Licanantay

The Licanantay, whose name means inhabitants of the territory in their own Kunza tongue, are better known as the Atacameño people of the Atacama Desert. Their villages lined the oases of the Loa River and the Salar de Atacama. Rooted in the San Pedro culture from about 500, they herded llamas, farmed irrigated terraces, worked copper from Chuquicamata and defended their towns with stone pukara fortresses, while the volcano Licancabur was their sacred mountain.

Tiwanaku influence reached them early, and in the early fifteenth century the Inca Túpac Yupanqui conquered them, imposing sun worship and mitma rule. Diego de Almagro's men appeared in 1536 and Spanish control was sealed by 1557.

In the eighteenth century the Atacameño Tomás Paniri took part in the great Andean rebellions of Túpac Katari and Túpac Amaru II, while Kunza steadily gave way to Spanish.