Puelche (
MapudungunMapudungun is a language isolate spoken in central Chile and west central Argentina by the Mapuche people. It is also known as Mapudungu, Mapuche, and Araucanian...
:
pwelche, " people of the east") is the name that the
MapucheThe Mapuche are the indigenous inhabitants of Central and Southern Chile and Southern Argentina. They were known as Araucanians by the Spaniards. This is now considered pejorative by the people and the term Mapuche is the one most often used by people in conversation...
used to give the ethnic groups who inhabited the lands to the east of the Andes Mountains (in Argentine territory and some valleys of Chile) including the northern Tehuelches and
HetThe Querandí were a group of indigenous South Americans who lived in the Pampas area of Argentina. The name Querandí was given by the Guaraní people, as they would consume animal fat in their daily diet. Thus, Querandí means "men with fat". They were also well-known as the Pampas prior to the...
s, these last ones were also known as the Pampas or
QuerandíThe Querandí were a group of indigenous South Americans who lived in the Pampas area of Argentina. The name Querandí was given by the Guaraní people, as they would consume animal fat in their daily diet. Thus, Querandí means "men with fat". They were also well-known as the Pampas prior to the...
es. By the end of the 18th century the survivors of the plagues and
epidemicDefining an epidemic can be subjective, depending in part on what is "expected". An epidemic may be restricted to one locale , more general or even global...
s that decimated these ethnic groups were aculturated in a process of
AraucanizationThe Araucanization was the process of expansion of Mapuche culture, influence and language from Araucanía into the Patagonic plains. Historians disagree in the time of the expansion but it would have occurred sometime between 1550 and 1850. Amerindian peoples such as the Puelches and Tehuelches...
by Mapuche immigrants, so that in the XIX century the ethnically mixed group formed was basically Het and Tehuelche but araucanized linguistically and culturally.
Sources
- Thomas Falkner
Thomas Falkner was an English Jesuit missionary, active in Patagonia.-Life:He was the son of Thomas Falkner, a Manchester apothecary, and obtained his education at the Manchester grammar school. Later on, having studied medicine under Dr...
, Description of Patagonia and the adjoining parts of South America, Pugh, Hereford, 1774.
- Juan Ignatius Molina, The Geographical, Natural, and Civil History of Chili, Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, London, 1809
- Bruce G. Trigger, Wilcomb E. Washburn , Richard E. W. Adams, The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas, Vol III South America Part 2. , Cambridge University Press, 2000.