The Poya 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 the Atlantic Ocean.