The
indigenous peoples of
the Americas are the
pre-Columbian inhabitants of North, Central,
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,
Amerigine, and by
Christopher Columbus'
geographical and historical mistake,
Indians, now
disambiguated as the
American Indian race,
American Indians,
Amerindians,
Amerinds, or
Red Indians.
According
to the still-debated New World migration
model, a migration of humans from Eurasia to the Americas took place via Beringia, a land bridge
which connected the two continents across what is now the Bering Strait
. The most recent point at which this
migration could have taken
place is
c. 12,000 years ago, with the earliest period
remaining a matter of some unresolved contention. These early
Paleo-Indians soon spread throughout
the Americas, diversifying into many hundreds of culturally
distinct nations and tribes. According to the
oral histories of many of the indigenous
peoples of the Americas, they have been living there since their
genesis, described by a wide range of traditional creation
accounts.
Application of
the term
"Indian" originated with
Christopher Columbus, who thought that
he had arrived in the
East Indies, while
seeking
Asia. 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,
states, and massive
empires.
Many parts
of the Americas are still populated by indigenous Americans; some
countries have sizeable populations, such as Bolivia
, Peru
, Paraguay
, Mexico
, Guatemala
, Colombia
, and
Ecuador
. At least a thousand different indigenous
languages are spoken in the Americas. Some, such as
Quechua,
Guaraní,
Mayan languages, and
Nahuatl, count their speakers in millions. Most
indigenous peoples have largely adopted the lifestyle of the
western world, but 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
Pre-history
Scholars
who follow the Bering Strait theory agree that most indigenous
peoples of the Americas descended from people who probably migrated from Siberia
across the
Bering
Strait
, anywhere between 9,000 and 50,000 years
ago. The time frame and exact routes are still matters of
debate, and the model faces continuous challenges.
A 2006 study reported
that DNA-based research had linked DNA retrieved
from a 10,000-year-old fossilized tooth from the Prince of
Wales Island
in Alaska with specific coastal tribes in Tierra del
Fuego
, Ecuador
, Mexico
, and
California
. Unique DNA markers found in the fossilized
tooth were found only in these specific coastal tribes and were not
comparable to markers found in any other indigenous peoples in the
Americas. This finding lends substantial credence to a migration
theory that at least one set of early peoples moved south along the
west coast of the Americas in boats. It also suggests there may
have been waves of migration, which numerous scholars believe. But,
these results may be ambiguous, as there are other issues with DNA
research and trying to affiliate biological and cultural
groups.
One result of these waves of migration is that large groups of
peoples with similar languages and perhaps physical characteristics
as well, moved into various geographic areas of North, and then
Central and South America. While these peoples have traditionally
remained primarily loyal to their individual tribes, ethnologists
have variously sought to group the myriad of tribes into larger
entities which reflect common geographic origins, linguistic
similarities, and lifestyles.
Pre-Columbian era

Language families of North American
indigenous peoples
Remnants
of a human settlement in Monte Verde
, Chile
dated to
12,500 years B.P. (another
layer at Monte Verde has been tentatively dated to 33,000–35,000
years B.P.) suggests that southern Chile was settled by peoples who
entered the Americas before the peoples associated with the Bering
Strait migrations. It is suggested that a
coastal route via
canoes could have allowed rapid migration into the
Americas.
The traditional view of a relatively recent migration has also been
challenged by older findings of human remains in South America;
some dating to perhaps even 30,000 years old or more.
Some recent finds
(notably the Luzia Woman in Lagoa Santa
, Brazil) are claimed to be morphologically distinct
from most Asians and are more similar to Africans, Melanesians and
Australian Aborigines.
These
American
Aborigines would have been later displaced or absorbed by the
Siberian immigrants.
The distinctive Fuegian
natives of Tierra del
Fuego
, the southernmost tip of the American continent,
are speculated to be partial remnants of those Aboriginal
populations. These early immigrants would have either
crossed the ocean by boat or traveled north along the Asian coast
and entered America through the Northwest, well before the Siberian
waves. This theory is currently viewed by many scholars as
conjecture, as many areas along the proposed routes now lie
underwater, making research difficult. Some scholars believe the
earliest
forensic evidence
for early populations appears to more closely resemble
Southeast Asians and Pacific Islanders, and
not those of
Northeast Asia.
Scholars' estimates of the total population of the Americas before
European contact vary enormously, from a low of 10 million to a
high of 112 million. Some scholars believe that most of the
indigenous population resided in
Mesoamerica and South America, with
approximately 10 percent residing in North America, prior to
European colonization.
