Today's post will explore the question of the Poyas. They were a group of natives that lived in the region around Lake Nahuel Huapi, and were mainly described by the Jesuit missionaries who established their Mision of Our Lady of Nanhuel Huapi among them in 1670-74, and again in 1704-1717 when the project was abandoned.
When the Spaniards defeated the Araucanian tribes (Mapuches) and established the cities of Villarrica, Arauco, Angol, Osorno, La Imperial, Valdivia, and Concepción in the mid 1550s, they crossed to the eastern side of the Andes in pursuit of the Mapuches who had escaped there, fleeing from the invaders. They captured natives to enslave them (in raids known as malocas), for transport to the silver mines in Peru.
They called these natives Puelches (from the Mapuche words for "people of the east"). They also opened a cart trail across Neuquén, into the current provinces of La Pampa, and Buenos Aires, reaching the city of Buenos Aires which had been founded for a second time in 1580.
But the Mapuche rebelled, and the great uprising of 1598 destroyed all of the towns except Valdivia and Concepción, and the Spaniards had to retreat north of the Bio Bio River, and south into Chiloé, protected by the sea and Chacao Channel.
The Spaniards occasionally conducted malocas, one, in 1620 was authorized by Diego Flores de León, governor of Chiloé, who sent Captain Fernández across the Andes. Fernández was the first to report the existence of Lake Nahuel Huapi, where they met the Puelches, and learned about the Poyas for the first time.
Another maloca took place in 1666 when another governor of Chiloé, Juan Verdugo de la Vega sent an expedition that captured many Poyas and Puelches, this was done in the midst of the three-century-long Arauco War with the Mapuche people, but the Poyas and Puelche had nothing to do with this war.
The Jesuits petitioned to the Viceroy in Peru to have the Poyas released, and Father Nicolás Mascardi (who also wanted to find the lost City of Caesars), returned them to the Nahuel Huapi area and established a mission there in 1670. One of these Poyas was a woman who was supposedly named Huanguelé (which means "Star"), Mascardi called her "Reina" (Queen, in Spanish), because she was the leader of the local Poyas.
Mascardi had learned the Poya language during their four-year stay in Castro, Chiloé, and could communicate with them. The mission lasted until 1673 when Mascardi was murdered by the natives on his fourth and final expedition into Patagonia seeking the lost city. And the mission was abandoned for 30 years.
Father Miguel de Olivares (1674-1770) wrote a History of the Jesuits in Chile in 1736-38, in which he mentions the Nahuel Huapi Mission among the Poyas and describes them as follows:
"In the Cordilleras that run towards the south there are many Indian nations, each with its language, though all understand the Poya language which is very used among all of these Indians...
[...]The Poyas are also called Puelches [by the Spaniards] but it should be known that there is no nation that is called Puelche and holds themselves as such, because Puelche means inland people, or people who live further away. That is why thosew who live in Concepción, Valdivia, and Chiloé call these people Puelches, because they live further away, but these, call Puelches those who live further inland to the south, and no nation considers itself Puelche. But as these of Nahuelhuapi the Spaniards call puelches, we will use this same name."
Thomas Falkner (1707-1784). English Jesuit priest who lived in what is now Argentina at several Jesuit missions in close contact with natives of different Patagonian tribes from 1730 until 1767 when the Spanish crown expelled the Jesuit order from South America. Upon returning to Britain (1774) he wrote a book, A Description of Patagonia, in 1774, in which he mentions the Poyas. He compiled information about these tribes from his native informants. Below is an image from his book, describing the Poyas. (source)
Falkner mentions the southern people or Huilliches (that is what the words Huilli and Che mean in the language of the Mapuche). The first group were what now are considered Mapuches, they lived on both sides of the Andes in Neuquén, Argentina and the Chilean region south of the Bio Bio River. The Chonos, or canoe people, in the islands south of Chiloe, and the "Poy-yus or Peyes" who live along the coast between 48 and 51°S. They are followed by the Keyes (maybe Alakaluf?) all the way to the Strait of Magellan.
