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Huarpe

Oasis farmers of the Cuyo deserts who threaded irrigation canals between the dunes and poled reed boats across the Guanacache marshes.

Pressed into encomienda labor after Mendoza's 1561 founding and marched off to Santiago de Chile; their language died out by the 1630s, but Huarpe communities of Mendoza and San Juan still claim the name today.

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Borders over time

The atlas holds 2 border frames for Huarpe — the shape you scrub through changes in 1400 · 1640.

Moments from the Chronicle

• 1561 Mendoza founded in Huarpe country Pedro del Castillo founds Mendoza on 2 March 1561 in the heart of the Huarpe oases of Cuyo, beginning the encomienda system that would scatter the irrigation farmers and extinguish their language within a lifetime.

Further reading

• Handbook of South American Indians Julian H. Steward · 1946

  The standard reference describes the Huarpe oasis farmers of Cuyo, their irrigation and the Guanacache reed boats before encomienda dispersal.

• A Brief History of Argentina Jonathan C. Brown · 2004

  Background on the Cuyo encomienda and the labour march to Santiago de Chile that broke the Huarpe (broad context).

Sources

• Huarpe — Wikipedia