The
Solutrean hypothesis
suggests an early
European
migration into the Americas and that
stone
tool technology of the
Solutrean
culture in
prehistoric Europe may
have later influenced the development of the
Clovis tool-making culture in the Americas.
Some of
its key proponents include Dr. Dennis
Stanford of the Smithsonian Institution
and Dr. Bruce Bradley of the University of
Exeter
. In this hypothesis, peoples associated with
the Solutrean culture migrated from
Ice Age
Europe to
North America, bringing
their methods of making stone tools with them and providing the
basis for later Clovis technology found throughout North America.
The
hypothesis rests upon particular similarities in Solutrean and
Clovis toolmaking styles, and the fact that no predecessors of
Clovis technology have been found in Eastern Asia, Siberia
or Beringia, areas from which or through which early
Americans are thought to have migrated.
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".
Vine Deloria, Jr., author and
Nakota activist, cites some of the oral
histories that claim an
in situ origin in
his book
Red Earth, White
Lies, rejecting the Bering Strait land bridge route.
Deloria takes a
Young Earth
creationism position, arguing that Native Americans actually
originated in the Americas.
European colonization

Cultural areas of North America at
time of European contact
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 Tainos died.
Enslaved,
forced to
labour in the mines, mistreated, the Tainos began to adopt
suicidal behaviors, with women aborting or
killing their infants, men jumping from the cliffs or ingesting
manioc, a violent poison. They had
no immunity to European diseases, so outbreaks of
measles and
smallpox ravaged
their population.
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.
Reasons for the decline of the Native American populations are
variously theorized to be from
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, killing
150,000 in Tenochtitlan alone,
including the emperor, and was credited with the victory of
Hernán Cortés over the
Aztec empire at Tenochtitlan
(present-day Mexico
City
) in 1521.
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
Native Americans. In 1633, in Plymouth,
Massachusetts
, the Native Americans 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.
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.
Culture
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. Within the
Americas, dozens of larger and hundreds of smaller culture areas
can be identified.
Technology
The limited distribution of pack animals available for
domestication, and the resultant limits of transportation, is
certainly one of the factors in the lack of development of certain
technologies in pre-Hispanic America. While Eurasia has a
predominant east-west orientation that allowed the dissemination of
certain technologies and crops along the latitude bands, the
orientation of the American continents along the north-south axis
made the dissemination of crops from one region to another, even
with human migration, difficult and unlikely, given climate change
due to altitude and climatic zones. Another factor that
distinguished the American continent and Eurasia is the absence of
river based cultures due to the configuration of rivers in the
Americas.
On the arrival of Europeans in America, the use of metal technology
was very limited and most American cultures were lithic based. In
Mesoamerica the knowledge of the calendar, based on acute
astronomical observation, had reached remarkable levels of
development. The Aztecs used intensive agricultural systems based
on chinampas, with total food production per hectare possibly much
higher than elsewhere in the world.
Writing systems
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 writing system of the
Pre-Columbian New World which is 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.
Music and art
Native American music in North
America is almost entirely
monophonic, but there are notable
exceptions. Traditional Native American music often includes
drumming but little other instrumentation,
although
flutes are played by individuals. 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.
Music from indigenous peoples of Central Mexico and Central America
often was
pentatonic. Before the arrival
of the Spaniards 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 AD), which depicts a stringed
musical instrument which has since been reproduced. This instrument
is astonishing in at least two respects. First, it is the only
string instrument 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. A
sample of this sound is available at the
Princeton Art Museum website.
Art of the indigenous peoples of the
Americas composes a major category in the world
art collection. Contributions include
pottery,
paintings,
jewellery,
weavings,
sculptures,
basketry,
carvings 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 indigenous people, and also those with
part-indigenous ancestry, expressed as a percentage of the overall
country population of each country that is comprised by indigenous
peoples, and of people with partly indigenous 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.
