"Mexican Raiders"
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Is that a Savage lever action?
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- Last Name: Bewley
Was the Sombrero worn more prominently back then?
Jim
Jim
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Yes. In photos of this period sombreros were extremely common and probably over half the rural Mexican men depicted wear them. I'd guess up to something like 70% did. Rurales wore them as part of their uniform.Jim Bewley wrote:Was the Sombrero worn more prominently back then?
Jim
You do see other broad brimmed hats however. Mexican federal troops seem to have worn a hat with a three or four inch brim routinely. Quite a few Mexican revolutionary officers wore brimmed hats with brims about that size. I almost think that these were "town hats" that were worn in part to show that they were educated men, rather than rural peasantry.
Poncho Villa, who in the poplar imagination is thought of as wearing a sombrero, almost never did or may actually never did. He always seems to have worn a felt cowboy hat the type you'd see north of the border. On the other hand, Emiliano Zapata always wore a sombrero.
Today they seem to be ornamental items only. I'm not sure what brought about the change but I wonder if the influence of the US had something to do with it, as today straw cowboy hats seem the rural Mexican norm, and whether the automobile had something to do with it, as it isn't a hat suitable for a person traveling in a car.