tribe.]] family in Norway around 1900.]]

Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups who are native to a land or region, especially before the arrival and intrusion of a foreign and possibly dominating culture. They are a group of people whose members share a cultural identity that has been shaped by their geographical region. A variety of names are used in various countries to identify such groups of people, but they generally are regarded as the "original inhabitants" of a territory or region. Their right to self-determination may be materially affected by the later-arriving ethnic groups.

Origins of phrase

During the late twentieth century the term Indigenous peoples evolved into a political term that refers to ethnic groups with historical ties to groups that existed in a territory prior to colonization or formation of a nation state. These are usually distinct ethnic groups that have preserved a degree of cultural and political separation from the mainstream culture and political system that has grown to surround or dominate them economically, politically, culturally, or geographically. "'Indigenous peoples' ... is a term that internationalizes the experiences, the issues and the struggles of some of the world's colonized peoples," writes Maori educator Linda Thuwai Smith. "The final 's' in 'indigenous peoples' ... [is] a way of recognizing that there are real differences between different indigenous peoples."

Used politically, the term defines these groups as particularly vulnerable to exploitation and oppression by nation states, and as a result a special set of political rights in accordance with international law have been set forth by international organizations such as the United Nations, the International Labour Organization and the World Bank. The United Nations issued a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, with the intent to protect the collective rights of indigenous peoples to their culture, identity, language, employment, health, education and natural resources.

However, the phrase is not applied consistently in all cultures. The notion of an indigenous group depends on context and other issues. The World Banks policy for indigenous people states:

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Different states designate the groups within their boundaries that are recognized as indigenous peoples according to international legislation by different terms. These include, for example "Native Americans" and "Pacific Islander" in the United States; "Inuit", "Métis" and "First Nations" in Canada; Aborigines in Australia; Hill tribes in South East Asia; indigenous ethnic minorities, Scheduled tribes or Adivasi in India; tribal groups, or autochthonous groups. The Negritos were the earliest inhabitants of Southeast Asia.]]

The adjective indigenous has the common meaning of "from" or "of the original origin". Therefore, in a purely adjectival sense any given people, ethnic group or community may be described as being indigenous in reference to some particular region or location. Therefore, the distinction applied to indigenous groups can be formulated as "a politically underprivileged group, who share a similar... identity different to the nation in power", and who share territorial rights to a particular area governed by a colonial power. However, the specific term indigenous peoples has a more restrictive interpretation when it used in the more formalized, legalistic, and academic sense, associated with the collective rights of human populations. to 350 million as of the start of the 21st century. This would equate to just fewer than 6% of the total world population. This includes at least 5000 distinct peoples in over 72 countries.

Contemporary distinct indigenous groups survive in populations ranging from only a few dozen to hundreds of thousands and more. Many indigenous populations have undergone a dramatic decline and even extinction, and remain threatened in many parts of the world. Some have also been assimilated by other populations or have undergone many other changes. In other cases, indigenous populations are undergoing a recovery or expansion in numbers.

Certain indigenous societies survive even though they may no longer inhabit their "traditional" lands, owing to migration, relocation, forced resettlement or having been supplanted by other cultural groups. In many other respects, the transformation of culture of indigenous groups is ongoing, and includes permanent loss of language, loss of lands, encroachment on traditional territories, and disruption in traditional lifeways due to contamination and pollution of waters and lands.

Common characteristics

Characteristics common across many Indigenous groups include present or historical reliance upon subsistence-based production (based on pastoral, horticultural and/or hunting and gathering techniques), and a predominantly non-urbanized society. Not all indigenous groups share these characteristics. Indigenous societies may be either settled in a given locale/region or exhibit a nomadic lifestyle across a large territory, but are generally historically associated with a specific territory on which they are dependent. Indigenous societies are found in every inhabited climate zone and continent of the world.

Common concerns

Indigenous peoples confront a diverse range of concerns associated with their status and interaction with other cultural groups, as well as changes in their inhabited environment. Some challenges are specific to particular groups; however, other challenges are commonly experienced. Bartholomew Dean and Jerome Levi (2003) explore why and how the circumstances of indigenous peoples are improving in some places of the world, while their human rights continue to be abused in others. These issues include cultural and linguistic preservation, land rights, ownership and exploitation of natural resources, political determination and autonomy, environmental degradation and incursion, poverty, health, and discrimination.

The interaction between indigenous and non-indigenous societies throughout history has been complex, ranging from outright conflict and subjugation to some degree of mutual benefit and cultural transfer. A particular aspect of anthropological study involves investigation into the ramifications of what is termed first contact, the study of what occurs when two cultures first encounter one another. The situation can be further confused when there is a complicated or contested history of migration and population of a given region, which can give rise to disputes about primacy and ownership of the land and resources.

In further evidence of how vulnerable some of the Indigenous Peoples are, the Bangladesh Government has stated that there are "no Indigenous Peoples in Bangladesh".. This has angered the Indigenous Peoples of Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh, collectively known as the Jumma (whichs include the Chakma, Marma, Tripura, Tenchungya, Chak, Pankho, Mru, Murung, Bawm, Lushai, Khyang, Gurkha, Assamese, Santal and Khumi).. Experts have protested against this move of the Bangladesh Government and have questioned the Government's definition of the term "Indigenous Peoples". . This move by the Bangladesh Government is seen by the Indigenous Peoples of Bangladesh as another step by the Government to further erode their already limited rights.

Historical cultures

woman from the Kutia Kondh tribal group in Orissa, India.]] The migration, expansion and settlement of societies throughout different territories is a universal, almost defining thread which runs through the entire course of human history. Many of the cross-cultural interactions which arose as a result of these historical encounters involved societies which might properly be considered as indigenous, either from their own viewpoint or that of external societies.

Most often, these past encounters between indigenous and "non-indigenous" groups lack contemporary account or description. Any assessment or understanding of impact, result and relation can at best only be surmised, using archaeological, linguistic or other reconstructive means. Where accounts do exist, they frequently originate from the viewpoint of the colonizing, expansionary or nascent state or from rather scarce and fragmented ethnographic sources compiled by those more congenial with indigenous communities and/or representatives thereof.

Classical antiquity

Greek sources of the Classical period acknowledge the prior existence of indigenous people(s), whom they referred to as "Pelasgians". These peoples inhabited lands surrounding the Aegean Sea before the subsequent migrations of the Hellenic ancestors claimed by these authors. The disposition and precise identity of this former group is elusive, and sources such as Homer, Hesiod and Herodotus give varying, partially mythological accounts. However, it is clear that cultures existed whose indigenous characteristics were distinguished by the subsequent Hellenic cultures (and distinct from non-Greek speaking "foreigners", termed "barbarians" by the historical Greeks). Greco-Roman society flourished between 250 BC and 480 AD and commanded successive waves of conquests that gripped more than half of the globe. But because already existent populations within other parts of Europe at the time of classical antiquity had more in common culturally speaking with the Greco-Roman world, the intricacies involved in expansion across the European frontier were not so contentious relative to indigenous issues. But when it came to expansion in other parts of the world, namely Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, then totally new cultural dynamics had entered into the equation so to speak and we see here a beginning if you like, of what was to take the Americas, South East Asia, and the Pacific by storm a few hundred years later. The idea that peoples who possessed cultural customs and racial appearances strikingly different to that of the colonizing power is no new idea borne out of the Medieval period or the Age of Reason. In fact, this idea had its roots in the political and intellectual ideologies of classical antiquity which tended towards dualizing the interdependent composites of nature and culture to the extent that all 'civilized' peoples were seen to be exemplary of a culture that was unequivocally refined and quintessentially separate from nature in its sociorelational characteristics and resultant political ability to embrace unashamedly a conquering mindset informed by what was believed to be the elemental urge and rational inclination towards accumulation of status and wealth. Therefore, this prevailing social belief in the efficacy of a hierarchical order of supreme rationality governed all political decisions both major and minor, in the Greco-Roman world. This is what the culture and politics of expansionism hinged itself upon coupled with a marked disdain for any culture that dared to prop itself up in resistance against this self-interested power. Indigenous cultures that did such actions to counter the acculturative influences of Greco-Roman rule in this period were often met with brute suppression and a magnitude of cultural disintegration equaled in scope during the subsequent latter European colonial period which stretched from the 15th century into the 20th. Two of the most well known of these earlier movements of indigenous resistance include the popular "Zealot" uprisings in ancient Israel which brazenly refuted the self-appointed efficacy and cultural ostentation of Greco-Roman imperial presence and the audacious counter-culture of dissent thrown at imperial Rome by Christian exiles from their traditional territory in Israel, which was thrown into political turbulence in 70 AD. presenting the captured Guanche kings of Tenerife to Ferdinand and Isabella.]]

European expansion and colonialism

The rapid and extensive spread of the various European powers from the early 15th century onwards had a profound impact upon many of the indigenous cultures with whom they came into contact. The exploratory and colonial ventures in the Americas, Africa, Asia and the Pacific often resulted in territorial and cultural conflict, and the intentional or unintentional displacement and devastation of the indigenous populations.

