Puelches
Puelche (from Mapudungun: pwelche, meaning "people from the east") is one of the indigenous peoples who inhabited the Andean valleys of Chile and to the east of the Andes mountain range in what is currently Argentine territory, then called "Puelmapu" for the Mapuche.
It was not an ethnic descriptor, but a geographical location, which during the 19th century designated the gennakenk or gününa küne (read [gɨnɨna kɨnə]) and the Mapuche groups from the pampas. Previously also to other groups of the so-called "northern tehuelches" or "old pampas" (These are grouped in the "het" group, according to the Jesuit Thomas Falkner).
At the end of the 18th century, Abbe Juan de Molina reported that:
the pigs, who formerly formed an allied tribe of the Araucanians, now live united to their government, and have their own judges (...) In a Parliament of 1784 it was decided that the Puelches and Pampas Indians who fall to the north, from Malargüe and Mendoza borders, to the Mainilmapu, in the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, forming all a body with the Puelches and Pehuenches of Maule, Chillán and Antuco. They all form a Butalmapu.
By that time, it is estimated that this ethnic group had been decimated by plagues and epidemics and the survivors were highly acculturated by the Mapuches, so that in the 17th century XIX The Puelches were a mixogenic group made up basically of Gününa Küne culturally mapuchized or Araucanized.
Guénen-a-kéne (Gününa küne)
In the 16th century, the Mapuches began to expand into the Pampas region. The Mapuche used the names Tehuelches (chewelche 'nomadic people') and Puelches (pwelche 'people of the east') for several of their the ethnic groups of this region somewhat inconsistently. Among the groups that called Puelches, the most important in the eastern part of the Pampas region were the gününa küne (also called gennakenk, gününa-këna, günün-a-këna, etc). The Gününa-Këna especially occupied the banks of the great rivers of northern Patagonia, and spread through the territories to the north of Chubut as far as the province of Río Negro, continually incursing through the south of the current province of Buenos Aires and through the southeast of the Province of La Pampa.
After these events came the extermination campaigns promoted by white settlers,[citation needed] who wanted the lands of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. The decisive wars against the nomads of the region were the wars of the Pampas, carried out by the Argentine Army against Mapuches and Patagonians between 1879 and 1883. After the collapse of indigenous resistance, colonization by white settlers took place. The processes derived from this colonization brought the various ethnic groups to the brink of extinction, living in isolated and dispersed communities, mainly in the middle and upper basin of the Negro River and the Limay. The southern limit would be the Senguerr River, only occasionally reached by the Gününa Küne. From 1898 onwards many reserves were created, most of which were claimed by the government in the 1960s, although two of them still exist. These reserves are not large enough for the indigenous population to continue their way of life. traditionally as hunters, which has led the Indians to seek low-paying jobs as laborers on nearby farms.
The geographical area of the gününa-kéna was constantly reduced, after the time of the Jesuit missions in which they were abandoning the areas located to the north of the Negro river basin.[citation required ]
The last speakers disappeared around 1960. Some of their descendants live dedicated to raising goats in the center-north of the Province of Chubut. In the 1950s Rodolfo Casamiquela collected a vocabulary, together with songs and sentences in this language, obtained from some Puelche elders, which is the basis of current knowledge of the language.
Old Pampas
"Pampas" It is the Quechua word that the Spaniards used to name different ethnic groups of indigenous people that inhabited the Pampas region of present-day Argentina. Chronologically, the pampas are subdivided into "old pampas" and "araucanized pampas"; the latter were the result of mixing the "old pampas" and the mapuches. The "old pampas" who lived to the north of their domain region, were called "querandíes" by their Guarani neighbors. According to Rodolfo Casamiquela, its correct name would be "tehuelches septentrionales boreales" (part of the Tehuelches), and the English Jesuit Thomas Falkner included them within a larger group that he himself called "het" (term that he used to name various tribes from the Pampas and Patagonia). The confusion of terms used to name the same native peoples of the Pampas region, is due in large part to the little contact that these tribes initially had with the European colonizers, and to the few vestiges that have remained of their culture: like almost the All of the Pampids were hunter-gatherers with seasonal transhumance, of tall statures and a dolichocephalic skull.
Thomas Falkner, in his work published in 1774, A description of Patagonia and the adjoining parts of South America, subdivided the Puelches into three large divisions: taluhets, diuihets and chechehets, although itinerant and by this with imprecise limits.
The Puelches, or Eastern Peoples (...) They bear different denominations, according to the situation of their respective countries, of because they were originally of different nations. Those toward the north are called Taluhets; to the west and south of these are the Diuihets; to the south east, the Chechehets; and to the south of these last is the country of the Tehuelhets (...)
In the 16th century the first of these three hets partialities (that is: the taluhets) inhabited, according to Falkner, in territories of the pampean region with the western limit on the Desaguadero-Salado river to the south of the Guanacache lagoons (where they bordered on the Huarpes), occupying territories corresponding to the current provinces of Córdoba (up to the Segundo river to the north), Santa Fe (central and southern sectors of Santa Fe), San Luis (southern sector) and province of Buenos Aires (northwestern sector); The didiuhets for their part inhabited most of the current province of Buenos Aires and the east of the current province of La Pampa while the chechehets mainly inhabited the eastern center of Buenos Aires province (Falkner's "het" classification has now fallen out of use. See Chon languages).
