Querandí

The Querandí were one of the Het peoples, Indigenous South Americans who lived in the Pampas area of Argentina; specifically, they were the eastern Didiuhet (Diuihet). The name Querandí was given by the Guaraní people, as they would consume animal fat in their daily diet. Thus, Querandí means "men with fat". Prior to the 19th century, they were also known as the Pampas. The Mapuche (or araucanos) called them Puelche. This is today the present Argentine provinces of La Pampa, most of the province of Buenos Aires, the center and the south of the province of Santa Fe (especially to the south of the Tercero-Carcaraña River), a great part of the province of Cordoba (adapted ecologically to the temperate Pampasia, their northern limits were in the region of the Gran Chaco - around 31° lat. South) and the peneplains of the present provinces of San Luis and Mendoza, although these zones were more difficult to inhabit due to its extreme climate and lack of surface water. Physically, the Querandí people had a well-proportioned body. They were tall and extremely warlike. They wore leather clothes, similar to a fur blanket; women would also wear a skirt that covered their bodies down to their knees. With a semi sedentary lifestyle, they grouped their leather tents by their water supply in the winter, and they would go on their raids inland in the summer. At the time of the arrival of the Europeans, they stood out as great runners, hunting, or rather capturing, by running down Pampan deer, ñandúes, and even guanacos, although to facilitate their activity they had invented two devices (one that would become a classic in Argentina): the bolas, and the more primitive one consisting of a stone tied to a cord made with leather or sinews called by the...