The Canary Islands had an indigenous population called the Guanches whose origin is still the subject of discussion among historians and linguists.

Contemporary distribution and survey

Indigenous populations are distributed in regions throughout the globe. The numbers, condition and experience of indigenous groups may vary widely within a given region. A comprehensive survey is further complicated by sometimes contentious membership and identification.

Arab Tribal Societies

hunter from Shammar tribe with a shot Asiatic Cheetah and cub from Southwestern Iraq poses with his new Lee-Enfield rifle in 1925.]] The Arabian peninsula and adjacent areas are home to numerous indigenous Arab tribes. Both the far eastern seaboard of the Mediterranean and the Arabian Peninsula are home to a vast number of Bedouin tribes that lived in the area since pre-historical times. Many Arab tribes have moved into Africa, South Asia and South East Asia in which case they are not considered indigenous. Remnants of old South Arabian indigenous people are found in Oman and Yemen. on horseback during the Ottoman occupation of Transjordan. ]] Amongst Arabs, a distinction is often made between Adnani Arabs (Arabic: العرب المستعربة) - (Arabized Arabs) and Qathani Arabs (Arabic: قحطان‎ ). Since Islam forbade discrimination on racial grounds and ruled that the offspring of a slave and a free person was to inherit the family name, be an heir and also be set free, there has been a strong foreign impact on the Arab population. Because of historic intercultural intermingling there are now certain tribes that are almost entirely referred to as black and some tribes on the Mediterranean's far eastern seaboard that look similar to what are referred to as white people. In the Gulf countries, in recent times there has been a large number of Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi and Persians immigrants that actually outnumber indigenous communities in many smaller states. Many have acquired citizenship trough naturalization. It is believed that these foreign groups will impose a strong future pressure on indigenous populations who are by comparison, relatively small in number. As a general rule tribes in this geographical vicinity do not practice tribal enrollment based on blood quantum as some Native American tribal governments do. It is a mistake to assume that only Bedouin Arabs are members of indigenous tribes. However, there are indigenous tribes who can trace their heritage to one of the many ancient Arabian tribes and there are indigenous groups who, for some reason or other, have lost their tribal names or affiliation due to sedentary live style or other factors.If the latter are to be considered indigenous in the narrow sense, remains subject of debate. These are sometimes referred to as 220 Volts and 110 Volts respectively.

Africa

In the post-colonial period, the concept of specific indigenous peoples within the African continent has gained wider acceptance, although not without controversy. The highly diverse and numerous ethnic groups which comprise most modern, independent African states contain within them various peoples whose situation, cultures and pastoralist or hunter-gatherer lifestyles are generally marginalized and set apart from the dominant political and economic structures of the nation. Since the late 20th century these peoples have increasingly sought recognition of their rights as distinct indigenous peoples, in both national and international contexts. man from Namibia.]] Although the vast majority of African peoples can be considered to be indigenous in the sense that they have originated from that continent and middle and south east Asia, in practice identity as an "indigenous people" as per the term's modern application is more restrictive, and certainly not every African ethnic group claims identification under these terms. Groups and communities who do claim this recognition are those who by a variety of historical and environmental circumstances have been placed outside of the dominant state systems, and whose traditional practices and land claims often come into conflict with the objectives and policies promulgated by governments, companies and surrounding dominant societies. wearing the Tajelmust.]] Given the extensive and complicated history of human migration within Africa, being the "first peoples in a land" is not a necessary precondition for acceptance as an indigenous people. Rather, indigenous identity relates more to a set of characteristics and practices than priority of arrival. For example, several populations of nomadic peoples such as the Tuareg of the Sahara and Sahel regions now inhabit areas in which they arrived comparatively recently; their claim to indigenous status (endorsed by the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights) is based on their marginalization as nomadic peoples in states and territories dominated by sedentary agricultural peoples. with traditional bow and arrow.]] The Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee (IPACC) is one of the main trans-national network organizations recognized as a representative of African indigenous peoples in dialogues with governments and bodies such as the UN. IPACC identifies several key characteristics associated with indigenous claims in Africa:

political and economic marginalization rooted in colonialism;

de facto discrimination based often on the dominance of agricultural peoples in the State system (e.g. lack of access to education and health care by hunters and herders);

the particularities of culture, identity, economy and territoriality that link hunting and herding peoples to their home environments in deserts and forests (e.g. nomadism, diet, knowledge systems);

some indigenous peoples, such as the San and Pygmy peoples are physically distinct, which makes them subject to specific forms of discrimination.

With respect to concerns expressed that identifying some groups and not others as indigenous is in itself discriminatory, IPACC states that it:

"...recognises that all Africans should enjoy equal rights and respect. All of Africa's diversity is to be valued. Particular communities, due to historical and environmental circumstances, have found themselves outside the state-system and underrepresented in governance...This is not to deny other Africans their status; it is to emphasise that affirmative recognition is necessary for hunter-gatherers and herding peoples to ensure their survival."

family crossing a ford - scene in Algeria. Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley.]] At an African inter-governmental level, the examination of indigenous rights and concerns is pursued by a sub-commission established under the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR), sponsored by the African Union (AU) (successor body to the Organization of African Unity (OAU)). In late 2003 the 53 signatory states of the ACHPR adopted the Report of the African Commission's Working Group on Indigenous Populations/Communities and its recommendations. This report says in part (p. 62):

...certain marginalized groups are discriminated in particular ways because of their particular culture, mode of production and marginalized position within the state[; a] form of discrimination that other groups within the state do not suffer from. The call of these marginalized groups to protection of their rights is a legitimate call to alleviate this particular form of discrimination.

The adoption of this report at least notionally subscribed the signatories to the concepts and aims of furthering the identity and rights of African Indigenous peoples. The extent to which individual states are mobilizing to put these recommendations into practice varies enormously, however, and most Indigenous groups continue to agitate for improvements in the areas of land rights, use of natural resources, protection of environment and culture, political recognition and freedom from discrimination.

Americas

Indigenous peoples of the American continents are broadly recognized as being those groups and their descendants who inhabited the region before the arrival of European colonizers and settlers (i.e., Pre-Columbian). Indigenous peoples who maintain, or seek to maintain, traditional ways of life are found from the high Arctic north to the southern extremities of Tierra del Fuego. Belle (1850)]] The impact of European colonization of the Americas on the indigenous communities has been in general quite severe, with many authorities estimating ranges of significant population decline due to the ravages of various genocide campaigns, epidemic diseases (smallpox, measles, etc.), displacement, conflict, compulsory boarding schools, massacres and exploitation. The extent of this impact is the subject of much continuing debate. Several peoples shortly thereafter became extinct, or very nearly so.

All nations in North and South America have populations of indigenous peoples within their borders. In some countries (particularly Latin American), indigenous peoples form a sizable component of the overall national population—in Bolivia they account for an estimated 56%-70% of the total nation, and at least half of the population in Guatemala and the Andean and Amazonian nations of Peru. In English, indigenous peoples are collectively referred to by several different terms which vary by region and include such ethnonyms as Native Americans, Amerindians, Indians. In Spanish or Portuguese speaking countries one finds the use of terms such as pueblos indígenas, povos, nativos, indígenas, and in Peru, Comunidades Nativas, particularly among Amazonian societies like the Urarina and Matsés.

Aboriginal peoples in Canada comprise the First Nations, Inuit and Métis. The descriptors "Indian" and "Eskimo" are falling into disuse in Canada. There are currently over 600 recognized First Nations governments or bands encompassing 1,172,790 ²⁰⁰⁶ peoples spread across Canada with distinctive Aboriginal cultures, languages, art, and music. National Aboriginal Day recognises the cultures and contributions of Aboriginals to the history of Canada

The Inuit have achieved a degree of administrative autonomy with the creation in 1999 of the territories of Nunavik (in Northern Quebec), Nunatsiavut (in Northern Labrador) and Nunavut, which was until 1999 a part of the Northwest Territories. The self-administering Danish territory of Greenland is also home to a majority population of indigenous Inuit (about 85%). village of the Amazon Rainforest.]] In the United States, the combined populations of Native Americans, Inuit and other indigenous designations totalled 2,786,652 (constituting about 1.5% of 2003 US census figures). Some 563 scheduled tribes are recognized at the Federal level, and a number of others recognized at the State level.

In Mexico, approximately 6,011,202 (constituting about 6.7% of 2005 Mexican census figures) identify as Indígenas (Spanish for natives or indigenous peoples). In the southern states of Chiapas, Yucatán and Oaxaca they constitute 26.1%, 33.5% and 35.3%, respectively, of the population. In these states several conflicts and episodes of civil war have been conducted, in which the situation and participation of indigenous societies were notable factors (see for example EZLN).

