Poya people

Map of the different indigenous groups in the Southern Cone at the arrival of Europeans in the first half the 16th century.

The Poyas were a subgroup of indigenous Tehuelche people living in the Andes of Llanquihue and Palena Province as well as on the southern shores of Nahuel Huapi Lake in present day Argentina. The Jesuit priest Nicolás Mascardi divided the Poya language into two linguistically distinct groups the one spoken by the "comarcanos" of Nahuelhuapi and another one spoken further east as far away as to the Atlanctic Ocean.