McKeesport, Pennsylvania. Equally important a member of this bullfighting cohort was the “Grace Kelly of the Bullring,” Patricia Hayes. But the most compelling of these women bullfighters is Georgiana Knowles. Georgiana is remembered as being one of the few rejoneadoras to distinguish herself in the bullring during this time. Born February 26, 1933, Georgiana made her debut in Juarez on September 7, 1952—and on August 2, 1953, she debuted in Mexico’s most important bullfighting venue, the Plaza de Mexico in Mexico City. She would fight there some six times over the course of her career.

For Georgiana and all of the women who fought bulls along the borderland, it was not easy being the first women form the US to become bullfighters. Perhaps the greatest insult came from Cristina Sanchez, the charismatic torera who vaulted to international fame during the 1990s in Spain and directly benefited from the borderland women’s earlier efforts. Sanchez indicated that she would like to bring bullfighting to the United States,[1] oblivious to the fact that the United States had its own tradition of women bullfighters. But Sanchez’s oversight was nothing that Georgiana and her bullfighting colleagues could control. Being noticed and being remembered are the responsibilities of different constituencies. The borderland bullfighters ran the risk of being noticed; the responsibility for remembering them fallsto us.

II.

In Greek mythology, Zeus disguises himself as a beautiful, white bull. In this form he seduces Europa and carries her off to Crete. In the 20th century, Georgiana became a modern incarnation of Europa, riding the bull to Mexico and a new life. Her seduction came by way of Tom Lea’s novel turned movie: The Brave Bulls. After seeing it, she could not get bullfighting out of her mind.

She was not the first young woman in the late 1940s and 50s to be seduced by the lure of movies such as The Sun Also Rises and The Bullfighter and the Lady. Most of these young women had never seen a bullfight, and for those who did, the experience typically ended their romantic notions of matadors and taurine glory. Georgiana would not be so easily dissuaded, but the obvious problem remained: how to begin? Georgiana did the only thing she could do: she spent time in Juarez, Mexico, with El Paso’s La Tauromaquia Society, watching the bullfights, going to practices in the arena in the morning, and enjoying the company of matadors and their peons de confianza at restaurants and bars at night. It was during one evening at Maxine’s, a popular restaurant for anyone interested in bullfighting in Juarez, that Georgiana met David “Tabaquito” Siqueiros, a talented banderillero for the matador Luis Peccuna. Georgiana and Tabaquito were immediately drawn to each other, she towards his knowledge of bullfighting and experience in the arena and he towards her vivaciousness and piercing green eyes. But admiration and eyes can only sustain a relationship for so long. Before long, their mutual interest turned into singular commitment as he chanced his own future on teaching her the art of rejoneo and she became his pupil.

Rejoneo has roots as far back as 45 BC when Julius Caesar introduced unarmed fighters into the amphitheatre to challenge bulls. Roman gladiators chased bulls from horseback until they became exhausted, at which point the fighter would jump from the horse, wrestling the bull to the ground by twisting its neck.[2] In the more recent past, rejoneo was the activity of aristocrats. From horseback, they could kill the bull that the peon, their servant, caped into place. Over time, as the aristocracy pulled back from public and visible shows of its power and dominance, the matador become the central and celebrated figure in the bullfight. The rejoneador did not disappear from the bullfight, but his role became a preparatory performance, showing horsemanship skills, to the matador’s central performance.[3] When Georgiana and Tabaquito began their training, this remained the primary role of rejoneo.

As an 18-year-old woman who wanted to make her mark on the bullfighting world, Georgiana originally practiced in the most popular way—on foot—but Georgiana never felt comfortable on the ground. At 5’4’ and 135 lbs., the cape was too heavy for her small frame to effectively manipulate it. Tabaquito (an again Mexican trainer who had a talent for working with horses) and Georgiana (a too-young North American girl) shared a quixotic a dream of bullfighting, but Georgiana’s size seemed to be working against her. Then, Tabaquito introduced Georgiana to the career of Conchita Citron, one of the most famous rejoneadoras from a generation earlier. Georgiana studied Citron’s life, reading books about her from the library. Together, she and Tabaquito decided that Georgiana should perform to her strengths; she could distinguish herself from the other emerging North American women bullfighters by showcasing her fearlessness on horseback as a rejoneadora.

Most rejoneadors fight in what is known as “Portuguese-style,” a reference to the huge, tooled leather saddles and decorative stirrup leather that enclose and protect the rejoneador, lifting him above the danger of the bull’s horns. The rejoneador’s horse was in danger of being gored, but there was little chance of harm befalling the rejoneador. Georgiana’s skill on horseback led her to adopt what she describes as a “Mexican-style” or “Charro-style” of rejoneo, an homage to the indigenous rodeo and horseman tradition of Mexico—the charro. She rode bareback, using only a sort of surcingle (a breast girth) to help her legs stay around the horse. Georgiana added a modified cape to her routine so that she alone, among all those who practiced rejoneo, worked the bull with cape from horseback before placing the banderillas and rejone.

