Chono

The Chono, or Guaiteco, were nomadic hunter-gatherers who traveled by canoe among the archipelagos of Chiloé, Guaitecas and Chonos in southern Chile. They are believed to have been the first ethnically identifiable inhabitants of Chiloé. One account has Mapuche groups invading Chiloé in the thirteenth century and pushing them south.

The Chono first met Europeans in 1553, when Francisco de Ulloa's expedition reached their land. Spanish raids from Chiloé turned into slave raids after Philip III's decree of 1608, though the Chono, unlike the Mapuche, had never rebelled.