History and status by country
Argentina
Argentina's indigenous population is about 403,000 (0.9 percent of
total population). Indigenous nations include the
Toba,
Wichí,
Mocoví,
Pilagá,
Chulupí,
Diaguita-
Calchaquí,
Kolla,
Guaraní (Tupí Guaraní and Avá Guaraní in the
provinces of Jujuy and Salta, and Mbyá Guaraní in the province of
Misiones),
Chorote (
Iyo'wujwa Chorote and
Iyojwa'ja Chorote),
Chané,
Tapieté,
Mapuche
(probably the largest indigenous nation in Argentina) and
Tehuelche. The
Selknam
(Ona) people are now virtually extinct in its pure form. The
languages of the Diaguita, Tehuelche, and Selknam nations are now
extinct or virtually extinct: the Cacán language (spoken by
Diaguitas) in the 18th century, the Selknam language in the 20th
century; whereas one Tehuelche language (Southern Tehuelche) is
still spoken by a small handful of
elderly
people.
Belize
Mestizos (European with indigenous peoples) number about 34 percent
of the population; unmixed
Maya make up
another 10.6 percent (
Ketchi,
Mopan, and Yucatec).
The Garifuna, who came to Belize in the 1800s,
originating from Saint Vincent and the
Grenadines
, with a mixed African,
Carib, and Arawak
ancestry make up another 6 percent of the population.
Bolivia
In
Bolivia
, about 2.5
million people speak Quechua, 2.1 million
speak Aymara, while Guaraní is only spoken by a few hundred
thousand people. Also there are 36 recognized cultures and
languages in the country. Although there are no official documents
written in these languages, Quechua and Aymara were historically
only ever oral languages until fragmented modern attempts at
transcription and written standardization. Radio and some
television in Quechua and Aymara is produced. However, 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.
Speaking in Santa Cruz
Department
, the President called it "a historic day for the
peasant and indigenous movement", saying that he might make errors
but he would "never betray the fight started by our ancestors and
the fight of the Bolivian people". A vote on further
autonomy will take place in referendums which are expected to be
held in December 2009. The issue has divided the country.
Brazil
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 Centre-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.
Canada
The most
commonly preferred term for the indigenous peoples of what is now
Canada
is
Aboriginal
peoples. Of these Aboriginal peoples who are not
Inuit or
Métis, "
First Nations" is the most commonly preferred
term of self-identification. Aboriginal peoples make up
approximately 3.8 percent of the Canadian population.
Canadian Inuit live in subarctic and
arctic Canada, as well as Alaska, Greenland, and Siberia, and
maintain their own distinct
Inuit
culture. First Nations are the American Indian tribes of
Canada, while Métis are a distinct group of people descended from
First Nations peoples and French traders.
Despite an
ancient history of their
own, Canadian Aboriginal peoples cultures have sometimes been
written about as if their history began with the encroachment of
Europeans onto the continent. This is because
the
First Nations,
Inuit and
Métis "written" history began with European
accounts, as in documentation by
trappers,
traders,
explorers, and
missionaries (cf. the
Codex canadiensis).
Although not without
conflict or some slavery, Canada's early interactions with First
Nations 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 native peoples to have a
relatively strong influence on the national culture while
preserving their own identity. Nevertheless, explorers and traders
brought European diseases, such as
smallpox, which killed off entire villages.
Relations varied between the settlers and the Natives. Today, a
revival of pride in First Nations, Inuit and Métis art and music is
taking place, and the beauty created by traditional Aboriginals has
become a dominant art style in Canada.
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 the country's central valley
and lake district. The Mapuche successfully fought off defeat in
the first 300–350 years of Spanish rule during the
Arauco War. Relation 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. The former
land was opened to settlement for 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 the Alacalufe survivors who
now reside mainly in Puerto Edén
.
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
Costa Rica
was the site of many indigenous cultures, but only
eight remain today: Bribri, Boruca
, Cabecar, Chorotega,
Guaymí, Huetar,
Maleku and Terraba,
also called Teribe
or
Naso.
Ecuador

Otavaleña 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 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 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.The majority of indigenous
people are
Lencas,
Miskitos to the east,
Mayans,
Pech,
Sumos,
and
Tolupan.
Mexico
The
territory of modern-day Mexico
was home to
numerous indigenous civilizations prior to the arrival of the
Spanish conquistadores: The
Olmecs, who flourished from between 1200 BCE
to about 400 BCE in the coastal regions of the Gulf of
Mexico
; the Zapotecs and
the Mixtecs, who held sway in the mountains
of Oaxaca
and the
Isthmus of
Tehuantepec
; the Maya in the
Yucatán
(and into neighbouring areas of contemporary
Central America); the Purepecha or
Tarascan in present day Michoacán
and surrounding areas, and the Aztecs, who, from their central capital at Tenochtitlan, dominated much of the centre and
south of the country (and the non-Aztec inhabitants of those areas)
when Hernán Cortés first
landed at Veracruz
.
