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In order to understand the value and appropriation of plants by the societies that inhabit and inhabited the centre of the present Argentine Republic, a transdisciplinary approach is proposed where the interests of Archaeology, Ethnobotany and Ethnography converge. Myths, legends and stories compiled from an extensive bibliographic Research on direct oral sources published and reinterpretations made by different authors on these same sources were analyzed. The bibliographic compilation included the south of La Pampa province, the Humid Pampa sub-region, North of Patagonia, and to the west, the Andean zone and south-central Chile (Wall-Mapu and Mamül-Mapu). The data obtained are analyzed in relation to space-temporal variables, the context of utilization-appropriation and the vernacular denomination of the plants. Archaeological research on the use of plants and their importance to the hunter-gatherers of La Pampa during the latter part of the Holocene is conceived as a way of rescuing this traditional way of life. They become an important root for the construction of the identity of the Pampean peoples today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1740 and 1754 the Society of Jesus established three missions in the south of the frontier that shaped the Salado river in the present territory of the State of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Concerning the colonial authorities the sites operated as advance post; for the indigenous groups they became a place of encounter, barter and confrontation and pacific dealings, where caciques (chiefs) played a fundamental role. I propose to identify the caciques that went to the missions, their purposes and strategies; to define a model of actions on a certain context and interests. A critic reading has been done from the documents concerning this Jesuit attempt and it has been confronted with the bibliographical production from different authors. It was possible to display the strategic approach to the missions, the kind of bonds that made possible this dynamic and different components which were part of the chiefdomship, specially, the hechicero (sorcerer). The chiefdomship in the middle of the 18th Century in Pama-North-Patagonia has been characterized as a dynamic form of leadership that operated in different levels and could be assumed by several persons in different circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]