The Het were the people of the northern

Patagonia Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and g ...

pampas The Pampas (from the qu, pampa, meaning "plain") are fertile South American low grasslands that cover more than and include the Argentine provinces of Buenos Aires, La Pampa, Santa Fe, Entre Ríos, and Córdoba; all of Uruguay; and Brazi ...

west of the Paraná River: The Chechehet, the Diuihet or Didiuhet, and the Taluhet. The easternmost Didiuhet, near modern

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

and influenced by the Guarani, were called the

Querandí The Querandí were one of the Het peoples, indigenous South Americans who lived in the Pampas area of Argentina; specifically, they were the eastern Didiuhet. The name Querandí was given by the Guaraní people, as they would consume animal fat i ...

(see). It is not clear if these three peoples were related linguistically or only culturally. The Het were neighbored on the north by the Chaná, on the northwest and west by the

Mapuche The Mapuche ( (Mapuche & Spanish: )) are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who s ...

, and on the south by the Puelche.

Peoples

The Het peoples are listed from north to south as follows. *The Taluhet occupied the modern provinces of San Luis in the east, Córdoba, and Santa Fe in the west. *The Diuihet (Divihet, Didiuhet, Diliuhet) inhabited the coastal region between the La Plata and Paraná rivers in Buenos Aires Province, southern Santa Fe, and inland through

La Pampa La Pampa () is a sparsely populated province of Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it ...

and as far as Mendoza. *The Chechehet lived as far south as the mouths of the

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

and Río Negro rivers in southern Buenos Aires Province.

Language

The Het population was decimated by the end of the eighteenth century by epidemics, which facilitated the Mapuche absorption of its territory and its survivors rapid

Araucanization The Araucanization of Patagonia ( es, Araucanización de la Patagonia) was the process of the expansion of Mapuche culture, influence, and its Mapudungun language from Araucanía across the Andes into the plains of Patagonia. Historians disagree ...

at the cultural level that consolidated them into the Puelche. For this reason it is today difficult to find evidence of the Het languages. Of Querandí (Diuihet) we only have two sentences and a few words, recorded by French sailors around 1555. Based on this admittedly inadequate data, Viegas Barros showed that Querandí may have been closely related to Puelche.Viegas Barros, P. 1992. "La familia lingüística tehuelche. ''Revista patagónica''. 13. 54:39–46. Buenos Aires. Viegas Barros (2005) further attempted to demonstrate that Puelche is more distantly related to the

Chon languages The Chonan languages are a family of indigenous American languages which were spoken in Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia. Two Chon languages are well attested: Selk'nam (or Ona), spoken by the people of the same name who occupied territory in the ...

to its south. Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Chechehet and Querandí. :

References

{{authority control Languages of Argentina Chonan languages Indigenous peoples of the Southern Cone Indigenous peoples in Argentina Languages extinct in the 19th century Unclassified languages of South America