The remaining pampas of the Magdalena and La Matanza areas were gathered in 1740 in the Jesuit reduction of Nuestra Señora de la Concepción de los Pampas on the right bank of the Salado river in Buenos Aires, near from its mouth. The Jesuits Manuel Quirini and Matías Strobel were assigned to it and then Thomas Falkner arrived, sent there to study the possibility of establishing another mission further south. In 1744 Falkner, accompanied by a peon and six Pampas de la Concepción Indians, traveled to the Tandil sierras, where he designated a place to establish the reduction, but was prevented by the Indians. In 1753 the Concepción reduction was abandoned and the few pampas it had were dispersed among the Mapuches.
Their main food was guanaco, pampas deer and rhea, which they hunted using bows, arrows and boleadoras. They also collected roots and seeds and prepared alcoholic beverages. They lived in awnings made of skins and their dress was the quillango, made with guanaco skin. They wore leather moccasins and used to paint their faces according to the occasion.
In the area of Lake Nahuel Huapi in the province of Río Negro and in Chile between Lonquimay and Osorno, lived the Puelches of Nahuel Huapi who were evangelized by the Jesuit Nicolás Mascardi. They disappeared absorbed by the poyas that were later mapuchized.
Puelche carob growers
The Puelches of Cuyo or caroberos were in Mendoza to the north of the Pehuenches in the Andean foothills, between the Barrancas-Colorado rivers and the Diamante river that separated them of the huarpes. Corresponding to the departments of Malargüe, San Rafael and General Alvear. They also lived in the north of the Province of Neuquén before being displaced by the Pehuenches, in turn pushed by the Huiliches from the mountains.
They were a group related to the original Pehuenches, which also belonged to the huárpido group. Their main food was carob and as a substantial difference with the Pehuenches who were basically gatherers, they lived as a hunter. The first reference to the puelche carob growers was made in 1594 by Miguel de Olavarría.
Their main groups were: Morcoyans, Chiquillanes, Oscoyanes and Tinguiriricas. The chiquillanes inhabited from El Nevado hill to the General Alvear department and the Diamante river, and neighboring sectors of Chile. The Morcoyans occupied the Payunia region.
In the Campaign of Roses to the Desert of 1833, the Morcoyan cacique Vicente Goico participated helping the Mendoza forces of José Félix Aldao.
Influence of the Mapuche
Since before the middle of the XVIII century, there was an important commercial activity and exchange of products between the native inhabitants of the Pampean plains and the mountains of the current Province of Buenos Aires, those of northern Patagonia and those of both sides of the Andes Mountains. There were two very important fairs in Cayrú and Chapaleofú. In these fairs, called "poncho fairs" For the Jesuits of the time who registered them (such as Thomas Falkner), various types of products were exchanged: from livestock and agricultural products to clothing such as ponchos. El Cayrú was in the westernmost part of the Tandilia System (in the territory of the current Partido de Olavarría) and Chapaleofú refers to the vicinity of the homonymous stream, located in the current Partido de Tandil, both municipalities or parties are located in the interior of the current Province of Buenos Aires. This is how, from these movements of people to exchange products, since before the middle of the XVIII century There is beginning to be a certain cultural exchange between different peoples who inhabited from the humid pampas, passing through northern Patagonia and up to the immediate area of the Andes Mountains (both on its eastern and western margins) to the coast of the Pacific Ocean. This is the beginning of cultural exchange and migratory movements, among the different peoples, among which it is worth mentioning the Tehuelches, the Ranqueles and the Mapuches.
The Mapuche influence has its origin in the aforementioned, since starting from the purposes of trade and alliances, it ended up producing a great cultural influence on the Tehuelches and other peoples, to the point that it is called "mapuchization&# 3. 4; or "araucanization" of the Pampas and Patagonia. A good part of the Puelches, the Ranqueles and the Tehuelches adopted many of the Mapuche customs and language, while the Mapuches adopted part of the Tehuelche way of life (such as living in tolderías) and with this the differences between both groups, to the point that their descendants refer to themselves as Mapuche-Tehuelches.
Rankülches
In the XIX century, the Rankülches ("people of the reed") stood out among the Puelches., better known as ranqueles by the population of European culture. (Rangkül = reed, Arundo phragmites = Phragmites communis; Che = people, person).
Inhabiting mainly the south of the current provinces of Córdoba and San Luis, (El Cuero area), most of the province of La Pampa, west of the province of Buenos Aires and extreme southwest of the province of Santa Fe At present, the Rankülche live mainly in rural and semi-rural areas in the west of the province of La Pampa.
The Puelches managed to develop one of the main equestrian complexes in America, being great competitors of the gauchos due to their skill as horsemen.