The Ranquel or Rankülche are an indigenous tribe from the northern part of
La Pampa Province
La Pampa () is a sparsely populated province of Argentina, located in the Pampas in the center of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise San Luis, Córdoba, Buenos Aires, Río Negro, Neuquén and Mendoza.
History
I ...
,
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 List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...
, in
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sou ...
.
[Tapia, Alicia Haydée]
"Archaeological Perspectives on the Ranquel Chiefdoms in the North of the Dry Pampas, in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: Abstract."
''International Journal of Historical Archaeology.'' (retrieved 5 July 2011) With
Puelche,
Pehuenche and also
Patagones
The Patagones or Patagonian giants were a race of giant humans rumoured to be living in Patagonia and described in early European accounts. They were said to have exceeded at least double normal human height, with some accounts giving heights of ...
from the Günün-a-Küna group origins, they were conquered 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 ...
.
Name
The name ''Ranquel'' is the Spanish name for their own name of Rankülche: ''rankül'' -cane-, ''che'' -man, people- in
Mapudungun
Mapuche (, Mapuche & Spanish: , or Mapudungun; from ' 'land' and ' 'speak, speech') is an Araucanian language related to Huilliche spoken in south-central Chile and west-central Argentina by the Mapuche people (from ''mapu'' 'land' and ''che ...
; that is to say "cane-people"
History
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Ranquel controlled two chiefdoms in Argentina.
[ Between 1775-1790 a group of Pehuenche advanced from the side of 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 ...
mountains east to the territory they called ''Mamül Mapu'' (''mamül'': kindling, woods; ''mapu'': land, territory) as it was covered by dense woods of '' Prosopis caldenia'', '' Prosopis nigra'', and ''Geoffroea decorticans
''Geoffroea decorticans'', the chañar, kumbaru, or Chilean palo verde (green wood), is a small deciduous tree, up to 8 meters (25 ft) tall that inhabits most arid forests (montes or espinales) of southern South America. The chañar is col ...
''. They settled along the Cuarto and Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the 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 western edge of the ...
rivers, from the south of today's Argentine provinces of San Luis, Córdoba, to the south of La Pampa
La Pampa () is a sparsely populated province of Argentina, located in the Pampas in the center of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise San Luis, Córdoba, Buenos Aires, Río Negro, Neuquén and Mendoza.
History
...
.
They were hunters, nomads and during a good part of the 19th century they had an alliance with the Tehuelche people, with whom they traveled east into the western part of today's Buenos Aires Province
Buenos Aires (), officially the Buenos Aires Province (''Provincia de Buenos Aires'' ), is the largest and most populous Argentine province. It takes its name from the city of Buenos Aires, the capital of the country, which used to be part of th ...
and southern end of Córdoba Province, and also to Mendoza, San Luis and Santa Fe.
In 1833 Juan Manuel de Rosas
Juan Manuel José Domingo Ortiz de Rosas (30 March 1793 – 14 March 1877), nicknamed "Restorer of the Laws", was an Argentine politician and army officer who ruled Buenos Aires Province and briefly the Argentine Confederation. Although ...
led the Desert Campaign (1833–34), in which he attempted to eliminate the Ranquel.
Their leader at that time was Yanquetruz, and they put up a skilled defense, making good use of the desert terrain.
Yanquetruz was succeeded around 1834 by Painé Guor.
Their last chief was Pincén, who was confined to the prison at Martín García island (1880).
They allied themselves with the forces of Felipe Varela during the rebellion against the Paraguayan War
The Paraguayan War, also known as the War of the Triple Alliance, was a South American war that lasted from 1864 to 1870. It was fought between Paraguay and the Triple Alliance of Argentina, the Empire of Brazil, and Uruguay. It was the deadlies ...
and the Central Government in Buenos Aires. After Pincén's capture, the Ranquels were further reduced in population during the Conquest of the Desert
The Conquest of the Desert ( es, Conquista del desierto) was an Argentine military campaign directed mainly by General Julio Argentino Roca in the 1870s with the intention of establishing dominance over the Patagonian Desert, inhabited primar ...
, with their lands being occupied by the army. A reservation, the Colonia Emilio Mitre, was established for them in today's La Pampa province, where their descendants lived today.
Recent developments
On 14 August 2007 the government of San Luis province returned to the Ranquel people, including two small lakes, about south of the town of Fraga.San Luis government
Notes
External links
A Visit to the Ranquel Indians
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ranquel People
Indigenous peoples in Argentina
Indigenous peoples of the Southern Cone
Mapuche groups