ABIPN

South American Indian people who formerly lived on the lower Bermejo River in the Argentine Gran Chaco. They spoke a language (also called Callaga) belonging to the Guaycuruan group of the Guaycur-Charruan languages. The Abipn were divided into three dialect groups: the Nakaigetergeh ("Forest People"), the Riikah ("People of the Open Country"), and the Yaaukanig ("Water People"). About 1750 their numbers were estimated at 5,000, but in the second half of the 19th century they became extinct as a people. Seminomadic bands of Abipn hunted, fished, gathered food, and practiced a limited degree of agriculture before the introduction of the horse. The latter event transformed the whole social system of the Chaco. Agriculture was practically abandoned, and semiwild cattle, rhea, guanaco, deer, and peccary were hunted on horseback. Abipn horsemen also raided Spanish farms and ranches, even threatening large cities such as Asuncin and Corrientes. By 1750 the Jesuits had settled the Abipn on missions that later became the Argentine cities of Reconquista and Resistencia. White military pacification campaigns in the 19th century circumscribed the Abipn's hunting grounds. Many of the Indians were slaughtered, and others were assimilated into the general population.