Total population | |
---|---|
approximately 155,884 | |
Regions with significant populations | |
![]() | 88,474[1] |
![]() | 67,410[2] |
Languages | |
Cacán (extinct) • Quechua • Spanish | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Atacameño • Quilmes |
The Diaguita people are a group of South American indigenous people native to the Chilean Norte Chico and the Argentine Northwest. Western or Chilean Diaguitas lived mainly in the Transverse Valleys that incise semi-arid mountains.[3] Eastern or Argentine Diaguitas lived in the provinces of La Rioja and Catamarca and part of the provinces of Salta, San Juan and Tucumán.[4] The term Diaguita was first applied to peoples and archaeological cultures by Ricardo E. Latcham in the early 20th century.[5]
Ancient Diaguitas were not a unified people; the language or dialects used by them seems to have varied from valley to valley and they were politically fragmented into several chiefdoms.[3][4] Coastal and inland Chilean Diaguitas traded, as evidenced by the archaeological findings of mollusc shells in the upper courses of Andean valleys.[6]
According to the 2010 census there are 67,410 self-identified Diaguita descendants in Argentina.[2] In Chile, Diaguitas are the third-most populous indigenous ethnicity after the Aymara and the Mapuche, numbering 88,474 in 2017.[1][7] The Diaguitas have been recognised as an indigenous people by the Chilean state since 2006.[7]
MCLpueblosdiaguitas
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).