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.JPG) Illustration of a Picunche couple inDurch Süd-Amerika (1894) byTheodor Ohlsen | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
 Chile (from theAconcagua River to theBiobío River, inCentral Chile) | |
| Languages | |
| Mapudungun,Spanish | |
| Religion | |
| Mapuche religion,Inca religion,Catholicism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Mapuche,Diaguita,Chiquillanes [es],Pehuenche |
ThePicunche (aMapudungun word meaning "North People"),[1] also referred to aspicones by the Spanish, were a Mapudungun-speaking people living to the north of theMapuches or Araucanians (a name given to those Mapuche living between theItata andToltén rivers) and south of theChoapa River and theDiaguitas. Until the Conquest of Chile the Itata was the natural limit between theMapuche, located to the south, and Picunche, to the north. During theInca attempt to conquer Chile the southern Picunche peoples that successfully resisted them were later known as thePromaucaes.
The Picunche living north of the Promaucaes were calledQuillotanes[2] (those living in theAconcagua River valley north to the Choapa) andMapochoes (those living in theMaipo River basin) by the Spanish, and were part of theInca Empire at the time when the firstSpaniards arrived in Chile.
Among the peoples the Spanish called the Promaucaes, the people of theRapel River valley were particularly called by this name by the Spanish.[3] Those of theMataquito River valley were called theCures.[3] The people in theMaule River valley and to the south were distinguished asMaules and those to the south of the Maules and north of the Itata were known asCauqui by the Inca[4] andCauquenes by the Spanish[3] and that gave their name toCauquenes 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) to settle in nearby Spanish haciendas. There Picunches mingled with disparate Indigenous peoples brought in fromAraucanía (Mapuche),Chiloé (Huilliche,Cunco,Chono,Poyas[5]) andCuyo (Huarpe[6]).[7] Few in numbers, disconnected from their ancestral lands and diluted by mestizaje the Picunche and their descendants lost their Indigenous identity.[7]
The Picunches' primary crops consisted of corn and potatoes, and they lived in thatched-roof adobe houses.[citation needed]
Picunche -wikipedia people.
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