The Amerindians make up 0.4% of Brazil's population, or about 700,000 people. Indigenous peoples are found in the entire territory of Brazil, although the majority of them live in Indian reservations in the North and Center-Western part of the country. On 18 January 2007, FUNAI reported that it had confirmed the presence of 67 different uncontacted tribes in Brazil, up from 40 in 2005. With this addition Brazil has now overtaken the island of New Guinea as the country having the largest number of uncontacted tribes.

Guatemala is 50 to 80% indigenous, depending on whose statistics are used (Nelson, Finger in the Wound 1999)

Asia

: See also: :Category:Indigenous peoples of Asia

with a bear around 1930]] The vast regions of Asia contain the majority of the world's present-day Indigenous populations, about 70% according to IWGIA figures.

The most substantial populations are in India, which constitutionally recognizes a range of "Scheduled Tribes" within its borders. These various peoples (collectively referred to as Adivasis, or tribal peoples) number about 68 million (1991 census figures, approximately 8% of the total national population).

Nivkh people are an ethnic group indigenous to Sakhalin, having a few speakers of the Nivkh language, but their fisher culture has been endangered due to the development of oil field of Sakhalin from 1990s.

Ainu people are an ethnic group indigenous to Hokkaidō, the Kuril Islands, and much of Sakhalin. As Japanese settlement expanded, the Ainu were pushed northward, until by the Meiji period they were confined by the government to a small area in Hokkaidō, in a manner similar to the placing of Native Americans on reservations.

The languages of Taiwanese aborigines have significance in historical linguistics, since in all likelihood Taiwan was the place of origin of the entire Austronesian language family, which spread across Oceania.

There are indigenous peoples of the Philippines, which Spain and the United States colonized.

The Assyrians and Marsh Arabs are indigenous to areas of the geocultural region of Mesopotamia which includes parts of Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. The Lurs also inhabit parts of Iraq close to the Iranian border with the provinces of Lorestan and Ilam.

The Bahrani are the indigenous people of the archipelago of Bahrain and the oasis of Qatif on the Persian Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia (see historical region of Bahrain).

Europe

:See also: :Category:Indigenous peoples of Europe and European ethnic groups ) girl]] are one of the indigenous inhabitants of the Caucasus.]] Since most of Europe in historical times was never colonized by non-European powers with lasting effect (arguably except for Hungary, Turkish Thrace, Tatarstan, Kalmykia and islands such as Malta or Cyprus), the vast majority of Europeans can be considered indigenous. However several widely accepted formulations, which define the term "Indigenous peoples" in stricter terms, have been put forward by internationally recognized organizations, such as the United Nations, the International Labour Organization and the World Bank. Indigenous peoples in this article is used in such a narrower sense.

In Europe, present-day recognized indigenous populations are relatively few, mainly confined to northern and far-eastern reaches of this Eurasian peninsula. Whilst there are various ethnic minorities distributed within European countries, few of these still maintain traditional subsistence cultures and are recognized as indigenous peoples, per se. Notable indigenous populations include the Sami people of northern Scandinavia, the Nenets and other Samoyedic peoples of the northern Russian Federation, and the Komi peoples of the western Urals.

The Basque people, inhabiting northern Spain and southwestern France, are one of the oldest indigenous groups in Europe. It is widely held that most likely the Basques are the last surviving ethno-linguistic group descended from populations of Neolithic Europe before the intrusion of Indo-European languages and peoples. Another theory about Basque origins suggests that they are a remnant of Paleolithic Europeans inhabiting continuously the Franco-Cantabrian region since at least Magdalenian times. The only archaeological evidence for an invasion of the Basque Country dates to some 40,000 years ago when Cro-Magnon people first arrived in Europe and superseded Homo neanderthalensis.

Caucasus is unique in its diversity, with a greater variety of languages spoken there than in any region of similar size in the world. Caucasus region is the home of over 50 cultural minorities like the Circassians. See also: Peoples of the Caucasus.

Oceania

man from the Southern Highlands, Papua New Guinea. New Guinea has more than 1,000 indigenous languages.]]

Many of the present-day Pacific Island nations in the Oceania region were originally populated by Polynesian, Melanesian and Micronesian peoples over the course of thousands of years. European colonial expansion in the Pacific brought many of these under non-indigenous administration. During the 20th century several of these former colonies gained independence and nation-states were formed under local control. However, various peoples have put forward claims for Indigenous recognition where their islands are still under external administration; examples include the Chamorros of Guam and the Northern Marianas, and the Marshallese of the Marshall Islands.

The remains of at least 25 miniature humans, who lived between 1,000 and 3,000 years ago, were recently found on the islands of Palau in Micronesia.

In most parts of Oceania, indigenous peoples outnumber the descendants of colonists. Exceptions include Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii. According to the 2001 Australian census, indigenous Australians make up 2.4% of the total population, while in New Zealand 14.6% of the population identify at least partially as indigenous Māori, with slightly more than half (53%) of all Māori residents identifying solely as Māori. The Māori are indigenous to Polynesia and settled New Zealand relatively recently, the migrations were thought to have occurred between 1000-1200 CE. In New Zealand pre-contact Māori tribes were not a single people, thus the more recent grouping into tribal (iwi) arrangements has become a more formal arrangement in more recent times. Many Māori tribal leaders signed a treaty with the British, Treaty of Waitangi, so that the modern geo-political entity that is New Zealand was established by partial consent. However, the Māori language translation of the Treaty of Waitangi which they signed is worded ambiguously and does not fully match the English version. The treaty process gave British citizenship to the 'native' population. However, some of the British settlers ignored the Treaty of Waitangi and through some illegal acts of colonisation and war (though there were legitimate land sales between Maori and the settlers) Maori lost 95% of their land and resources from the 1850s through to the 1970s which resulted in the large scale socio-economic marginalization of the vast majority of Maori. Since the 1970s there has been a cultural renaissance by Maori, and a political drive to assert their Treaty rights to their land, resources and culture through the Waitangi Tribunal process. This has resulted in the legal recognition of the Maori language and culture and has resulted in the return of some land, resources and money so that today Māori businesses have an estimated value of over NZD$14 billion. Māori have also formed an important political party.

The independent state of Papua New Guinea (PNG) has a majority population of indigenous societies, with some 700+ different tribal groups recognized out of a total population of just over 5 million. The PNG Constitution and other Acts identify traditional or custom-based practices and land tenure, and explicitly sets out to promote the viability of these traditional societies within the modern state. However, several conflicts and disputes concerning land use and resource rights continue to be observed between indigenous groups, the government and corporate entities.

Rights, issues and concerns

Wherever indigenous cultural identity is asserted, some particular set of societal issues and concerns may be voiced which either arise from (at least in part), or have a particular dimension associated with, their indigenous status. These concerns will often be commonly held or affect other societies also, and are not necessarily experienced uniquely by indigenous groups.

Despite the diversity of Indigenous peoples, it may be noted that they share common problems and issues in dealing with the prevailing, or invading, society. They are generally concerned that the cultures of Indigenous peoples are being lost and that indigenous peoples suffer both discrimination and pressure to assimilate into their surrounding societies. This is borne out by the fact that the lands and cultures of nearly all of the peoples listed at the end of this article are under threat. Notable exceptions are the Sakha and Komi peoples (two of the northern indigenous peoples of Russia), who now control their own autonomous republics within the Russian state, and the Canadian Inuit, who form a majority of the territory of Nunavut (created in 1999).

It is also sometimes argued that it is important for the human species as a whole to preserve a wide range of cultural diversity as possible, and that the protection of indigenous cultures is vital to this enterprise.

An example of this occurred in 2002 when the Government of Botswana expelled all the Kalahari Bushmen known as the San from their lands on which they had lived for at least twenty thousand years. President Festus Mogai has described the Bushmen as "stone age creatures" and a minister for local government, Margaret Nasha, likened public criticism of their eviction to criticism of the culling of elephants. In 2006, the Botswanan High Court ruled that the Bushmen had a right to return to their land in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.

Health Issues

In December 1993, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People, and requested UN specialized agencies to consider with governments and indigenous people how they can contribute to the success of the Decade of Indigenous People, commencing in December 1994. As a consequence, the World Health Organization, at its Forty-seventh World Health Assembly established a core advisory group of indigenous representatives with special knowledge of the health needs and resources of their communities, thus beginning a long-term commitment to the issue of the health of indigenous peoples.

The WHO notes, that "Statistical data on the health status of indigenous peoples is scarce. This is especially notable for indigenous peoples in Africa, Asia and eastern Europe", but snapshots from various countries, where such statistics are available, show that indigenous people are in worse health than the general population, in advanced and developing countries alike: higher incidence of diabetes in some regions of Australia; higher prevalence of poor sanitation and lack of safe water among Twa households in Rwanda; a greater prevalence of childbirths without prenatal care among ethnic minorities in Vietman; suicide rates among Inuit youth in Canada are eleven times higher than the national average; infant mortality rates are higher for indigenous peoples everywhere.

