From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Puelche are an extinct tribe of South American Indians. They originally called themselves Het and were known by the Guarani and Spanish as Querandi or Pampas. Puelche was the Mapuche name given them after their populations had been decimated by epidemics and they had been absorbed by the process of Araucanization by the Araucanians during the eighteenth century.[citation needed]
They inhabited the Argentine Pampas region near the Río Negro and Río Colorado. They were a nomadic people, and bred horses and cattle after the Spanish introduced them in the La Plata region. They had their own language, and socially they resembled their Patagonian neighbours, especially the Tehuelche. They hunted Guanaco and Rhea, and were proficient horsemen; fighting with lances and bolas.
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