Cowboy describes an occupation in societies with cattle ranching but also, and more importantly, an American cultural image. According to cultural anthropologist Lewis Hyde, the cowboy and the private eye "act out for us the drama of survival in land where man has no attachements. The cowboy and the detective survive despite lives of complete rootlessness, and they do it by fightign the lawlessness that is the necessary companion to the perfect freedom of strangers." (p, 68).