The Picunche (a Mapudungun word meaning "North People"), also referred to as picones by the Spanish, were a Mapudungun-speaking Chilean people living to the north of the Mapuches or Araucanians (a name given to those Mapuche living between the Itata and Toltén rivers) and south of the Choapa River and the Diaguitas. Until the Conquest of Chile the Itata was the natural limit between the Mapuche, located to the south, and Picunche, to the north. During the Inca attempt to conquer Chile the southern Picunche peoples that successfully resisted them were later known as the Promaucaes.