Accredited organizations

Various organizations are devoted to the preservation or study of indigenous peoples. Of these, several have widely recognized credentials to act as an intermediary or representative on behalf of indigenous peoples' groups, in negotiations on indigenous issues with governments and international organizations. These include:

African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR)

Center for World Indigenous Studies

Cultural Survival

Friends of Peoples Close to Nature (fPcN)

Incomindios Switzerland

Indigenous Dialogues

Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee (IPACC)

International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA)

Survival International

Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV)

International Day of the World's Indigenous People

The International Day of the World's Indigenous People falls on August 9 as this was the date of the first meeting in 1982 of the United Nations Working Group of Indigenous Populations of the Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities of the Commission on Human Rights.

The UN General Assembly decided on 23 December 1994, that the International Day of the World's Indigenous People should be observed on August 9 every year during the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People (resolution 49/214). Later on 20 December 2004 the assembly decided to continue observing the International Day of Indigenous People every year during the Second International Decade of the World's Indigenous People (2005–2014) (resolution 59/174).

Knowledge and culture

The preservation and investigation of specialized Indigenous knowledge, particularly in relation to the resources of the natural environment with which the society is associated, is a goal of both the Indigenous and the societies who thereby seek to identify new resources and benefits (example: partnerships established to research biological extracts from vegetation in the Amazon rainforests).

For some people (e.g. Indigenous communities from India, Brazil, and Malaysia and some NGOs such as GRAIN and Third World Network), Indigenous peoples have often been victims of biopiracy when they are subjected to unauthorized use of their natural resources, of their traditional knowledge on these biological resources, of unequal share of benefits between them and a patent holder.

Viewpoints

A range of differing viewpoints and attitudes have arisen from the experience and history of contact between Indigenous and "non-indigenous" communities. The cultural, regional and historical contexts in which these viewpoints have developed are complex, and many competing viewpoints exist simultaneously in any given society, albeit promulgated with greater or lesser force depending on the extent of cross-cultural exposure and internal societal change. These views may be noted from both sides of the relationship.

Indigenous viewpoints

Indigenous peoples are increasingly faced with threats to their sovereignty, environment, and access to natural resources. Examples of this can be the deforestation of tropical rainforests where many native tribe's subsistence lifestyles are threatened. Assimilative colonial policies resulted in ongoing issues related to aboriginal child protection.

Non-indigenous viewpoints

Indigenous peoples have been denoted primitives, savages, or uncivilized. These terms were common during the heights of European colonial expansion, but still continue in modern times. During the 17th century, indigenous peoples were commonly labeled "uncivilized". Whilst there was a swell in bringing back creative elements of classical antiquity in artistic pursuits, there was also the not so creative side of regurgitating xenophobic ideas from that period. Some philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes considered indigenous people to be merely 'savages', while others are purported to have considered them to be "noble savages". Those who were close to the Hobbesian view tended to believe themselves to have a duty to civilize and modernize indigenes. Although anthropologists, especially from Europe, used to apply these terms to all tribal cultures, it has fallen into disfavor as demeaning and, according to anthropologists, inaccurate (see tribe, cultural evolution). Survival International runs a campaign to stamp out media portrayal of indigenous peoples as 'primitive' or 'savages'. Friends of Peoples Close to Nature considers not only that indigenous culture should be respected as not being inferior, but also sees their way of life as a lesson of sustainability and a part of the struggle within the "corrupted" western world, from which the threat stems.

After World War I, however, many Europeans came to doubt the value of civilization. At the same time, the anti-colonial movement, and advocates of indigenous peoples, argued that words such as "civilized" and "savage" were products and tools of colonialism, and argued that colonialism itself was savagely destructive.

In the mid 20th century, European attitudes began to shift to the view that indigenous and tribal peoples should have the right to decide for themselves what should happen to their ancient cultures and their ancestral lands.

Several criticisms of the concept of indigenous peoples are:

Peoples have invaded or colonized each other's lands since before recorded history and so the division into indigenous and non-indigenous is a matter of judgment. Even in recent centuries there are difficulties: for example, are the Zulu people indigenous to South Africa?

Lumping indigenous peoples into one group ignores the vast amounts of diversity among them and at the same time imposes a uniform identity on them, which may not be historically accurate.

See also

Collective rights

Colonialism

Ethnic minority

Human rights

The Image Expedition

Indigenous intellectual property

Intangible Cultural Heritage

Isuma

Uncontacted peoples

United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization

List of ethnic groups

Indigenous Peoples Climate Change Assessment Initiative

Notes

References

Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books, 1999. ISBN 978-1-85649-624-7.

Further reading

United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations, from Study of the Problem of Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations, J. Martinez Cobo, United Nations Special Rapporteur (1987)

Report of the African Commission's Working Group of Experts on Indigenous Populations/Communities November 2003

FRITZ Jean-Claude, La nouvelle question indigène. Peuples autochthones et ordre mondial (en co-direction avec Frédéric Déroche, Gérard Fritz et Raphaël Porteilla), Paris, L'Harmattan, 2006.

FRITZ Jean-Claude, L'humanité face à la mondialisation. Droit des peuples et environnement (en co-direction avec Charalambos Apostolidis et Gérard Fritz), Paris, L'Harmattan, 1997.

Indigenous Peoples and Environmental Issues: An Encyclopedia, by Bruce E. Johansen. Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Press, 2003. 506p., ISBN 978-0-313-32398-0

External links

Institutions

UNEP Indigenous People's Website

IFAD and indigenous peoples (International Fund for Agricultural Development, IFAD)

IPS Inter Press Service News on indigenous peoples from around the world

Indigenous studies

Indigenous Peoples Issues & Resources

Janssen, D. F., Growing Up Sexually. Volume I. World Reference Atlas [full text]

Category:Indigenous peoples

Coordinates	47°33′22.57″N18°48′9.61″N
Group	Indigenous peoples of the Americas
Pop	approximately 48 million
Regions	(not including Mestizo or Zambo population)
Region1
Pop1	14 million
Ref1
Region2
Pop2	10.1 million
Ref2
Region3
Pop3	6 million
Ref3
Region4
Pop4	5.4 million
Ref4
Region5
Pop5	3.4 million
Region6
Pop6	2.5 million
Ref6
Region7
Pop7	1.4 million
Ref7
Region8
Pop8	1.2 million
Ref8
Region9
Pop9	700,000
Ref9
Region10
Pop10	692,000
Ref10
Region11
Pop11	600,000
Ref11
Region12
Pop12	524,000
Ref12
Region13
Pop13	443,847
Ref13
Region14
Pop14	204,000
Ref14
Region15
Pop15	95,235
Ref15
Region16
Pop16	~70,000
Ref16
Languages	Indigenous languages of the Americas
Religions	Traditional worship Native beliefsChristianity

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants, and many ethnic groups who identify with those peoples. They are often also referred to as Native Americans, Aboriginals, First Nations, These early Paleo-Indians soon spread throughout the Americas, diversifying into many hundreds of culturally distinct nations and tribes. Later the name was still used as the Americas at the time were often called West Indies. This has served to imagine a kind of racial or cultural unity for the aboriginal peoples of the Americas. Once created, the unified "Indian" was codified in law, religion, and politics. The unitary idea of "Indians" was not originally shared by indigenous peoples, but many over the last two centuries have embraced the identity.

While some indigenous peoples of the Americas were historically hunter-gatherers, many practiced aquaculture and agriculture. The impact of their agricultural endowment to the world is a testament to their time and work in reshaping, taming, and cultivating the flora indigenous to the Americas. Some societies depended heavily on agriculture while others practiced a mix of farming, hunting, and gathering. In some regions the indigenous peoples created monumental architecture, large-scale organized cities, chiefdoms, state, and empires.

Many parts of the Americas are still populated by indigenous Americans; some countries have sizable populations, such as Bolivia, Peru, Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, and Ecuador. At least a thousand different indigenous languages are spoken in the Americas. Some, such as Quechua languages, Aymara, Guaraní, Mayan languages, and Nahuatl, count their speakers in millions. Many also maintain aspects of indigenous cultural practices to varying degrees, including religion, social organization and subsistence practices. Some indigenous peoples still live in relative isolation from Western society, and a few are still counted as uncontacted peoples.

History

Migration into the continents

]] The specifics of Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the exact dates and routes traveled, are subject to ongoing research and discussion. The traditional theory has been that these early migrants moved into the Beringia land bridge between eastern Siberia and present-day Alaska around 40,000—16,500 years ago, when sea levels were significantly lowered due to the Quaternary glaciation. These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets. Another route proposed is that, either on foot or using primitive boats, they migrated down the Pacific Northwest coast to South America. Evidence of the latter would since have been covered by a sea level rise of hundreds of meters following the last ice age.

The time range of 40,000—16,500 years ago is a hot source of debate and will be for years to come. The few agreements achieved to date are the origin from Central Asia, with widespread habitation of the Americas during the end of the last glacial period, or more specifically what is known as the late glacial maximum, around 16,000 — 13,000 years before present.

