The Abipones ( es, Abipones, singular ) were 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 ...

Gran Chaco The Gran Chaco or Dry Chaco is a sparsely populated, hot and semiarid lowland natural region of the Río de la Plata basin, divided among eastern Bolivia, western Paraguay, northern Argentina, and a portion of the Brazilian states of Mato ...

region, speakers of one of the

Guaicuruan languages Guaicuruan (Guaykuruan, Waikurúan, Guaycuruano, Guaikurú, Guaicuru, Guaycuruana) is a language family spoken in northern Argentina, western Paraguay, and Brazil (Mato Grosso do Sul). The speakers of the languages are often collectively called ...

. They ceased to exist as an independent ethnic group in the early 19th century. A small number of survivors assimilated into Argentine society.

History

The Abipones originally occupied the Gran Chaco of

, in the lower portions of the

Bermejo River The Bermejo River (Spanish, Río Bermejo) is a river in South America that flows from Bolivia to the Paraguay River in Argentina. The river is generally called Bermejo in spite of its different names along its way, but it also has its own Nativ ...

. They were originally a seasonally mobile people of hunters, gatherers, fishers and to a limited extent farmers. By 1641, the Abipones had already obtained the horse from the Spanish settlers and abandoned farming for cattle and horse raiding. By that time they still lived north of the

They became feared by their neighbours and the

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

farmers, and even threatened major cities. It is likely they were driven south of their original range by the Spaniards and other native tribes, such as the Tobas. They were finally concentrated in the Argentinian territory lying between Santa Fe and Santiago del Estero, between the Rio Bermejo on the north and the Salado River on the south. Before the introduction of the horse in the region, they subsisted by hunting, fishing, food gathering and only a limited amount of agriculture. With the horse, came a change in the regional and in particular the Abipon's way of surviving. They shifted away from agriculture and towards hunting from horseback, wild

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult ma ...

, rhea,

guanaco The guanaco (; ''Lama guanicoe'') is a camelid native to South America, closely related to the llama. Guanacos are one of two wild South American camelids, the other being the vicuña, which lives at higher elevations. Etymology The guanaco ...

deer Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the re ...

, and

peccary A peccary (also javelina or skunk pig) is a medium-sized, pig-like hoofed mammal of the family Tayassuidae (New World pigs). They are found throughout Central and South America, Trinidad in the Caribbean, and in the southwestern area of North ...

. The horses also lead them to raid the Spanish ranches and even the cities of Asuncion and

Corrientes Corrientes (; Guaraní: Taragüí, literally: "Currents") is the capital city of the province of Corrientes, Argentina, located on the eastern shore of the Paraná River, about from Buenos Aires and from Posadas, on National Route 12. It ha ...

. From 1710, a major military effort by the Spanish began gradually to impose authority on the Abipones. By 1750 Jesuit missions had been established among them (chiefly by Martin Dobrizhoffer, who had been a missionary in Paraguay for eighteen years), and they had been largely Christianized and turned sedentary. The colonies had incessant trouble with Spanish settlers, and were often raided by the Tobas and the

Mocoví The Mocoví ( Mocoví: ''moqoit'') are an indigenous people of the Gran Chaco region of South America. They speak the Mocoví language and are one of the ethnic groups belonging to the Guaycuru peoples. In the 2010 Argentine census, 22,439 peopl ...

s, hostile Guaycuru peoples. By 1768, over half of the Abipones had succumbed to disease and they numbered not more than 5,000. The expulsion of the Jesuits by the Spaniards in that year was fatal for the Abipones. When they attempted to resume their former lifestyles, they found their traditional lands occupied by settlers and other indigenous nations. The Tobas and Mocovís, aided by disease, destroyed them as a nation in the course of less than half a century. The survivors assimilated into the general Argentinian population. They learned to speak

, and abandoned their old customs. The last speaker of the Abipón language is believed to have died in the 19th century. Dobrizhoffer women (cropped)

Appearance and customs

According to Martin Dobrizhoffer, who lived among them for a period of seven years, the Abipones were a group of tall, well-formed, handsome people, with black eyes, aquiline noses and thick black hair, which they plucked out from the forehead to the crown as a tribal mark. The faces, breasts and arms of the women were

tattoo A tattoo is a form of body modification made by inserting tattoo ink, dyes, and/or pigments, either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to form a design. Tattoo artists create these designs using several tattooing ...

ed with black figures of various designs according to their age and social status, and the lips and ears of both sexes were pierced. The men were brave fighters, their chief weapons being the bow and arrow, the spear and the club –all of which were carved out of a local hardwood tree known to them as ''netergé–'', as well as the

boleadoras Bolas or bolases (singular bola; from Spanish and Portuguese ''bola'', "ball", also known as a ''boleadora'' or ''boleadeira'') is a type of throwing weapon made of weights on the ends of interconnected cords, used to capture animals by entan ...

. In battle, they wore an armour fashioned out of a tapir's hide, over which a jaguar's skin was sewn. Even Abipón women were reputedly aggressive and held considerable power in their people's religious rites. The Abipones were good swimmers and horsemen. During the five-month-long flood season, they lived on islands or even in shelters built in the trees. They shared most of the customs of the Guaycurú, including the couvade. They seldom married before the age of thirty, and were singularly chaste.

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...

reported that "With the Abipones when a man chooses a wife, he bargains with the parents about the price. But it frequently happens that the girl rescinds what has been agreed upon between the parents and bridegroom, obstinately rejecting the very mention of marriage. She often runs away and hides herself, and thus eludes the bridegroom." Infanticide was common, never more than two children being reared in one family. The young were suckled for two years.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abipon People Indigenous peoples in Argentina Indigenous peoples in Paraguay Indigenous peoples of the Gran Chaco