Araucanization
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The Araucanization (Spanish: Araucanización) was the process of expansion of Mapuche culture and language into the patagonic plains. Historians disagree in the time of the expansion but it would have occurred sometime between 1550 and 1850. Amerindian peoples such as the Tehuelches adopted the mapudungun as their main language (their own name is in mapudungun).