Description
The Incas named all the populations that were not under their empire puruma auca. As a result of the victory of these Picunche tribes over the Inca Empire in the Battle of the Maule they acquired this distinctive name. The Spanish later corrupted the name into purumaucas or promaucaes. Thus their region became known by the early Spanish in Chile as the province of Promaucae and its inhabitants were called promaucaes.
The promaucaes are the first inhabitants of the Rancagua Valley of whom a historical account exists. The Mapuche included them inside the group that they knew as picunche, "people of the north". Nevertheless the promaucaes, as has already been mentioned, constituted a cultural unit or identity differentiated from the rest of the picunches, such as those who lived to the north of the Maipo, named mapochoes, and to the south of the Maule, designated maules and cauquenes. Their particularity, from the point of view of the invaders, was their great military capacity and will to fight.
They were farmers and in spite of the fecundity of the area, they constructed some works of irrigation. They left ceramic vestiges. Research has indicated that they initiated the construction of Pucara de La Compañia and a bridge of rope and wicker across the Cachapoal River.
Read more about this topic: Promaucaes
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