Purum Aucca, “Promaucaes”: de significados, identidades y etnocategorías. Chile central, siglos XVI-XVIII

Abstract

Purum Aucca, "Promaucaes": About Significances, Identities and Ethnocategories. Central Chile, XVI-XVIII Centuries

The purpose of this project is to analyze, from an ethnohistoric perspective, the meaning of the term “promaucaes”. The intention is to ponder over the significance these old words had for the Spaniards settled in the “Reino de Chile” during the colonial period. The authors are interested in determining if the term “promaucaes” defined a specific indigenous population or a territory; if it was an adjective that depicted a form of living during of the period, or if it identified a certain group of people that inhabited the territory between the Maipo and the Maule rivers, limits that are usually cited when referring to the “promaucaes” geographic area.

The author believe the term “promaucaes” was a representative definition, first elaborated by the Incas and re-elaborated by the Spaniards, to portray the rejection of cultural system these indigenous peoples articulated to oppose the domination and settlement that the Incas and Spaniards tried to impose on them.

The term “promaucaes” does not reflect the construction of an ethnic denomination given to these indigenous people, but a classificatory ethno-category that created a exo-identity, with the objective to homogenize a group of heterogeneous identities that operated at a local level in the study area.