Falkner says these first three groups (including the Poyas) were big, and tall.
After the expulsion of the Jesuits, the Franciscan order took over their assets and business. One of them, Father Menendez tried to reopen the Mission at Nahuel Huapi in the 1790s, and conducted several expeditions to visit the ruins and the natives. Commenting Father Menendez's journal of these expeditionsm Francisco Fonck (1830-1912) states that the Poyas were of Tehuelche stock. Fonck lived in the Chilean Patagonia, was a doctor, and an explorer, and he had read most of the ancient sources about this region. He said (source):
"Let's point out that the names poyas, pouyas, pauvos, pogyas, poy-yus and payos are very similar variants a the same name. But they don't seem to correspond to the same nation, because there is no agreement between the authors, abouth their territory, which is located by some between the Cordillera and the Atlantic, and by others on the coast of the Pacific."
His point of view was that "It is probable that our poyas belonged to the same nation of the famous giant Patagons of Magellan, and the tehuelches" he mentions that the Araucanians and Poyas have "fought bloody battles" won by the Mapuche, who forced the Poyas further south. Adding that "The Puelo river descends from the east, and they seay in Chiloé that the Poya Indians came down in ancient times along it to raid those who were in Yate."
In other words they came down along this river that drains the Argentine lakes of Epuyén and Puelo, receives the outflow of the Manso River, and lakes Mascardi, Hess, Seffen, Martin, and Fonck. Yate is a small port on Reloncavi Sound, close to the mouth of the Puelo River, at the foot of Yate Volcano.
Toribio Medina (1852-1930), a Chilean historian transcribed many old, and unpublished notes and letters. In one of them, from 1732, it describes the life of a Jesuit, Father José Guillelmo, who was a missionary following the steps of Father Mascardi, at the Nahuel Huapi Mission. Medina quotes this text (Source): "the heathen Poyas live on the other side of Lake Nahuel Huapi and span many leagues, and use a different language."
The language difference, means that they did not speak Mapudungun, the language of the Mapuche.
Medina also included a note on Father Felipe Laguna, who stated that "two nations live in this area, the Puelches and the Poyas."
Ramón Lista (1856-1897) was an Argentine explorer, military and scientist. He explored Patagonia between 1877 and 1887, and also governor of the National Territory of Santa Cruz between 1887 and 1892, where he wed an Aonikenk who gave him a daughter, he had first hand experience with the Patagonian natives. He died at the hands of his guides while exploring the tropical Chaco jungles in northern Argentina.
Lista wrote an article, published in 1896, Los Tehuelches de La Patagonia, in which he states that the language of the Poyas was different the one spoken by the Araucanians and the Chonos.
Lista adds that the Poyas and the Caucaus (who lived further south) were not related to the Mapuche (Araucanians), they were not Tehuelches either. Lista says:
"in my opinion, the Poyas and Caucaus are closely related and belong to the ethnic group of the Southern Andes and Magalleanic lands that includes the Chonos in general, that is, all the ancient people along the Pacific coast, south of the Araucanians, and of the Vuta-huilliches of the oriental slope [of the Andes]... the Alacaluf and Yaghans, canoe people of Tierra del Fuego. We also imagine that the Poyas have not become extinct, nor have they merged into the race of the Patagonian lowlands [Tehuelches]... to the contrary, they form an ethnic group that we identify with the northern tribes of Chacamat and Pchalao... which we had designated as Quirquinchos, name given to them by the Tehuelches who look upon them as a hybrid tribe, and whom they mock because they don't know how to speak their language, and instead mix into their conversation, Tehuelche, Araucanian and other words."
Which was the Poya language? We don't have any records. Francisco Moreno reported the name given by them to Lake Nahuel Huapi but does not provide any details: "Stretia Lafquen" note that Lafquen is the Mapuche word for "lake", but Stretia is not a Tehuelche or a Mapuche word.
