The Picunche (a Mapudungun word meaning "North People"), also referred to as ''picones'' by the Spanish, were a Mapudungun-speaking people living to the north of 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 ...

s or Araucanians (a name given to those Mapuche living between the Itata and Toltén rivers) and south of the

Choapa River Choapa River or El Río Choapa is a river of Chile located in the Coquimbo Region. The river rises in the Andes, at the confluence of the streams ''Totoral'', ''Leiva'' and ''Del Valle''. The river then flows through the town of Salamanca before ...

and the Diaguitas. Until the Conquest of Chile the Itata was the natural limit between the

, located to the south, and Picunche, to the north. During the Inca attempt to conquer Chile the southern Picunche peoples that successfully resisted them were later known as the Promaucaes. The Picunche living north of the Promaucaes were called ''Quillotanes'' (those living in the

Aconcagua River The Aconcagua River is a river in Chile that rises from the conflux of two minor tributary rivers at above sea level in the Andes, Juncal River from the east (which rise in the Nevado Juncal) and Blanco River from the south east. The Aconcag ...

valley north to the Choapa) and '' Mapochoes'' (those living in the Maipo River basin) by the Spanish, and were part of the

Inca 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 adm ...

at the time when the first

Spaniards Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance ethnic group native to Spain. Within Spain, there are a number of national and regional ethnic identities that reflect the country's complex history, including a number of different languages, both in ...

arrived in Chile. Among the peoples the Spanish called the Promaucaes, the people of the

Rapel River Rapel River is a river of Chile located in the O'Higgins Region. It begins at the confluence of the rivers Cachapoal and Tinguiririca in an area best known as ''La Junta''. At present day, this area is impounded by Rapel Dam, creating Rapel L ...

valley were particularly called by this name by the Spanish.Juan Ignacio Molina, Compendio de la historia civil del reyno de Chile, pg. 9. Those of the

Mataquito River Mataquito is a river located in the Province of Curicó, Maule Region of Chile and formed by the union of rivers Teno and Lontué about 10 kilometers west of Curicó near the locality of Sagrada Familia and empties into the Pacific Ocean south ...

valley were called the ''Cures''. The people in the Maule River valley and to the south were distinguished as ''Maules'' and those to the south of the Maules and north of the Itata were known as ''Cauqui'' by the Inca and ''

Cauquenes Cauquenes, a city and commune in Chile, is the capital of the Cauquenes Province and is located in the Maule Region. History According to the historical records of Alonso de Ercilla, Cauquenes was originally inhabited by an indigenous community o ...

'' by the Spanish and that gave their name to Cauquenes River. They did not survive as a separate society into the present day, because of a general population decline and having been absorbed into the general Chilean population during the colonial period. The indigenous Picunche disappeared by a process of mestizaje by gradually abandoning their villages (''

pueblo de indios In the Southwestern United States, Pueblo (capitalized) refers to the Native tribes of Puebloans having fixed-location communities with permanent buildings which also are called pueblos (lowercased). The Spanish explorers of northern New Spain ...

'') to settle in nearby Spanish haciendas. There Picunches mingled with disparate indigenous peoples brought in from Araucanía (

), Chiloé (

Huilliche The Huilliche , Huiliche or Huilliche-Mapuche are the southern partiality of the Mapuche macroethnic group of Chile. Located in the Zona Sur, they inhabit both Futahuillimapu ("great land of the south") and, as the Cunco subgroup, the north hal ...

, Cunco, Chono, Poyas) and Cuyo ( HuarpeVillalobos ''et al''. 1974, pp. 166–170.). Few in numbers, disconnected from their ancestral lands and diluted by mestizaje the Picunche and their descendants lost their indigenous identity. Pueblos indigenas de Chile

Agriculture

The Picunches' primary crops consisted of corn and potatoes, and they lived in thatched-roof adobe houses.

References

Mapuche groups Society of Chile Ethnic groups in Chile History of Chile Indigenous peoples in Chile Pre-Columbian cultures {{Chile-stub