In his paper El Grupo Lingüistico Tshon de los territorios magallánicos, Robert LEhmann-Nitsche mentions the name of the Tehuelche natives, and offers different explanations. One is the following, and it involves the pre-Hispanic horse, native to the Américas. (Revista del Museo de La Plata, vol.22, 1913).
I have posted several times about extant native American horses, this is additional proof. Below is the relevant text:
"[these] inducethe belief that tehuel may also be an animal, typical of Patagonia, but, which? The reasonings of Aníbal Cardoso3, in my point of view leave no doubt abouth the fact that the autochthonous Argentine horse (Equus rectidiens) has existed during the period of the conquest [by the Spaniards c.1536] and is still alive, though not with pureblood representatives (the last bands in Southern Patagonia must have disappeared during the past years), but crossbred with the imported horse, originating the creole horse. The native linguistics supports this ...
there is among the Araucanians [Mapuches] the native Word for a wild horse: caitá (this is, according to our investigations, the correct spelling), the word is not found in the old dictionaries, but is commented by Lenz1.
...
It is on record that the Patagons of the South used the word shäch, to designate wild horse (Equus rectidiens), that was gradually replaced by the Spanish word caballo."
3 Cardoso, Antigüedad del Caballo en el Plata. Anales del Museo Nacional de Historia Natural de Buenos Aires. XII, p.271-439. 1912. Nuevos comprobantes a propóito e la antigüedad del caballo en el Plata, ibidiem, XXIV, p. 445-460. 1913.
1 Lenz, Los elementos indios del castellano de Chile. Santiago de Chile, 1904, p.160.
Below is a picture (Source) of a Tehuelche native, wrapped in his guanaco fur quillango mounting a rather small horse which, seems to have curly hair!!
Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall ©
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