From Mascardi we have several Poya names: a tribal chief, Manqueunai which has a definite Mapuche sound. Salatil, Aquillo, "Reina's" brother. Father Laguna mentions a Poya named Maledica,
Chilean ethnologist and archaeologist Ricardo E. Latcham (1903-1965) in his Prehistoria Chilena mentions the Puelches as natives that set up their camps in the valleys on the eastern side of the Andes (Neuquén), north of the Nahuel Huapi, (Limay?) and Negro Rivers. This coincides with the aracuanized natives later known as Manzaneros in Neuquén (Moreno encountered their last chief, Sayhueque, at his encampment on the Collón Curá and Caleufu Rivers, in the 1870s).
Latcham adds that south of the Nahuel Huapi and the Negro River "were the Poyas, who, no doubt, were a branch of the Tehuelches or Patagones. In their raids, they used to reach the beaches of the province of Llanquihue, bathed by the Gulf of Reloncavi and Moraleda Channel where during a certain time of the year they supplied themselves with dried fish and seafood. They figured in this latter region under the name of Taruches."
Finally there is a very interesting article by Fabian Arias, published in 2002, (Los pueblos del noroeste de la Patagonia Argentina) has an interesting and well documented analysis of the Poyas. He puts forward the following hypothesis, that the nomad Tehuelches advanced on the groups that lived by the main lakes and rivers who were related throgh their culture with the Chono people on the western side of the Andes and with other "lake people" of central Neuquén. These Poyas used canoes, cooked in pits with hot stones, and ate fish, all of which were cultural practices that were not adopted by the Tehuelches. They also painted rock art in areas close to the lakes that were only accessible by water, and in the forests, which the Tehuelche were reluctant to enter (they feared the forest spirits).
Arias argues that the Poya people were lacustrine, and that they underwent a process of "Tehuelchization" when the Tehuelche moved northwards into the Poya territories, modifying their language, culture, customs, and, eventually absorbing them.
I agree with Arias. The Poyas had a distinct lake-river-based hunter-gatherer economy, they lived in the woods and on its edge, where it met the steppe (in this area, it was formerly an open forested area with cypress trees. They knew the passes across the Andes, and went along the Pacific basin rivers ocassionally to fish and harvest clams and mussels. They were perhaps related to the Chono people but specialized in freshwater habitats.
The Mapuche irruption from Central Chile into the Chilean lake district altered their territory in Chile, and the Spanish occupation worsened the situation. There is ample evidence of canoe-people in the Chilean and Argentine Lake districts. The migration of Mapuches into Neuquen also displaced them. The Tehuelche probably moved gradually into the Nahuel Huapi and Limay areas. Blending with the Poyas.
By the time the Spainards ment them they used the word Puelche to designate any native living on the eastern side of the Andes, and Poyas for the lake people. They were assumed to be tall like all Patagons that had been reported on the Atlantic coast, and the Caucaue people of the South Pacific (the latter were first describe by General Dionisio de Rueda, governor of Chiloé in 1641, while he navigated to the Strait of Magellan and fought a battle with them at Los Pabellones, in Aysen, these were “gigantic people” of a very belligerent nature).
Taruches
Regarding Latcham and the "Taruches". Little is known about them. I found a reference (source) from which the following image was taken:
It is a report by a Spanish Viceroy of Peru Amat y Junyent, and former Governor of Chile, sent to the King of Spain in 1761, it mentions some coastal natives, the Juncos, named after the Junco River, who assisted by Puelches and "others who live beyond the [illegible] that do not use horses, but move very fast on foot, called Taruches" attacked a fort by the Bueno River (40° S).
According to Robert Lehmann-Nitsche (Source) the word Taruche is "people" = "che" and "Carancho", a bird of prey ="taro". He assimilates them to a Tehuelche group,the Táluliet.
Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall ©
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