One of the most recent theories with extensive coverage in popular media outlets is known as the Solutrean theory. The theory suggests that early European people (or peoples) may have been among the earliest settlers of the Americas. Citing evidence that the Solutrean culture of prehistoric Europe may have provided the basis for the tool-making of the Clovis culture in the Americas, the theory suggests that Ice Age Europeans migrated to North America by using skills similar to those possessed by the modern Inuit peoples and followed the edge of the ice sheet that spanned the Atlantic. The hypothesis rests upon particular similarities in Solutrean and Clovis technology that have no known counterparts in Eastern Asia, Siberia or Beringia, areas from which, or through which, early Americans are known to have migrated. The theory is largely discounted by most professionals for a variety of reasons, including the fact that the differences between the two tool making traditions far outweigh the similarities, the several thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean and the 5000 year span that separate the two different cultures. Genetic studies of Native American populations have also shown the Solutrean theory to be unlikely, showing instead that the 5 main mtDNA haplogroups found in the Americas were all part of one gene pool migration from Asia.

Pre-Columbian era

The Pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic to European colonization during the Early Modern period.

While technically referring to the era before Christopher Columbus's voyages of 1492 to 1504, in practice the term usually includes the history of American indigenous cultures until they were conquered or significantly influenced by Europeans, even if this happened decades or even centuries after Columbus' initial landing. Pre-Columbian is used especially often in the context of the great indigenous civilizations of the Americas, such as those of Mesoamerica (the Olmec, the Toltec, the Teotihuacano, the Zapotec, the Mixtec, the Aztec, and the Maya) and the Andes (Inca, Moche, Chibcha, Cañaris). hunting a glyptodont]] Many pre-Columbian civilizations established characteristics and hallmarks which included permanent or urban settlements, agriculture, civic and monumental architecture, and complex societal hierarchies. Some of these civilizations had long faded by the time of the first permanent European arrivals (c. late 15th–early 16th centuries), and are known only through archaeological investigations. Others were contemporary with this period, and are also known from historical accounts of the time. A few, such as the Maya, had their own written records. However, most Europeans of the time viewed such texts as heretical, and much was destroyed in Christian pyres. Only a few hidden documents remain today, leaving modern historians with glimpses of ancient culture and knowledge.

According to both indigenous American and European accounts and documents, American civilizations at the time of European encounter possessed many impressive accomplishments. For instance, the Aztecs built one of the most impressive cities in the world, Tenochtitlan, the ancient site of Mexico City, with an estimated population of 200,000. American civilizations also displayed impressive accomplishments in astronomy and mathematics. American Indian creation myths tell of a variety of originations of their respective peoples. Some were "always there" or were created by gods or animals, some migrated from a specified compass point, and others came from "across the ocean".

European colonization

The European colonization of the Americas forever changed the lives, bloodlines and cultures of the peoples of the continent. The population history of American indigenous peoples postulates that infectious disease exposure, displacement, and warfare diminished populations, with the first the most significant cause. The first indigenous group encountered by Columbus were the 250,000 Taínos of Hispaniola who were the dominant culture in the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas. In thirty years, about 70% of the Taínos died. The increased ignorance towards the practice of punishing the Taínos for revolting themselves from forced labour, despite the measures brought by the encomienda which included religious education and protection from warring tribes, eventually helped conceived the last great Taíno rebellion.

Mistreated, the Taínos began to adopt suicidal behaviors, with women aborting or killing their infants, men jumping from the cliffs or ingesting manioc, a violent poison. Eventually, a Taíno Cacique named Enriquillo managed to hold out in the mountain range of Bahoruco for thirteen years conducting serious damage to the Spanish, Carib-held plantations and their Indian auxiliaries. After hearing of the seriousness of the revolt, Emperor Charles V sent captain Francisco Barrionuevo to negotiate a peace treaty with the ever increasing number of rebels. Two months later, with the consulting of the Audencia of Santo Domingo, Enriquillo was offered any part of the island to live in peace.

The Laws of Burgos, 1512-1513 were the first codified set of laws governing the behavior of Spanish settlers in America, particularly with regards to native Indians. They forbade the maltreatment of natives, and endorsed their conversion to Catholicism. The Spanish crown found it difficult to enforce these laws in a distant colony.

Reasons for the decline of the Native American populations are variously theorized to be from epidemic diseases, conflicts with Europeans, and conflicts among warring tribes. Scholars now believe that, among the various contributing factors, epidemic disease was the overwhelming cause of the population decline of the American natives. After first contacts with Europeans and Africans, some believe that the death of 90 to 95% of the native population of the New World was caused by Old World diseases. Half the native population of Hispaniola in 1518 was killed by smallpox. Within a few years smallpox killed between 60% and 90% of the Inca population, with other waves of European disease weakening them further. Smallpox was only the first epidemic. Typhus (probably) in 1546, influenza and smallpox together in 1558, smallpox again in 1589, diphtheria in 1614, measles in 1618—all ravaged the remains of Inca culture. Smallpox had killed millions of native inhabitants of Mexico. Unintentionally introduced at Veracruz with the arrival of Pánfilo de Narváez on April 23, 1520, smallpox ravaged Mexico in the 1520s, possibly killing over 150,000 in Tenochtitlan alone (the heartland of the Aztec Empire), and aided in the victory of Hernán Cortés over the Aztec empire at Tenochtitlan (present-day Mexico City) in 1521.

(compiled 1540–1585), showing Nahuas of conquest-era central Mexico suffering from smallpox]] Over the centuries, the Europeans had developed high degrees of immunity to these diseases, while the Native Americans had no such immunity. Europeans had been ravaged in their own turn by such diseases as bubonic plague and Asian flu that moved west from Asia to Europe. In addition, when they went to some territories, such as Africa and Asia, they were more vulnerable to malaria.

The repeated outbreaks of influenza, measles and smallpox probably resulted in a decline of between one-half and two-thirds of the Aboriginal population of eastern North America during the first 100 years of European contact. In 1617–1619, smallpox reportedly killed 90% of the Massachusetts Bay Colony Native American residents. In 1633, in Plymouth, the Native Americans there were exposed to smallpox because of contact with Europeans. As it had done elsewhere, the virus wiped out entire population groups of Native Americans. It reached Lake Ontario in 1636, and the lands of the Iroquois by 1679. During the 1770s, smallpox killed at least 30% of the West Coast Native Americans. Smallpox epidemics in 1780–1782 and 1837–1838 brought devastation and drastic population depletion among the Plains Indians. In 1832, the federal government of the United States established a smallpox vaccination program for Native Americans (The Indian Vaccination Act of 1832).

In Brazil, the indigenous population has declined from a pre-Columbian high of an estimated 3 million to some 300,000 in 1997.

Later explorations of the Caribbean led to the discovery of the Arawak peoples of the Lesser Antilles. The culture was extinct by 1650. Only 500 had survived by the year 1550, though the bloodlines continued through the modern populace. In Amazonia, indigenous societies weathered centuries of colonization.

The Spaniards and other Europeans brought horses to the Americas. Some of these animals escaped and began to breed and increase their numbers in the wild. The re-introduction of the horse had a profound impact on Native American culture in the Great Plains of North America and of Patagonia in South America. By domesticating horses, some tribes had great success: they expanded their territories, exchanged many goods with neighboring tribes, and more easily captured game, especially bison.

Agriculture

Over the course of thousands of years, American indigenous peoples domesticated, bred and cultivated a large array of plant species. These species now constitute 50–60% of all crops in cultivation worldwide. In certain cases, the indigenous peoples developed entirely new species and strains through artificial selection, as was the case in the domestication and breeding of maize from wild teosinte grasses in the valleys of southern Mexico. Numerous such agricultural products retain native names in the English and Spanish lexicons.

The South American highlands were a center of early agriculture. Genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild species suggest that the potato has a single origin in the area of southern Peru, from a species in the Solanum brevicaule complex. Over 99% of all modern cultivated potatoes worldwide are descendants of a subspecies indigenous to south-central Chile, Solanum tuberosum ssp. tuberosum, where it was cultivated as long as 10,000 years ago. According to George Raudzens, "It is clear that in pre-Columbian times some groups struggled to survive and often suffered food shortages and famines, while others enjoyed a varied and substantial diet." The persistent drought around 850 AD coincided with the collapse of Classic Maya civilization, and the famine of One Rabbit (A.D. 1454) was a major catastrophe in Mexico.

Natives of North American began practicing farming approximately 4,000 years ago, late in the Archaic period of North American cultures. Technology had advanced to the point that pottery was becoming common, and the small-scale felling of trees became feasible. Concurrently, the Archaic Indians began using fire in a widespread manner. Intentional burning of vegetation was used to mimic the effects of natural fires that tended to clear forest understories. It made travel easier and facilitated the growth of herbs and berry-producing plants, which were important for both food and medicines.

In the Mississippi River valley, Europeans noted Native Americans' managed groves of nut and fruit trees as orchards, not far from villages and towns, in addition to their gardens and agricultural fields. Wildlife competition could be reduced by understory burning. Further away, prescribed burning would have been used in forest and prairie areas.

