The Gününa küna ('people from the east'), known to the Spanish as Puelche ('people of the east' in Mapudungun), were hunter-gatherers of the northern Patagonian steppe and southern pampas, speaking a language isolate distinct from both the Araucanized Ranquel of the wetter pampas and the Tehuelche further south; progressively Araucanized in language and culture through contact with Mapuche groups from the 18th century.
Decimated and displaced alongside the Ranquel and other pampas/Patagonian peoples by Argentina's 1879-80 Conquest of the Desert; the Gününa küna language went extinct in the 20th century, but Puelche descent and identity persist among Mapuche-Tehuelche communities of Río Negro and La Pampa provinces in 2026.
The definitive modern study of the Yahgan (Yamana) canoe people of the Fuegian archipelago, in print from Cambridge University Press.
Covers the Conquest of the Desert that destroyed the independent pampas and Patagonian frontier peoples, including the Puelche.