Pehuenche
{{Short description|Indigenous ethnic group of Chile and Argentina}}
{{other uses}}
{{infobox ethnonym|root=pewen|person=|people=Pehuenche|language=Mapudungun|country=Pewen mapu}}
Pehuenche (or Pewenche) are an Indigenous people of South America. They live in the Andes, primarily in present-day south central Chile and adjacent Argentina. Their name derives from their dependence for food on the seeds of the Araucaria araucana or monkey-puzzle tree ({{lang|arn|pewen}} in Mapudungun).{{cite journal |last1=Canale |first1=Antonella |last2=Ladio |first2=Ana H. |title=La recolección de piñones de pewen (Araucaria araucana): Una situación significativa que conecta a niños mapuches con la naturaleza |language=es |trans-title=Harvesting pewen (Araucaria araucana, monkey puzzle tree) seeds: a significant situation that connects Mapuche children with nature |journal=Gaia Scientia |date=March 2020 |volume=14 |issue=1 |doi=10.22478/ufpb.1981-1268.2020v14n1.47620 |page=14|hdl=11336/108775 |hdl-access=free }} In the 16th century, the Pehuenche lived in the mountainous territory from approximately 34 degrees to 40 degrees south. Later they became Araucanized and partially merged with the Mapuche peoples. In the 21st century, they still retain some of their ancestral lands.
Pehuenche groups participated in various armed conflicts in the 17th and 18th centuries, usually by "descending" from the mountains to the western lowlands of Chile. As such they attacked the Spanish around Maule River in 1657,Pinochet et al. 1997, p. 82. the Mapuche in January 1767,Barros Arana, 1886, p. 236. and the Spanish of Isla del Laja on late 1769.Barros Arana, 1886, p. 312. In the 1860s amidst the Chilean invasion of Araucanía the Pehuenche declared themselves neutral.Bengoa 2000, pp. 189-192. The Pehuenche chief Pichiñán is reported to have spoken against the Moluches, who wanted war, claiming that they engaged in robbery and received for that just punishments by Chileans. Historian José Bengoa claims Pehuenche neutrality was indebted to the fact that their lands in the Andes were not subject to colonization. However the encroaching Argentine and Chilean advances was such that in March 1881 Pehuenches assaulted the Argentine outpost of Chos Malal killing the whole garrison of 25–30 soldiers.Bengoa 2000, p. 293.
Culture
A Spanish writer first described the Pehuenche in 1558:
{{blockquote|These people do not sow. The sustain themselves by hunting in the valleys they occupy. There are many guanacos, jaguars, cougars, foxes, small deer, and mountain cats and birds of many species. They use bows and arrows for hunting. Their houses are four poles covered with skins. They move from place to place and have no permanent habitation...Their clothes are blankets made of animal skins.Torrejon G., Fernando (2001), "Variables Geohistoricas en la Evolucion del Sistema Economico Pehuenche durante el Periodo Colonial", Revista Universum, Universidad de Talca, No. 16, p. 222}}
That writer did not mention the primary food source of the Pehuenche: the harvest of the seeds of the monkey-puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana), locally called Pehuen.Aagesen, David L. (Jan. 1998), “On the Northern Fringe of the South American Temperate Forests: The History and Conservation of the Monkey-Puzzle Tree,” ‘Environmental History’, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 67-69
The Pehuenche adopted horse meat into their diet after feral horses of Spanish origin reached the eastern foothills of the Andes. These herds had developed in the humid pampa, after the Spanish abandoned Buenos Aires the second time in 1541.{{cite web |url=http://universum.utalca.cl/contenido/index-01/torrejon.html |title=Revista Universum Año 16-2001 |access-date=2009-01-03 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090313105853/http://universum.utalca.cl/contenido/index-01/torrejon.html |archive-date=2009-03-13 }} At first, the Pehuenche hunted horses as any other game, but later they began to raise horses for meat and transport. To preserve horse meat, they sun-dried it to make charqui ("jerky").
Juan Ignacio Molina wrote in his Civic History of the Kingdom of Chile (1787) that the language and religion of the Pehuenche were similar to those of other Mapuche, but he described their dress as distinct. The men wore skirts rather than trousers, as well as earrings and mantillas. Molina described them as nomadic ("vagabond" in his words) and the most industrious and laborious among "all the savages".Juan Ignacio Molina (1787). Civic History of the Kingdom of Chile, pp. 222-226
Language
The Pehuenche speak Mapundungun today. In the past, they spoke their own distinct language, which may have been Huarpean.
See also
References
{{commons category|Pehuenche}}
;Bibliography
- {{cite book
| last = Barros Arana
| first = Diego
| author-link1 = Diego Barros Arana
| title = Historia General de Chile
| volume = VI
| url = http://www.memoriachilena.gob.cl/602/w3-article-9008.html
| year = 2000
| orig-year = 1886
| edition = 2
| publisher = Editorial Universitaria
| location = Santiago, Chile
| language = es
}}
- {{cite book |last=Bengoa |first=José |author-link=José Bengoa |title=Historia del pueblo mapuche: Siglos XIX y XX |year=2000 |edition=Seventh |publisher=LOM Ediciones |isbn=956-282-232-X }}
- {{Cite book|title=Historia militar de Chile|last1=Pinochet Ugarte|first1=Augusto|publisher=Biblioteca Militar|year=1997|last2=Villaroel Carmona|first2=Rafael|last3=Lepe Orellana|first3=Jaime|last4=Fuente-Alba Poblete|first4=J. Miguel|last5=Fuenzalida Helms|first5=Eduardo|edition=3rd|language=es|author-link=Augusto Pinochet|author-link4=Juan Miguel Fuente-Alba}}
{{Ethnic groups in Chile}}
{{Immigration to Argentina}}
{{Mapuche}}
{{Authority control}}
Category:Indigenous peoples in Argentina