Rankulche

Rankülche, the “people of the reeds,” are associated with Mamüll Mapu, the wooded country of the central Pampas. Caldén groves, grassland and scattered lagoons break up the broad plains of the interior, and Indigenous routes linked camps across this vast region. By the late eighteenth century the Ranquel name appeared in colonial records, as communities formed political and economic ties across the frontier.

Carripilún and Yanquetruz were among the leaders remembered in this frontier history. Their leaders negotiated and fought with colonial and later Argentine authorities while maintaining connections with other Indigenous groups. Hunting, livestock raising and exchange formed part of a wider network reaching toward the Andes and the settlements east of the Pampas. The territory remained under Indigenous authority well into the nineteenth century.