Books

PAMPAS Generally speaking, Pampas are the native ethnic groups that lived on the big grasslands of the South American south cone. Over time several groups overlapped on this territory, so the term pampas is not very accurate and leads to frequent misunderstandings. The word “pampa” comes from the Quechua language, meaning plain; the Spanish who were coming from the Andean region after conquering Peru, called “Pampas” to the people living on those plains. These were the so-called “old Pampas” of “Het”, nomads who lived from haunting deer, rheas and guanacos. During the XVII...

At Home with the Patagonians is a book by the English explorer George Chaworth Musters, in which he describes the trip he took in 1870 together with the Tehuelches Indians (the Patagones) from the mouth of the Santa Cruz river, in the Southern Patagonia, to Carmen de Patagones, in the mouth of Río Negro, which sets the northern limit of the Patagonian territory. George Chaworth Musters Musters was the son of an English Army officer and one of his aunts took part on the Fitz Roy & Charles Darwin expedition on the Beagle. After serving in the English Navy, where he took part in the Crimea...

A lot has been said and written about the origin of the word "Patagonia", so I will try here to walk through the different theories and legends on the matter. The word "Patagonia" comes from "Patagones", which was the name given by the Portuguese mariner Fernando de Magallanes to the native people found on that part of the world during his 1520 expedition. The goal of the Magallanes expedition was to reach the Indies opening a new route to the West, and the voyage concluded with the first circumnavigation of the Earth which was completed by his subordinate Juan Sebastián Elcano. The expedition...