The most famous rejoneador of Georgiana’s time was Gaston Santos who agreed to appear in the arena with her only once. The venue could not have been bigger: the Plaza de Mexico. He entered the arena in Portuguese-style and Georgiana remembers that it was a beautiful sight. But there was so much leather surrounding Gaston, he could not fall off if he tried. Then out rode Georgiana in Mexican-style, wearing a charro outfit she designed herself. The bull she faced looked twice as large as Gaston’s since she did not tower above it. Riding bareback, she looked into the bull’s horns where Gaston sat well above them. There she was, an American girl bullfighting Mexican-style. The crowd cheered Georgiana; they booed Gaston. It was the last time they would appear in the arena together.

III.

Georgiana is an animal lover. At 75 she describes herself as a bird-lady who can heal all manner of illnesses that beset birds. Yesterday, she might have been better described as a dog-lady and a horse-lady, since these animals were her constant companions. Her love of animals is never so evident as when she speaks of the horses she rode in the arena as a rejoneadora: Tony and Zarco.

Having settled on rejoneo as Georgiana’s best opportunity for success, she and Tabaquito had to find an appropriate horse. Tabaquito was fond of a horse owned by the mayor of Juarez, but he thought the horse might be too much for Georgiana. The mayor’s horse, Tony, was past his prime and so infrequently rode that he had become wild. Tabaquito suspected the mayor would be willing to part with the horse if Tony did not scare off Georgiana.

Tony acted predictably when Georgiana first met him. He charged, teeth bared, threatening to bite her, kick her, and run her off—but Georgiana stood her ground and $400 later, she owned Tony. Over the years, Georgiana’s affection for Tony grew. They were inseparable and relied completely on each other. Though they both suffered the inevitable scrapes, bruises, and knocks intrinsic to the sport, they took good care of each other. And then, in 1956, in San Miguel de Allende, Georgiana almost lost Tony.

The bullfight was proceeding as expected. Georgiana had placed the banderillas into the bull and was preparing to kill it. All at once, she realized that the bull’s horn had gored Tony’s right flank. It was difficult to know exactly how much damage had been done, but the blood she saw led her to believe it was serious. She rode Tony out of the ring and told the men helping her to bandage the wound and load him into the trailer. As quickly as she could, she mounted Zarco and dispatched the bull.

She immediately left the ring and started driving to Mexico City by herself. The wound was bad and she wanted a professional surgeon in the city, not a veterinarian, to see Tony. The surgeons determined that the bull’s horn had missed Tony’s stomach by less than an inch. Any closer and Tony would have died. Although they did not need to operate, Georgiana had to clean out the wound every morning, coating it with a special salve so it would remain open and heal from the inside out. When they saw healthy flesh, the surgeons bled the wound and sewed him up. And when Tony returned to the arena, he fought as fearlessly as before. Only something happened that night in San Miguel. It was the beginning of the end of Georgiana’s bullfighting career. In 1959, Georgiana would officially retire from bullfighting. The night Tony was gored, the night when Georgiana almost lost her dearest friend, was the night Georgiana had to imagine a life without bullfighting.

It seems odd, perhaps, that a woman who killed bulls would feel such a strong bond with a horse. It is not that she loved some animals and hated others. She loved the bulls too. She remembers that, initially, she was repulsed when she saw a bull killed in the arena. However, the more of an aficionado she became, the more she saw the bullfight as a means for the bull to become transformed, to transcend itself and its base existence as a bull. In the arena, facing death, the bull became a creature of significance, beauty, and portent. It mattered in a way that it simply could not if death were not circling the arena.

It was as true for bullfighters as it was for bulls.

IV.

Woman and bull. Victory and failure. Life and death. Erasure and remembrance. The bullfight is elemental in its structure and mythic in its themes. As such, it seems inevitable that it would arise as part of our human experience. But outsiders cannot help but wonder what makes a person—especially a woman in the 1950s—decide to become a bullfighter. This much is certain: bullfighters are called to be different; they are helplessly unsatisfied with the ordinary lives that most of us live.

In Georgiana’s case, it seems that the fates conspired to make her realize early on that she was meant to be different. As a child of 2 ½ years old, she was spared from what should have been certain death. By accident, her brother (only 4 ½ himself) set her nightgown on fire as they played with matches and watched the moon. Flames engulfed her body. Her father woke up and smothered his daughter in a blanket he grabbed from the bed, but the damage had been done. The doctors were certain that the child would not make it through the night. She has been told that she had to remain on her stomach for the next 8 months. She survived. The universe apparently had more plans for Georgiana.

Georgiana knows she was called for something different, and that is why bullfighting attracted her. When she speaks of her past, she invokes a recurring theme: the burden of life. She is not making a tragedy out of the events of her life; on the contrary, she identifies life’s burdens as providing the impetus to break routines, try new things, and lighten the burden of life. Georgiana does not try to suggest that her motivations are entirely comprehensible, but she can live with that ambiguity—more than the rest of us.

From inauspicious beginnings in the overlooked borderlands between the US and Mexico, a cohort of American women decided to become bullfighters. Their motivations for doing so and their experiences in the 1950s and early 60s are only partially known. We know something about their lives, but we have yet to fully understand what they did. We know where they were, but we have yet to comprehend from where they really came. And most importantly, we have yet to fully appreciate the way their lives yesterday shape our lives today. Remembering them is a good first step.

Notes

[1] Orlean, Susan. 2002 (2001). The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup. New York: Random House, pg. 292.

[2] Velten, Hannah. 2007. Cow. London: Reaktion Books.

[3] McCormick, John. 2000 (1967). Bullfighting: Art, Technique and Spanish Society. New Brunswick: Transaction.