Lule Indians.— A name which has given rise to considerable confusion and dispute in Argentine ethnology, owing to the fact, now established, that it was applied at different periods to two very different peoples, neither of which now exists under that name, while the vocabulary which could settle the affinity of the earlier tribe is now lost. The name itself, meaning “inhabitants”, conveys no ethnic significance, being a term applied indiscriminately by the invading Ma-taco from the East to the tribes which they found already in occupancy of the country.
The Lule of the earlier period appear to have been the tribe more definitely known under their Quichua name of Cacana, “mountaineers”, occupying the hill ranges of the upper Salado River in the provinces of Catamarca and Western Tucuman, Argentina. They were of the stock of the Calchaqui, the southernmost tributaries of the historic Quichua of Peru, from whom they had absorbed a high degree of aboriginal culture. Owing to their relations with the Quichua on the one hand and with the neighboring Toconote (also Tonocote), or Matara, on the other hand, they were familiar also with these languages as well as with their own, a fact which has served much to increase the confusion. By the Jesuit missionary Alonso Barcena (or Barzana) the Lule (Cacana) were gathered, in 1589, into a mission settlement on the Salado, near the Spanish town of Talavera or Esteco. The Matara, or Toconote, were evangelized at the same time. Here, within the following twenty years, they were visited also by St. Francis Solano. In 1692 the region was devastated by a terrible earthquake which destroyed the towns of Esteco and Concepcion, together with the missions, in consequence of which the terror-stricken neophytes fled into the forests of the great Chaco wilderness north of the Salado, and became lost to knowledge, while the grammar and vocabulary which Father Barcena had composed of the Toconote language disappeared likewise.
The Lule of the later period are better known, being the principal of a group of cognate tribes constituting the Lulean stock, formerly ranging over the central and western Chaco region in Argentina, chiefly between the Salado and the Vermejo, in the Province of Salta. Although the classification of the Argentine dialects is still incomplete and in dispute, the following existent or extinct tribes seem to come within the Lulean linguistic group: Lule proper (so called by the Mataeo), calling themselves Pele, “men”, and believed by Hervas to be the Oristine of the earliest missionary period; Toconote, called Matara by the Quichua, and incorrectly identified by Machoni with the Mataco of another stock; Isistine; Toquistine; Chulupf, Chunupf or Cinipf; Vilelo, called Quiatzu by the Mataco, with sub-tribes Guamaica and Tequete; Omoampa, with sub-tribes Iya and Yeconoampa; Juri; Pasaine.
In general the Lulean tribes were below medium stature, pedestrian in habit, peaceful and unwarlike, except in self-defense, living partly by hunting and partly by agriculture, contrasting strongly with the athletic and predatory equestrian tribes of the eastern Chaco represented by the Abipone and Mataco. The still wild Chulupf of the Pilcomayo, however, resemble the latter tribes in physique and warlike character. In consequence of the ceaseless inroads of the wild Chaco tribes upon the Spanish settlements, Governor Urizar, about the year 1710, led against them a strong expedition from Tucuman which for a time brought to submission those savages who were unable to escape beyond his reach. As one result, the Lule were, in 1711, gathered into a mission called San Esteban, at Miraflores on the Salado, about one hundred miles below Salta, under the charge of the Jesuit Father Antonio Machoni. Machoni prepared a grammar and dictionary of their language (Madrid, 1732), for which reason it is sometimes known as the “Lule of Ma-chos”, to distinguish it from the Cacana Lule of the earlier period. San Jose, or Petaca, was established among the Vilelo in 1735. In consequence of the inroads of the wild tribes, these missions were tem-porarily abandoned, but were reestablished in 1751-52. In 1751 the cognate Isistine and Toquistine were gathered into the new mission of San Juan Bautista at Valbuena, a few miles lower down the Salado River. In 1763 Nuestra Senora del Buen Consejo, or Ortega, was established for the Omoampa and their sub-tribes, and Nuestra Senora de in Columna, or Macapillo, for the Pasaine, both on the Salado below Miraflores, and all five being within the province of Salta. In 1767, just before the expulsion of the Jesuits, the five missions of the cognate Lulean tribes had a population of 2346 Indians, almost all Christians, served by eleven priests, among them being Father Jose Iolis, author of a history of the Chaco.
Notwithstanding the civilizing efforts of the missionaries, the Lule shared in the general and swift decline of the native tribes consequent upon the advent of the whites, resulting in repeated visitations of the smallpox scourge—previously unknown—the whole-sale raids of Portuguese slave-hunters (Mamelucos), and the oppressions of-the forced-labor system under the Spaniards. The mission Indians were the special prey both of the slave-hunters and of the predatory wild tribes. On the withdrawal of the Jesuits, the mission property was confiscated or otherwise wasted, while the Indians who were not reduced to practical slavery fled into the forests. At present the cognate Lulean tribes are represented chiefly by some Vilelo living among the Mataco on the middle Vermejo and by the uncivilized Chulupf on the Pilcomayo.
JAMES MOONEY