The Calchaquí or Kalchakí were a tribe of South American Indians of the Diaguita group, now extinct, who formerly occupied northern Argentina.
Friedrich Ratzel in The History of Mankind[2] reported in 1896 that among the Calchaquis of Northern Argentina is found pottery painted with line drawings of birds, reptiles, and human faces, which remind one of Peruvian and Malay work.
The Europeans called a set of Diaguita cultures "Calchaquíes", such as Yocavil, Quilme, Tafí, Chicoana, Tilcara, Purmamarca, among others.
[4] During the whole period of the conquest the Spaniards had not been able to penetrate in the Calchaquí Valleys, where the Diaguita culture (Pazioca or Pazioc) had taken refuge, an advanced confederation of independent agro-pottery lordships belonging to the Santa María culture, united by a common language, the Kakán, and in turn part of the great group of the Andean civilizations.
[5] An ancestral tradition of self-sufficiency of the Paziocas and the scarce number of Spaniards in Tucumán, allowed a series of defense acts of its territory by the Pular-Diaguita-Calchaquí confederation, known as Calchachi by the Spanish.