Pazioca

The Pazioca, better known by the Quechua exonym Diaguita, were independent chiefdoms speaking Cacán in the valleys of Chile's Norte Chico and across the Andes in north-western Argentina. Each valley followed its own kuraka and dialect. Their culture grew from the El Molle and Las Ánimas complexes after about 1000, marked by irrigation and pottery painted in black, white and red.

The Incas subdued them after hard fighting, settling mitma colonists and imposing Cuzco-style crafts. Diego de Almagro's expedition first met the Chilean Pazioca at Copiapó in 1536, when perhaps 20,000 lived in Chile; rebellions under García Hurtado de Mendoza were crushed around 1558.

The eastern groups held out through the Calchaquí Wars, rising in 1630 and only submitting after 1665. Cacán died out by the mid-eighteenth century, giving way to Quechua, Mapuche and Spanish.