The Huarpes or Warpes are an

indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

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 the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

, living in the Cuyo region. Some scholars assume that in the

Huarpe language Huarpe (''Warpe'') was a small language family of central Argentina (historic Cuyo Province) that consisted of two closely related languages. They are traditionally considered dialects, and include Allentiac (Alyentiyak, Huarpe) and Millcayac ...

, this word means "sandy ground," but according to ''Arte y Vocabulario de la lengua general del Reino de Chile'', written by

Andrés Febrés Andrés Febrés was 18th-century Spanish Jesuit active in Colonial Chile. He is best known for his book In his writings he supported the incorporation of the lands of the independent Cunco and Huilliche, the Futahuillimapu, into the Spanish Emp ...

in Lima in 1765, the word ''Cuyo'' comes from

Araucanian 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 sha ...

''cuyum puulli'', meaning "sandy land" or "desert country".

History

Huarpe people settled in permanent villages beginning in the 5th century CE. About 50 to 100 people lived in a village, making them smaller than

Diaguita The Diaguita people are a group of South American indigenous people native to the Chilean Norte Chico and the Argentine Northwest. Western or Chilean Diaguitas lived mainly in the Transverse Valleys which incised in a semi-arid environment. Ea ...

settlements. They were agrarian people who grew corn (''

Zea mays Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

''), beans, squash, and quinoa (''

Chenopodium quinoa Quinoa (''Chenopodium quinoa''; , from Quechua ' or ') is a flowering plant in the amaranth family. It is a herbaceous annual plant grown as a crop primarily for its edible seeds; the seeds are rich in protein, dietary fiber, B vitamins, and ...

'').Lewis 18 Towards the 15th century, Huarpe territory expanded into the current Argentinian provinces of San Luis, Mendoza and

San Juan San Juan, Spanish for Saint John, may refer to: Places Argentina * San Juan Province, Argentina * San Juan, Argentina, the capital of that province * San Juan, Salta, a village in Iruya, Salta Province * San Juan (Buenos Aires Underground), ...

and even on the north of the Neuquen Province. They inhabited between the

Jáchal River The Jáchal River is a river in the province of San Juan, Argentina. It is part of the Desaguadero River basin, and one of the most important permanent watercourses in the province, with an average flow of . It is born from the confluence of th ...

at north, to the

Diamante River The Diamante River is a river in the Argentine province of Mendoza. It is born from glaciers on the Maipo, a volcano in the Andes range in the Argentine–Chilean border, and flows east until emptying in the Desaguadero River. Its drainage bas ...

at south and between the

Andes The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...

and Conlara Valley on San Luis. They were never fully part of the

Incan Empire The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, (Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts", "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The admin ...

, but were influenced by Inca culture and adopted llama ranching and the

Quechua language Quechua (, ; ), usually called ("people's language") in Quechuan languages, is an Indigenous languages of the Americas, indigenous language family spoken by the Quechua peoples, primarily living in the Peruvian Andes. Derived from a common anc ...

after 1480. Chilean encomenderos who had

encomienda The ''encomienda'' () was a Spanish labour system that rewarded conquerors with the labour of conquered non-Christian peoples. The labourers, in theory, were provided with benefits by the conquerors for whom they laboured, including military ...

s in Cuyo introduced to Chile indigenous Huarpes, whom they hired to other Spaniards without encomiendas. Villalobos, Sergio; Silva, Osvaldo; Silva, Fernando and Estelle, Patricio. 1974. ''Historia De Chile''.

Editorial Universitaria Editorial Universitaria is Chilean university press based in Santiago. It was established in 1947 with funds from private people and from the University of Chile. During its existence, it has published the works of generations influential Chilean sc ...

, Chile. p 166–170.

Notes

References

*Lewis, Daniel K
''The History of Argentina.''
New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2001. .

External links

Huarpe People – Encyclopædia Britannica

Discovery of a Fragment of the Printed Copy of the Work on the Millcayac ...
by Rodolfo R. Schuller
Millcayac y Allentiac: Los dialectos del idioma Huarpe
By Catalina Teresa Michieli – 1990 *
Information about the Huarpe culture
*
Web site about the Huarpe culture
*

Map of the Huarpes territory. {{DEFAULTSORT:Huarpe People Indigenous peoples of the Southern Cone Indigenous peoples in Argentina Indigenous peoples in Chile Pre-Columbian cultures