Het is the term used by

Thomas Falkner Thomas Falkner (6 October 1707 – 30 January 1784) was an English Jesuit missionary, explorer and physician, active in the Patagonia region for nearly forty years. His primary work, ''The Description of Patagonia'', was written towards the idea ...

, an English

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

, at the end of the 18th century for various nomadic groups from the and

Patagonia Patagonia () is a geographical region that includes parts of Argentina and Chile at the southern end of South America. The region includes the southern section of the Andes mountain chain with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and glaciers ...

, including the so-called and northern

Tehuelches The Tehuelche people, also called the Aónikenk, are an Indigenous people from eastern Patagonia in South America. In the 18th and 19th centuries the Tehuelche were influenced by Mapuche people, and many adopted a horseriding lifestyle. Once a ...

, but excluding the

Mapuche The Mapuche ( , ) also known as Araucanians are a group of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging e ...

(speakers of

Mapudungun Mapuche ( , ; from 'land' and 'people', meaning 'the people of the land') or Mapudungun (from 'land' and 'speak, speech', meaning 'the speech of the land'; also spelled Mapuzugun and Mapudungu) is either a language isolate or member of the s ...

). Falkner subdivided the Het into the

Chechehet Het is the term used by Thomas Falkner, an English Jesuit, at the end of the 18th century for various nomadic groups from the and Patagonia, including the so-called and northern Tehuelches, but excluding the Mapuche (speakers of Mapudungun). ...

, the Diuihet or Didiuhet, and the Taluhet. The easternmost Didiuhet, near modern

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

and influenced by the Guarani, were called the

Querandí The Querandí were one of the Het peoples, indigenous South Americans who lived in the Pampas area of Argentina; specifically, they were the eastern Didiuhet (Diuihet). The name Querandí was given by the Guaraní people, as they would consume ...

. It is not clear if these peoples were related linguistically or only culturally. The Het were neighbored on the north by the Chaná, on the northwest and west by the Mapuche, and on the south by the Puelche.

Peoples

Faulkner in the middle-to-late 1700s had listed few ethnic groups in the northeastern

pampas region The Pampas (; from Quechua 'plain'), also known as the Pampas Plain, are fertile South American low grasslands that cover more than and include the Argentine provinces of Buenos Aires, La Pampa, Santa Fe, Entre Ríos, and Córdoba; all of U ...

that were not

Araucanian The Mapuche ( , ) also known as Araucanians are a group of Indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups ...

: *The Taluhet occupied the modern provinces of San Luis in the east,

Córdoba Córdoba most commonly refers to: * Córdoba, Spain, a major city in southern Spain and formerly the imperial capital of Islamic Spain * Córdoba, Argentina, the second largest city in Argentina and the capital of Córdoba Province Córdoba or Cord ...

, and Santa Fe in the west. *The Diuihet (Divihet, Didiuhet, Diliuhet) inhabited the coastal region between the

La Plata La Plata () is the capital city of Buenos Aires province, Argentina. According to the 2022 Argentina census, census, the La Plata Partido, Partido has a population of 772,618 and its metropolitan area, the Greater La Plata, has 938,287 inhabit ...

and Paraná rivers in

Buenos Aires Province Buenos Aires, officially the Buenos Aires Province, is the largest and most populous Provinces of Argentina, Argentine province. It takes its name from the city of Buenos Aires, the capital of the country, which used to be part of the province an ...

, southern Santa Fe, and inland through

La Pampa La Pampa () is a sparsely populated province of Argentina, located in the Pampas in the center of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise San Luis, Córdoba, Buenos Aires, Río Negro, Neuquén and Mendoza. History In ...

and as far as Mendoza. The easternmost Diuihet were the

. *The Chechehet lived as far south as the mouths of the

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

and Río Negro rivers in southern Buenos Aires Province. *The Tehuelhet are now known as the

Tehuelche people The Tehuelche people, also called the Aónikenk, are an Indigenous people from eastern Patagonia in South America. In the 18th and 19th centuries the Tehuelche were influenced by Mapuche people, and many adopted a horseriding lifestyle. Once a ...

Language

In 1922,

Robert Lehmann-Nitsche Robert Lehmann‑Nitsche (November 9, 1872 in Radomierz – April 9, 1938 in Berlin) was a German anthropologist who spent thirty years in Argentina as director of the Anthropological Section of the La Plata Museum and professor at the University ...

noted the common "het" in the demonyms and proposed the "Het" language family with multiple members, including Chechehet,

, and Taluhet, although later reduced the family himself to just Chechehet. This idea was later picked up by Loukotka and Mason, but strongly opposed by

Antonio Tovar Antonio Tovar Llorente (17 May 1911 – 13 December 1985) was a Spanish philologist, linguist and historian. Biography Born in Valladolid, the son of a notary, he grew up in Elorrio (Vizcaya), Morella (Castellón) and Villena (Alicante) where ...

and . Modern researchers consider the Chechehet language to be another name for Gününa Küne. In accordance with this theory,

Glottolog ''Glottolog'' is an open-access online bibliographic database of the world's languages. In addition to listing linguistic materials ( grammars, articles, dictionaries) describing individual languages, the database also contains the most up-to-d ...

combines linguistic materials for Chechehet with Puelche. Viegas-Barros, based on the work of

Rodolfo Casamiquela Rodolfo Magín Casamiquela (December 11, 1932 in Ingeniero Jacobacci, Río Negro Province – December 5, 2008 in Cipolletti, Río Negro) was an Argentine paleontologist, archeologist, historian, writer, and teacher, best known for his discoverin ...

, states that the Het languages are in fact "ghost languages" that never existed, the language name arising from problems of interpretation. The supposed linguistic similarities between languages of different tribes, grouped by Falkner together as "Hets", are highly disputable. According to

Lyle Campbell Lyle Richard Campbell (born October 22, 1942) is an American scholar and linguist known for his studies of indigenous American languages, especially those of Central America, and on historical linguistics in general. Campbell is professor emeri ...

, the languages are equivalent to Gününa Küne. Campbell (2024) declares Loukotka's findings as stemming form a confusion with a long history".

Vocabularies

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Chechehet and Querandí; Taluhet is unattested. :

References

Sources

* {{Ancestry and ethnicity in Argentina Languages of Argentina Chonan languages Indigenous peoples of the Southern Cone Indigenous peoples in Argentina Languages extinct in the 19th century Unclassified languages of South America