Richardw, you have a point about the cattle drives in relation to the gold fields. I was objecting to the laying of hands solely on Texas for cattle drives. "By old songs," I was referring to the old ballads (Child material, etc.), 18C or earlier, that were preserved in the areas of old settlement. I should have written more clearly.
Speaking of British Columbia and Canada, I get questioning looks when I mention the Hawaiians working as voyageurs. Most people in B. C. know about the Hawaiian carpenters that helped build Fort Langley, and helped in the Hudson's Bay trading efforts, but not elsewhere. And, of course, the Hawaiians working for the Spanish in California in the hides trade.
And the first cowboys outside of Louisiana and the Spanish areas were those in Hawaii, Mexican vaqueros rounding up cattle left on the Big Island by Vancouver and others (pre-Gold Rush days).
Lots of stuff for which we have, in our culture, no or few preserved folk songs. (Whoopie-ky-yi-yo may be LA French according to some scholars, but was more likely vaquero range communication)