Many crops first domesticated by indigenous Americans are now produced and/or used globally. Chief among these is maize or "corn", arguably the most important crop in the world. Other significant crops include cassava, chia, squash (pumpkins, zucchini, marrow, acorn squash, butternut squash), the pinto bean, Phaseolus beans including most common beans, tepary beans and lima beans, tomato, potatoes, avocados, peanuts, cocoa beans (used to make chocolate), vanilla, strawberries, pineapples, Peppers (species and varieties of Capsicum, including bell peppers, jalapeños, paprika and chili peppers) sunflower seeds, rubber, brazilwood, chicle, tobacco, coca, manioc and some species of cotton.

Studies of contemporary indigenous environmental management, including agro-forestry practices among Itza Maya in Guatemala and hunting and fishing among the Menominee of Wisconsin, suggest that longstanding "sacred values" may represent a summary of sustainable millennial traditions.

Culture

woman and child in the Sacred Valley, Andes, Peru]]

Cultural practices in the Americas seem to have been mostly shared within geographical zones where otherwise unrelated peoples might adopt similar technologies and social organizations. An example of such a cultural area could be Mesoamerica, where millennia of coexistence and shared development between the peoples of the region produced a fairly homogeneous culture with complex agricultural and social patterns. Another well-known example could be the North American plains area, where until the 19th century, several different peoples shared traits of nomadic hunter-gatherers primarily based on buffalo hunting.

Writing systems

in stucco at the Museo de sitio in Palenque, Mexico]] An independent origin and development of writing is counted among the many achievements and innovations of pre-Columbian American cultures. The Mesoamerican region produced a number of indigenous writing systems from the 1st millennium BCE onwards. What may be the earliest-known example in the Americas of an extensive text thought to be writing is by the Cascajal Block. The Olmec hieroglyphs tablet has been indirectly dated from ceramic shards found in the same context to approximately 900 BCE, around the time that Olmec occupation of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán began to wane.

The Maya writing system (often called hieroglyphs from a superficial resemblance to the Ancient Egyptian writing) was a combination of phonetic symbols and logograms. It is most often classified as a logographic or (more properly) a logosyllabic writing system, in which syllabic signs play a significant role. It is the only pre-Columbian writing system known to completely represent the spoken language of its community. In total, the script has more than one thousand different glyphs, although a few are variations of the same sign or meaning, and many appear only rarely or are confined to particular localities. At any one time, no more than around five hundred glyphs were in use, some two hundred of which (including variations) had a phonetic or syllabic interpretation.

Aztec codices (singular codex) are books written by pre-Columbian and colonial-era Aztecs. These codices provide some of the best primary sources for Aztec culture. The pre-Columbian codices differ from European codices in that they are largely pictorial; they were not meant to symbolize spoken or written narratives. The colonial era codices not only contain Aztec pictograms, but also Classical Nahuatl (in the Latin alphabet), Spanish, and occasionally Latin.

The Wiigwaasabak, birch bark scrolls on which the Ojibwa (Anishinaabe) people wrote complex geometrical patterns and shapes, can also be considered a form of writing.

Aboriginal syllabic writing, or simply syllabics, is a family of abugidas used to write a number of Aboriginal Canadian languages of the Algonquian, Inuit, and (formerly) Athabaskan language families.

Music and art

("Like a man") from Resolute Bay.]] Native American music in North America is almost entirely monophonic, but there are notable exceptions. Traditional Native American music often centers around drumming. Rattles, clappersticks, and rasps were also popular percussive instruments. Flutes were made of rivercane, cedar, and other woods. The tuning of these flutes is not precise and depends on the length of the wood used and the hand span of the intended player, but the finger holes are most often around a whole step apart and, at least in Northern California, a flute was not used if it turned out to have an interval close to a half step. The Apache fiddle is a single stringed instrument.

Music from indigenous peoples of Central Mexico and Central America often was pentatonic. Before the arrival of the Spaniards and other Europeans it was inseparable from religious festivities and included a large variety of percussion and wind instruments such as drums, flutes, sea snail shells (used as a kind of trumpet) and "rain" tubes. No remnants of pre-Columbian stringed instruments were found until archaeologists discovered a jar in Guatemala, attributed to the Maya of the Late Classic Era (600–900 CE), which depicts a stringed musical instrument which has since been reproduced. This instrument is astonishing in at least two respects. First, it is the very few string instruments known in the Americas prior to the introduction of European musical instruments. Second, when played, it produces a sound virtually identical to a jaguar's growl.

Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas composes a major category in the world art collection. Contributions include pottery, paintings, jewellery, weavings, sculptures, basketry, and hair pipes. Due to the many artists posing as Native Americans, the United States passed the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990, requiring artists prove that they are enrolled in a state or federally recognized tribe.

Demography of contemporary populations

The following table provides estimates of the per-country populations of Amerindian people, and also those with partial Amerindian ancestry, expressed as a percentage of the overall country population of each country that is comprised by Amerindians, and of people of partial Amerindian descent. The total percentage obtained by adding both of these categories is also given.

Note: these categories are inconsistently defined and measured differently from country to country. Some are based on the results of population wide genetic surveys, while others are based on self identification or observational estimation. {| class="wikitable sortable" style="margin: 1em auto 1em auto" |+ Indigenous populations of the Americasas estimated percentage of total country's population |- |Country |Amerindian |Ref. |Part Amerindian |Ref. |Combined total |Ref. |- ! style="text-align:center; background:#dcdcdc;"| North America |- style="text-align:right;" | Canada | 1.8% | |- style="text-align:right;" | Mexico | 9.8% | | 69.8% | | 0.6% | | 33.8% | | 15% | | 90% | | % | | % | |- style="text-align:right;" | Honduras | 7% | | 90% | | 69% | | 84% | | % | | % | |- style="text-align:right;" | Dominican Republic | % | | % | | % | |- style="text-align:right;" | Grenada | ~0% | | ~0% | | ~0% | | 84% | | 84% | |- style="text-align:right;" | Saint Kitts and Nevis | % | | % | | % | |- style="text-align:right;" | Saint Lucia | % | | % | | % | |- style="text-align:right;" | Saint Vincent andthe Grenadines | 2% | | % | | % | |- style="text-align:right;" | Trinidad and Tobago | 0.8% | | 88% | | 80% | |- ! style="text-align:center; background:#dcdcdc;"| South America |- style="text-align:right;" | Argentina | 1.0% | | 2% | | 3% | |- style="text-align:right;" | Bolivia | 55% | | 30% | | % | | % | |- style="text-align:right;" | Chile | 4.6% | | % | | % | |- style="text-align:right;" | Colombia | 1% | | 58% | | 65% | | % | | % | |- style="text-align:right;" | Paraguay | % | | 95% | | % | |- style="text-align:right;" | Peru | 30% | | 47% | | % | | % | |- style="text-align:right;" | Uruguay | 0% | | 8% | Including both of these categories, and children under 15, some 66.4% of Bolivia's population was registered as indigenous in the 2001 Census. The largest indigenous ethnic groups are: Quechua, about 2.5 million people; Aymara, 2.0 million; Chiquitano, 181 thousand; Guaraní, 126 thousand; and Mojeño, 69 thousand. Some 124 thousand pertain to smaller indigenous groups. The Constitution of Bolivia, enacted in 2009, recognizes 36 cultures, each with their own language, as part of a plurinational state. Others, including CONAMAQ (the National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qollasuyu) draw ethnic boundaries within the Quechua- and Aymara-speaking population, resulting in a total of fifty indigenous peoples native to Bolivia.

Large numbers of Bolivian highland peasants retained indigenous language, culture, customs, and communal organization throughout the Spanish conquest and the post-independence period. They mobilized to resist various attempts at the dissolution of communal landholdings, and used legal recognition of "empowered caciques" to further communal organization. Indigenous revolts took place frequently until 1953. While the National Revolutionary Movement government begun in 1952 discouraged self-identification as indigenous (reclassifying rural people as campesinos, or peasants), renewed ethnic and class militancy re-emerged in the Katarista movement beginning in the 1970s. Lowland indigenous peoples, mostly in the east, entered national politics through the 1990 March for Territory and Dignity organized by the CIDOB confederation. That march successfully pressured the national government to sign ILO Convention 169 and to begin a still-ongoing process of recognizing and titling indigenous territories. The 1994 Law of Popular Participation granted "grassroots territorial organizations" recognized by the state certain rights to govern local areas.

Radio and some television in Quechua and Aymara is produced. The constitutional reform in 1997 for the first time recognized Bolivia as a multilingual, pluri-ethnic society and introduced education reform. In 2005, for the first time in the country's history, an indigenous descendant Aymara, Evo Morales, was elected as President.

Morales began work on his “indigenous autonomy” policy which he launched in the eastern lowlands department on 3 August 2009, making Bolivia the first country in the history of South America to declare the right of indigenous people to govern themselves. The issue has divided the country.

