Waqha

The Waqha group takes its name from the Vilela, who call themselves Uakambalelte, those who speak Waqha. It also covers two neighbours, the Tonokote of Santiago del Estero and the Sanaviron of Córdoba. The Vilela hunted and gathered in northern Tucumán and Santiago del Estero, while the Tonokote were sedentary farmers.

The Inca Empire occupied northwestern Argentina by about 1480 and took in part of the Tonokote. The Sanaviron, a branch of the Tonokote, spread southwest into the Córdoba hills and were largely absorbed into the colonial population in the eighteenth century. After the Spanish conquest of Tucumán the Vilela moved east into the Chaco, where Jesuits founded three missions on their lands between 1735 and 1763.