consider this unlikely. Early accounts Vaqueiros do not have a tradition of writing and therefore lack their own early written documents. The first specific written mention of the Vaqueiros is in 1433 CE in a receipt by the Count of Luna (es), detailing his payments to a group of Vaqueiros migrating to Laciana. 52 years later in 1485 CE, in a written account of attacks against Vaqueiros and their cattle, it is mentioned that the Vaqueiros consider themselves a people. Most of early written Vaqueiro history is recorded in civil cases brought up by Vaqueiros against discrimination, physical attacks, and land theft. Contemporary The drafting of Vaqueiru men has been a major early cause of assimilation of Vaqueiros into non-Vaqueiro society. During the Spanish Civil War, important Vaqueiro brañas were burned in the fighting, including El Puerto (Somiedo) and Torrestío (es) in Babia which burned in 1937. The first Vaqueiro Wedding and Festival was held in 1958. From the 1960s to the 1980s, the last of the nomadic brañas became sedentary. Although few entire brañas are still nomadic, transhumance still exists within the Vaqueiro community in Vaqueiro Territory. The Council of Vaqueiro Culture was founded in 2016 in the braña of El Pevidal in Salas and held its first Forum of Vaqueiro Culture that year. Demographics The exact number of Vaqueiros, in Vaqueiro Territory and abroad, is uncertain and the majority of the last estimates come from the end of the 20th century. An estimate from 1965 put the Vaqueiro population at around 15,000 in Asturias and another from 1980 estimated 6,448 Vaqueiros in Asturias. There are more Vaqueiros in diaspora than remaining in Vaqueiro Territory and there are estimated to be more Vaqueiros in Madrid alone. Transhumance Traditionally, the Vaqueiro people practice transhumance with their cattle, the , the Asturian Mountain cattle, but most Vaqueiros today have become sedentary and many have assimilated into non-Vaqueiro society. Vaqueiros spend the summer months in the summer brañas in the Cantabrian Mountains and the winter months in the winter brañas, closer to the coast of the Cantabrian Sea. Vaqueiro transhumance can be differentiated from non-Vaqueiro transhumance in that all Vaqueiros traditionally lived in the brañas year-round which they considered their true home and ancestral land where as non-Vaqueiro transhumant herders did not live with their families in their brañas which just served as seasonal pastures. Vaqueiros who live in the brañas further