Brazil

tribe: Raony, Kaye, Kadjor, Panara]] The Amerindians make up 0.4% of Brazil's population, or about 700,000 people.

Canada

figure common to many mythologies.]] Aboriginal peoples in Canada comprise the First Nations, Inuit and Métis; the descriptors "Indian" and "Eskimo" are falling into disuse. Hundreds of Aboriginal nations evolved trade, spiritual and social hierarchies. The Métis culture of mixed blood originated in the mid-17th century when First Nation and native Inuit married European settlers. The Inuit had more limited interaction with European settlers during that early period. Various laws, treaties, and legislation have been enacted between European immigrants and First Nations across Canada. Aboriginal Right to Self-Government provides opportunity to manage historical, cultural, political, health care and economic control aspects within first people's communities.

Although not without conflict, European/Canadian early interactions with First Nations and Inuit populations were relatively peaceful, compared to the experience of native peoples in the United States. Combined with relatively late economic development in many regions, this peaceful history has allowed Canadian Indigenous peoples to have a relatively strong influence on the national culture while preserving their own identity. National Aboriginal Day recognises the cultures and contributions of Aboriginal peoples of Canada. There are currently over 600 recognized First Nations governments or bands encompassing 1,172,790 ²⁰⁰⁶ people spread across Canada with distinctive Aboriginal cultures, languages, art, and music.

Chile

According to the 2002 Census, 4.6% of the Chilean population, including the Rapanui of Easter Island, was indigenous, although most show varying degrees of miscegenation. Many are descendants of the Mapuche, and live in Santiago, Araucanía and the lake district. The Mapuche successfully fought off defeat in the first 300–350 years of Spanish rule during the Arauco War. Relations with the new Chilean Republic were good until the Chilean state decided to occupy their lands. During the Occupation of Araucanía the Mapuche surrendered to the country's army in the 1880s. Their land was opened to settlement by Chileans and Europeans. Conflict over Mapuche land rights continued until present days.

Other groups include the Aimara who live mainly in Arica-Parinacota and Tarapacá Region and has the mayority of their alikes living in Bolivia and Peru and the Alacalufe survivors who now reside mainly in Puerto Edén.

Colombia

, Colombia]] A small minority today within Colombia's overwhelmingly Mestizo and Afro-Colombian population, Colombia's indigenous peoples nonetheless encompass at least 85 distinct cultures and more than 1,378,884 people. A variety of collective rights for indigenous peoples are recognized in the 1991 Constitution.

One of these is the Muisca culture, a subset of the larger Chibcha ethnic group, famous for their use of gold, which led to the legend of El Dorado. At the time of the Spanish conquest, the Chibchas were the largest native civilization between the Incas and the Aztecs.

Costa Rica

There are over 60,000 inhabitants of Native American origins, representing 1.5% of the population. Most of them live in secluded reservations, distributed among eight ethnic groups: Quitirrisí (In the Central Valley), Matambú or Chorotega (Guanacaste), Maleku (Northern Alajuela), Bribri (Southern Atlantic), Cabécar (Cordillera de Talamanca), Guaymí (Southern Costa Rica, along the Panamá border), Boruca (Southern Costa Rica) and Térraba (Southern Costa Rica).

These native groups are characterized for their work in wood, like masks, drums and other artistic figures, as well as fabrics made of cotton.

Their subsistence is based on agriculture, having corn, beans and plantains as the main crops.

Ecuador

girl from Ecuador]] Ecuador was the site of many indigenous cultures, and civilizations of different proportions. An early sedentary culture, known as the Valdivia culture, developed in the coastal region, while the Caras and the Quitus unified to form an elaborate civilization that ended at the birth of the Capital Quito. The Cañaris near Cuenca were the most advanced, and most feared by the Inca, due to their fierce resistance to the Incan expansion. Their architecture remains were later destroyed by Spaniards and the Incas.

Approximately 96.4% of Ecuador's Indigenous population are Highland Quichuas living in the valleys of the Sierra region. Primarily consisting of the descendents of Incans, they are Kichwa speakers and include the Caranqui, the Otavaleños, the Cayambi, the Quitu-Caras, the Panzaleo, the Chimbuelo, the Salasacan, the Tugua, the Puruhá, the Cañari, and the Saraguro. Linguistic evidence suggests that the Salascan and the Saraguro may have been the descendants of Bolivian ethnic groups transplanted to Ecuador as mitimaes.

Coastal groups, including the Awá, Chachi, and the Tsáchila, make up 0.24% percent of the indigenous population, while the remaining 3.35 percent live in the Oriente and consist of the Oriente Kichwa (the Canelo and the Quijos), the Shuar, the Huaorani, the Siona-Secoya, the Cofán, and the Achuar.

In 1986, indigenous people formed the first "truly" national political organization. The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) has been the primary political institution of the Indigenous since then and is now the second largest political party in the nation. It has been influential in national politics, contributing to the ouster of presidents Abdalá Bucaram in 1997 and Jamil Mahuad in 2000.

El Salvador

Much of El Salvador was home to the Pipil, Lenca, and a number of Maya. The Pipil lived in western El Salvador, spoke Nahuat, and had many settlements there. The Pipil had no treasure but held land that had rich and fertile soil, good for farming. This both disappointed and garnered attention from the Spaniards who were shocked not to find gold or jewels in El Salvador like they did in other lands like Guatemala or Mexico, but later learned of the fertile land El Salvador had to offer and attempted to conquer it. At first the Pipil had repelled Spanish Attacks but after many other attacks they had stopped fighting and many were used for labor by Spaniards. Today many Pipil and Indigenous populations live in small towns of El Salvador like Izalco, Panchimalco, Sacacoyo, and Nahuizalco.

Guatemala

Many of the indigenous peoples of Guatemala are of Maya heritage. Other groups are Xinca people and Garifuna.

Pure Maya account for some 40 percent of the population; although around 40 percent of the population speaks an indigenous language, those tongues (of which there are more than 20) enjoy no official status. Guatemala's majority population holds a percentage of 59.4% in White or Mestizo (of mixed White and Amerindian ancestry) people. The area of Livingston, Guatemala is highly influenced by the Caribbean and its population includes a combination of Mestizos and Garifuna people.

Honduras

About 5 percent of the population are of full-blooded Amerindian descent, but upwards to 80 percent more or the majority of Hondurans are mestizo or part-Amerindian with Caucasian, and about 10 percent are of Amerindian and/or African descent. The main concentration of Amerindians in Honduras are in the rural westernmost areas facing Guatemala and to the Caribbean Sea coastline, as well on the Nicaraguan border.

In the states of Chiapas and Oaxaca and in the interior of the Yucatán peninsula the majority of the population is indigenous. Large indigenous minorities, including Aztecs, P'urhépechas, and Mixtecs are also present in the central regions of Mexico. In Northern Mexico indigenous people are a small minority.

The "General Law of Linguistic Rights of the Indigenous Peoples" grants all indigenous languages spoken in Mexico, regardless of the number of speakers, the same validity as Spanish in all territories in which they are spoken, and indigenous peoples are entitled to request some public services and documents in their native languages. Along with Spanish, the law has granted them — more than 60 languages — the status of "national languages". The law includes all Amerindian languages regardless of origin; that is, it includes the Amerindian languages of ethnic groups non-native to the territory. As such the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples recognizes the language of the Kickapoo, who immigrated from the United States, and recognizes the languages of the Guatemalan Amerindian refugees. The Mexican government has promoted and established bilingual primary and secondary education in some indigenous rural communities. Nonetheless, of the indigenous peoples in Mexico, only about 67% of them (or 5.4% of the country's population) speak an Amerindian language and about a sixth do not speak Spanish (1.2% of the country's population).

The indigenous peoples in Mexico have the right of free determination under the second article of the constitution. According to this article the indigenous peoples are granted:

the right to decide the internal forms of social, economic, political and cultural organization;

the right to apply their own normative systems of regulation as long as human rights and gender equality are respected;

the right to preserve and enrich their languages and cultures;

the right to elect representatives before the municipal council in which their territories are located;

amongst other rights.

Nicaragua

The Miskito are a native people in Central America. Their territory extended from Cape Camarón, Honduras, to Rio Grande, Nicaragua along the Mosquito Coast. There is a native Miskito language, but large groups speak Miskito Coastal Creole, Spanish, Rama and other languages. The Creole English came about through frequent contact with the British who colonized the area. Many are Christians.

Traditional Miskito society was highly structured with a defined political structure. There was a king, but he did not have total power. Instead, the power was split between himself, a governor, a general, and by the 1750s, an admiral. Historical information on kings is often obscured by the fact that many of the kings were semi-mythical.

