"In the French Camargue - the delta surrounding the mouth of the Rhone River and part of the southern "nation" of Occitania - the bull is a powerful icon of nationalism, literature, and culture. How this came to be - how the Camargue bull came to confront the French cock, venerable symbol of a unified and republican France - is the story told in this study. Robert Zaretsky considers how in fin-de-siecle France the young writer Folco de Baroncelli, inspired by the history of the American West, in particular the fate of the Oglala Sioux and other Native American peoples, reinvented the history of Occitania. Galvanized by the example set by Buffalo Bill Cody, Baroncelli recast the Camargue as "le far-west" of France, creating the "immemorial" traditions he battled to protect."--BOOK JACKET.