- published: 22 Dec 2014
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Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as "indigenous" according to one of the various definitions of the term, though there is no universally accepted definition.
In the late twentieth century, the term began to be used primarily to refer to ethnic groups that have historical ties to groups that existed in a territory prior to colonization or formation of a nation state, and which normally preserve a degree of cultural and political separation from the mainstream culture and political system of the nation state within the border of which the indigenous group is located. The political sense of the term defines these groups as particularly vulnerable to exploitation and oppression by nation states. 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 have issued a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to protect the collective rights of indigenous peoples to their culture, identity, language, employment, health, education and natural resources. Depending on which precise definition of "indigenous people" used, and on the census, estimates of a world total population of Indigenous people range from 220 million Indigenous peoples in 1997 to 350 million in 2004.
This is a partial list of the world's indigenous / aboriginal / native peoples. Indigenous peoples are any ethnic group of peoples who are considered to fall under one of the internationally recognized definitions of Indigenous peoples, such as United Nations, the International Labour Organization and the World Bank. .
Note that this is a listing of peoples, groups and communities.
This list is grouped by region, and sub-region. Note that a particular group may warrant listing under more than one region, either because the group is distributed in more than one region (example: Inuit in North America and eastern Russia), or there may be some overlap of the regions themselves (that is, the boundaries of each region are not always clear and some locations may commonly be associated with more than one region).
The continent of Africa, including associated islands such as Madagascar, but excluding Arabia.
Central Africa generally includes the lands mainly of the Congo River basin, south of the Sahara and west of the East African Rift.
Xingui peoples are indigenous peoples of Brazil living near the Xingu River. They have many cultural similarities despite their different ethnologies. Xingu people represent fifteen tribes and all four of Brazil's indigenous language groups, but they share similar belief systems, rituals and ceremonies.
The Upper Xingu region was heavily populated prior to European and African contact. Densely populated settlements developed from 1200 to 1600 CE. Ancient roads and bridges linked communities were often surrounded by ditches or moats. The villages were pre-planned and featured circular plazas. Archaeologists have unearthed 19 villages so far.
Kuikuro oral history says European slavers arrived in the Xingu region around 1750. Xinuguano population was estimated in the tens of thousands but was dramatically reduced by diseases and slavery by Europeans. In the centuries since the penetration of the Europeans into South America, the Xingu fled from different regions to escape modernization and cultural assimilation. Nonetheless settlers made it up as far as the upper run of the Rio Xingu. By the end of the 19th century, about 3,000 natives lived at the Alto Xingu, where their current political status has kept them protected against European intruders. By the mid twentieth century this number had been reduced by foreign epidemic diseases such as flu, measles, smallpox and malaria to less than 1,000. Only an estimated 500 Xingu peoples were alive in the 1950s.