Promaucaes, Promaucas or Purumaucas (quechua >purum awqa: wild people); pre-Columbian Mapuche tribal group that lived in the present territory of Chile, south of the Maipo River basin of Santiago, Chile and the Itata River, (those to the north were called Quillotanes[1] and Mapochoes by the Spanish). They were speakers of mapudungun like the Moluche to the south and part of the Picunche tribal grouping that lived north of the Itata River.
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The Incas named all the populations that were not under their empire puruma auca. As a result of the victory of these Picunche tribes over the Inca Empire in the Battle of the Maule they acquired this distinctive name. The Spanish later corrupted the name into purumaucas or promaucaes. Thus their region became known by the early Spanish in Chile as the province of Promaucae and its inhabitants were called promaucaes.
The promaucaes are the first inhabitants of the Rancagua Valley of whom a historical account exists. The Mapuche included them inside the group that they knew as picunche, "people of the north". Nevertheless the promaucaes, as has already been mentioned, constituted a cultural unit or identity differentiated from the rest of the picunches, such as those who lived to the north of the Maipo, named mapochoes, and to the south of the Maule, designated maules and cauquenes. Their particularity, from the point of view of the invaders, was their great military capacity and will to fight.
They were farmers and in spite of the fecundity of the area, they constructed some works of irrigation. They left ceramic vestiges. Research has indicated that they initiated the construction of Pucara de La Compañia and a bridge of rope and wicker across the Cachapoal River.
The Incas in their expansion used the Pucará de La Compañia, which they strengthened. The pucará was the southernmost Inca settlement then known. Inca expeditions in this territory were organized by Túpac Inca Yupanqui at the end of the 15th century and later by Huayna Cápac.
The history of this period is recreated only by what was written in later chronicles. These chronicles indicate that the promaucaes informed about the coming of the Incas allied themselves with the Antalli, Pincu and Cauqui subgroups, forming an army of 20,000 men. The Incas sent members of parliament in order that they recognize Túpac Inca Yupanqui as sovereign, but the purumaucas decided to face them in the so-called Battle of the Maule. [2] During the confrontation, there were many dead on both sides and neither army won a clear advantage.
On the fourth day, neither side left their own camp, both of which had been fortified, as they hoped to defend them if their opponents attacked. The fifth and sixth days were passed in the same manner but by the seventh the Purumaucas and their allies retired and returned home claiming victory. Due to these results, the Incas later considered chasing them, on which some chiefs agreed; but they decided to secure only what they had already conquered, with which Túpac Inca Yupanqui agreed.
Due to their proximity to the Inca Empire, the promaucaes also learned the new technology that the Incas displayed in their new domains.
Among the peoples the Spanish called the Promaucaes the people of the Rapel River valley were particularly called by this name by the Spanish [3]. Those of the Mataquito River valley were called the Cures, for which the province of Curico is named [3]. 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 [4] or Cauquenes [3] that gave their name to Cauquenes River.