CHANGOAN, a tribe or small group of tribes of South American Indians, forming an independent linguistic stock. The Changos occupied the arid coast of the desert of Atacama in north ern Chile. They are an almost dwarfish, fisher folk of very simple culture, and are now nearly extinct, except in the vicinity of Cobija. The Changos depended largely on shell-fish for food, and had balsas or rafts of poles and inflated seal-skins from which they fished along the shore. They wore little clothing, and had small crude huts of poles and thatch. Unlike the population of the coast farther north, the dead were buried at length, instead of flexed.