=== Peru === in the Conchucos District, Ancash Region, Peru]] Indigenous population in Peru make up around 30%

United States

Belle in 1850, painted by P. Romer]] Indigenous peoples in what is now the contiguous United States are commonly called "American Indians", or just "Indians" domestically, but are also often referred to as "Native Americans". In Alaska, indigenous peoples, which include Native Americans, Yupik and Inupiat Eskimos, and Aleuts, are referred to collectively as Alaska Natives.

Native Americans and Alaska Natives make up 2 percent of the population, with more than 6 million people identifying themselves as such, although only 1.8 million are recognized as registered tribal members. Tribes have established their own rules for membership, some of which are increasingly exclusive. More people have unrecognized Native American ancestry together with other ethnic groups. A minority of U.S. Native Americans live in land units called Indian reservations. Some southwestern U.S. tribes, such as the Yaqui and Apache, have registered tribal communities in Northern Mexico. Similarly, some northern bands of Blackfoot reside in southern Alberta, Canada, in addition to within US borders. woman]] A number of Kumeyaay communities may be found in the Mexican State of Baja California.

Venezuela

Most Venezuelans have some indigenous heritage, but the indigenous population make up only around 2% of the total population. They speak around 29 different languages and many more dialects, but some of the ethnic groups are very small and their languages are in danger of becoming extinct in the next decades. The most important indigenous groups are the Ye'kuana, the Wayuu, the Pemon and the Warao. The most advanced native people to have lived in present-day Venezuela is thought to have been the Timoto-cuicas, who mainly lived in the Venezuelan Andes. In total it is estimated that there were between 350 thousand and 500 thousand inhabitants, the most densely populated area being the Andean region (Timoto-cuicas), thanks to the advanced agricultural techniques used.

The 1999 constitution of Venezuela gives them special rights, although the vast majority of them still live in very critical conditions of poverty. The largest groups receive some basic primary education in their languages.

Other parts of the Americas

Indigenous peoples make up the majority of the population in Bolivia and Peru, and are a significant element in most other former Spanish colonies. Exceptions to this include Costa Rica, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Dominican Republic, and Uruguay. At least four of the native American languages (Quechua in Peru and Bolivia; Aymara also in Peru, Bolivia and Chile, Guaraní in Paraguay, and Greenlandic in Greenland) are recognized as official languages languages (or Aymara in Chile, by regional basis).

Native American name controversy

The Native American name controversy is an ongoing dispute over the acceptable ways to refer to the indigenous peoples of the Americas and to broad subsets thereof, such as those living in a specific country or sharing certain cultural attributes. Once-common terms like "Indian" remain in use, despite the introduction of terms such as "Native American" and "Amerindian" during the latter half of the 20th century.

Rise of indigenous movements

In recent years, there has been a rise of indigenous movements in the Americas (mainly South America). These are rights-driven groups that organize themselves in order to achieve some sort of self-determination and the preservation of their culture for their peoples. Organizations like the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon River Basin and the Indian Council of South America are examples of movements that are breaking the barrier of borders in order to obtain rights for Amazonian indigenous populations everywhere. Similar movements for indigenous rights can also be seen in Canada and the United States, with movements like the International Indian Treaty Council and the accession of native Indian group into the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization.

There has also been a recognition of indigenous movements on an international scale, with the United Nations adopting the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, despite dissent from the stronger countries of the Americas.

Moves towards the rights of the indigenous in Leftist countries of Latin America, led to a surge in activity in historically the most right-winged state in South America. In Colombia various indigenous groups protested the denial of their rights. People organized a march in Cali in October 2008 to demand the government live up to promises to protect indigenous lands, defend the indigenous against violence, and reconsider the free trade pact with the United States.

Legal prerogative

With the rise to power of Leftist governments in Venezuela, Ecuador, Paraguay, and especially Bolivia where Evo Morales was the first indigenous descendant elected president of Bolivia, the indigenous movement gained a strong foothold. ), from the Nordisk familjebok (1904), vol. 1., accredited to the Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig]] Representatives from indigenous and rural organizations from major South American countries, including Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Chile and Brazil, started a forum in support of Morales' legal process of change. The meeting condemned plans by the European "foreign" power elite to destabilize the country. The forum also expressed solidarity with the Morales and his economic and social changes in the interest of historically marginalized majorities. Furthermore, in a cathartic blow to the US-backed elite, it questioned US interference through diplomats and NGO's. The forum was suspicious of plots against Bolivia and other countries, including Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Paraguay and Nicaragua.

The forum rejected the supposed violent method used by regional civic leaders from the called "Crescent departments" in Bolivia to impose their autonomous statutes, applauded the decision to expel the US ambassador to Bolivia, and reafirmed the sovereignty and independence of the presidency. Amongst others, representatives of CONAIE, the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia, the Chilean Council of All Lands, and the Brazilian Landless Movement participated in the forum. Autosomal "atDNA" markers are also used, but differ from mtDNA or Y-DNA in that they overlap significantly.

The genetic pattern indicates Indigenous Amerindians experienced two very distinctive genetic episodes; first with the initial-peopling of the Americas, and secondly with European colonization of the Americas. The former is the determinant factor for the number of gene lineages, zygosity mutations and founding haplotypes present in today's Indigenous Amerindian populations. The micro-satellite diversity and distributions of the Y lineage specific to South America indicates that certain Amerindian populations have been isolated since the initial colonization of the region. The Na-Dené, Inuit and Indigenous Alaskan populations exhibit haplogroup Q (Y-DNA) mutations, however are distinct from other indigenous Amerindians with various mtDNA and atDNA mutations. This suggests that the earliest migrants into the northern extremes of North America and Greenland derived from later migrant populations.

See also

Alaska Natives

Bahá'í Faith and Native Americans

Cherokee Heritage Groups

Friends of Peoples Close to Nature

History of the west coast of North America

Hyphenated American

Indigenous languages of the Americas

Indigenous Movements in the Americas

Lamanite

List of American Inuit

List of Greenlandic Inuit

List of indigenous artists of the Americas

List of indigenous people of the Americas

List of traditional territories of the indigenous peoples of North America

List of writers from peoples indigenous to the Americas

Mongoloid race

Native American art

Native American Languages Act of 1990

Native Hawaiians

Pacific Islander

Population history of American indigenous peoples

Survival International

Uncontacted peoples

We-Sorts

Zambo

Notes

References

External links

The Peopling of the American Continents, Early California History

North America, Indigenous Peoples Issues and Resources

South America, Indigenous Peoples Issues and Resources

America's Stone Age explorers, PBS Nova

A history of Native people of Canada - The Canadian Museum of Civilization''

Category:Ethnic groups in the Americas Category:Ethnic groups in Latin America Category:Ethnic groups in North America Category:Historical definitions of race Category:Latin American caste system

Drunvalo Melchizedek ( born as Bernard Perona in 1941 ) is an author and spiritual teacher, who lives in Sedona, Arizona. Drunvalo completed most of a B.S. degree in Physics and Mathematics before switching to a fine arts degree which he was awarded in 1970. His fine arts degree was from the University of California at Berkeley, obtained without finishing the course due to clerical errors by the university.

He adopted the name Drunvalo Melchizedek after studying at the Alpha and Omega Order of Melchizedek in Vancouver, Canada.)

Many areas of Drunvalo's work in his books are more experiential, and extend beyond the experience of most of the population and may require suspension of judgment until the reader has sought to test what Drunvalo teaches through practice in their own life. For example: While Merkaba meditation is based in the ancient Hebrew concept of Merkabah which has some documented history, Drunvalo teaches Merkaba Meditation is a breathing and meditation technique which he tells allows the individual to soul travel to other dimensions and communicate with angels and other beings.

Serpent of Light - Beyond 2012

Serpent of Light - Beyond 2012 was published in January 2008 by Weiser Books.

This book is a diary of events beginning around the time the Dalai Lama left Tibet, at which time Drunvalo alleges an event began which only occurs once every 13,000 years, the movement of the Earth's Kundalini or Serpent of Light, which had run from the Earth's core to the surface of the earth in the Tibetan Mountains for 13,000 years. He tells of his involvement in a series of events with many indigenous peoples in ceremonies that played a part in facilitating the successful movement of the Serpent of Light to its new home in the high Andes of Chile.

The book describes the emergence of what he calls the Unity Consciousness Grid, and of the callings that drew him and others to play a part in completing it. This grid will play a part in the shift in consciousness that will occur sometime within "The End of Times" window lasting from 2007-10-24, when the Hopi prophecy of the Blue Star was fulfilled , to 2014-10-24 and not necessarily on the date when the wheels of the Maya calendar align on 2012-12-21.

The Unity Consciousness Grid is said to be a network of energetic connections between sacred temples and sites around the globe and special crystals which link them, creating a grid which will support an increasing, shared, "unity consciousness".

Through the years to 2012, the book prophesies a movement to feminine-led consciousness which will last through to the end of the next 13,000 year cycle.

References

External links

http://www.drunvalo.net/

http://www.drunvalo.us/

For some questions and criticism see: http://www.zenatode.org.uk/ian/misc/drunvalo.xhtml

Category:American writers Category:Living people Category:1941 births