Quirandi

The Querandí were the easternmost Het people, nomadic hunter-gatherers of the Argentine Pampas from Buenos Aires across the later provinces of La Pampa, Córdoba and Santa Fe. Their Guaraní name means men of fat, after the animal grease in their diet. Famed runners, they hunted with the bolas, a stone tied to a leather cord.

The Caboto expedition first described them in 1528. In 1536 Pedro de Mendoza's colonists reached the Río de la Plata: after the Querandí defeated his brother Diego de Mendoza at Laguna de Rocha, they and their allies burned the newly founded Buenos Aires, abandoned in 1541.

Juan de Garay refounded the city in 1580 and parcelled the natives into encomiendas. Resistance collapsed after Garay was killed by a Querandí cacique and Rodrigo Ortiz de Zárate campaigned against them in 1586. They disappeared as a distinct people, last listed in an encomienda census of 1672.