Makas

The Maká are a Matacoan people of the Gran Chaco, whose ancestors were a Mataco tribe of the south-eastern Chaco before they adopted the horse-riding life of their neighbours and moved north across the Patiño marshes into the Chaco Boreal, between the Pilcomayo and Paraguay rivers. Their language belongs to the Mataco-Mataguayan branch of the Mataco-Guaicuru family and was divided into the Towolhi and Enimagá dialects.

The Jesuit Sánchez Labrador met groups he called Enimaga in the central Chaco in 1761, and a Morillo report of 1780 names them as the Inimaca, showing them established in their northern range.

The Maká kept up shifting alliances, standing with the Chulupí, Enlhet and Enxet against the Pitlaxa and Toba in the raiding wars of the Chaco.