| pewen | |
|---|---|
| People | Pehuenche |
| Language | Mapudungun |
| Country | Pewen mapu |
Pehuenche (orPewenche) are an indigenous people ofSouth America. They live in theAndes, primarily in present-day south centralChile and adjacentArgentina. Their name derives from their dependence for food on the seeds of theAraucaria araucana or monkey-puzzle tree (pewen inMapudungun).[1] In the 16th century, the Pehuenche lived in the mountainous territory from approximately 34 degrees to 40 degrees south. Later they becameAraucanized and partially merged with theMapuche peoples. In the 21st century, they still retain some of their ancestral lands.
Pehuenche groups participated in various armed conflicts in the 17th and 18th centuries, usually by "descending" from the mountains to the western lowlands of Chile. As such they attacked the Spanish aroundMaule Riverin 1657,[2] the Mapuchein January 1767,[3] and the Spanish ofIsla del Laja on late 1769.[4] In the 1860s amidst theChilean invasion of Araucanía the Pehuenche declared themselves neutral.[5] The Pehuenche chief Pichiñán is reported to have spoken against theMoluches, who wanted war, claiming that they engaged in robbery and received for that just punishments by Chileans.[5] HistorianJosé Bengoa claims Pehuenche neutrality was indebted to the fact that their lands in the Andes were not subject to colonization.[5] However the encroaching Argentine and Chilean advances was such that in March 1881 Pehuenches assaulted the Argentine outpost ofChos Malal killing the whole garrison of 25–30 soldiers.[6]
A Spanish writer first described the Pehuenche in 1558:
These people do not sow. The sustain themselves by hunting in the valleys they occupy. There are manyguanacos,jaguars,cougars,foxes, smalldeer, and mountain cats and birds of many species. They use bows and arrows for hunting. Their houses are four poles covered with skins. They move from place to place and have no permanent habitation...Their clothes are blankets made of animal skins.[7]
That writer did not mention the primary food source of the Pehuenche: the harvest of the seeds of the monkey-puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana), locally called Pehuen.[8]
The Pehuenche adoptedhorse meat into their diet after feral horses of Spanish origin reached the eastern foothills of the Andes. These herds had developed in thehumid pampa, after the Spanish abandonedBuenos Aires the second time in 1541.[9] At first, the Pehuenche hunted horses as any other game, but later they began to raise horses for meat and transport. To preserve horse meat, they sun-dried it to makecharqui ("jerky").
Juan Ignacio Molina wrote in hisCivic History of the Kingdom of Chile (1787) that thelanguage andreligion of the Pehuenche were similar to those of other Mapuche, but he described their dress as distinct. The men wore skirts rather than trousers, as well asearrings andmantillas. Molina described them as nomadic ("vagabond" in his words) and the most industrious and laborious among "all the savages".[10]
