The heart of the matter. Notes on the economic role of women in traditional indigenous societies of southern Argentina

Abstract

The present article is focused on the different economic roles performed by women within Pampa-Patagonia Indigenous societies between late Sixteenth and Nineteenth-Centuries. It was then when the contact between Hispanic-Creole society started and new grazing thechniques were adopted. Both questions led those Indigenous societies to social and economic changes. All those happened amidst a period of interethnic conflict with the "white" society. Although there are difficulties to clear up women's role within native economy, the avaliable historical sources show interesting and innovative aspects not too much explored in former bibliographies. Thus it could be possible to gather information about women as sheep owners and wavers, women's bilingual experience. Additionally this paper describes women's captivity and the importance of dowry within native society.