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Malón or maloca was a military raiding tactic of the Mapuche peoples from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. Pioneered by leaders like Lientur, it consisted of a fast surprise attack by a number of mounted Mapuche warriors against the white (huinca) populations, haciendas, settlements and fortifications in Chile and Argentina, with the aim of obtaining horses, cattle, provisions and captives, often young women. The effectiveness of the tactic was that a rapid attack without formal order did not give sufficient time to organize a defense and that it left behind a devastated population unable to retaliate or pursue. In Chile the Spaniards responded with a system of fortifications, La Frontera, garrisoned by a standing army that patrolled the border along the Bio Bio River.
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