In contrast to what was the general rule in the rest of
North America, the history of the colony of
New Spain was one of racial intermingling
(
mestizaje).
Mestizos
quickly came to account for a majority of the colony's population;
however, significant numbers and communities of
indígenas
(as the native peoples are now known) survive to the present
day.
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 7.1% 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
Most
Peruvians are either indigenous or
mestizos (of mixed Indigenous and European
ancestry). Peru has the largest indigenous population of South
America, and its traditions and customs have shaped the way
Peruvians live and see themselves today. Cultural citizenship—or
what Renato Rosaldo has called, "the right to be different and to
belong, in a democratic, participatory sense" (1996:243)—is not yet
very well developed in Peru. This is perhaps no more apparent than
in the country's Amazonian regions where indigenous societies
continue to struggle against state-sponsored economic abuses,
cultural discrimination, and pervasive violence.
United States
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.
A number of
Kumeyaay communities may be
found in Baja California del Norte.
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 Yekuanas
Wayuu, the
Pemons and the
Waraos. 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 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 three of the native American
languages (Quechua in Peru and Bolivia;
Aymara also in Peru, Bolivia and
Chile, and Guaraní in Paraguay
) are recognized along with Spanish as national 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.
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.
Genetics
Molecular genetics study suggests
that Amerindian populations derived from a theoretical single
founding population, possibly from
only 50 to 70 genetic contributors. Preliminary research,
restricted to only 9 genomic regions (or
loci) have shown a genetic link between
original Americas and Asia populations. The study does not address
the question of separate migrations for these groups, and excludes
other DNA data-sets.
The
American Journal
of Human Genetics released an article in 2007 stating "Here we
show, by using 86 complete
mitochondrial genomes,
that all Indigenous Americans
haplogroups, including
haplogroup X, were part of a single
founding population." Amerindian groups in the Bering Strait region
exhibit perhaps the strongest DNA or mitochondrial DNA relations to
Siberian peoples. The
genetic diversity of Amerindian indigenous groups increase with
distance from the assumed entry point into the Americas. Certain
genetic diversity patterns from West to East suggest at least some
coastal migration events. Geneticists have variously estimated that
peoples of Asia and the Americas were part of the same population
from 42,000 to 21,000 years ago.
See also
Notes
- See also Classification
of indigenous peoples of the Americas
- Fagundes, Nelson J.R.; Ricardo Kanitz, Roberta Eckert, Ana C.S.
Valls, Mauricio R. Bogo, Francisco M. Salzano, David Glenn Smith,
Wilson A. Silva, Marco A. Zago, Andrea K. Ribeiro-dos-Santos,
Sidney E.B. Santos, Maria Luiza Petzl-Erler, and Sandro L.Bonatto
(2008). "Mitochondrial Population Genomics Supports a Single
Pre-Clovis Origin with a Coastal Route for the Peopling of the
Americas". American Journal of Human Genetics 82 (3): 583-592.
- Carey, Bjorn (19 February 2006). First Americans may have been European.Life
Science. Retrieved on August 10, 2007.
- Conner, Steve, Science Editor, (3 December 2002). Does skull prove that the first Americans came from
Europe?. Published in the UK
Independent. Retrieved on August 14, 2007.
- Hecht, Jeff (4 September 2003). Skulls narrow clues to First AmericansNew
Scientist. Retrieved on August 12, 2007.
- Gonzalez, Sylvia, C. Jimenez-Lopez, R. Hedges, D. Huddart, J.C.
Ohman, A. Turner, J.A. Pompa y Padilla (2003). Earliest humans in
the Americas: new evidence from Mexico, Journal of Human Evolution
44, 379–387.
- Richard Erdoes, Alfonso Ortiz, (Eds.) "American Indian Myths
and Legends." Pantheon, 1985.
- Vine Deloria, Jr. "Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and
the Myth of Scientific Fact." Fulcrum Inc. 1999.
- "Native Americans of North America", Microsoft
Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2006, Trudy Griffin-Pierce. Retrieved
September 14, 2006. Archived 2009-11-01.
- "Espagnols-Indiens: le choc des civilisations" in
L'Histoire, n°322, July-August 2007,
pp.14–21
- Laws of Burgos, 1512-1513
- Cook, p. 1.
- BBC Smallpox: Eradicating the Scourge
- The Story Of... Smallpox – and other Deadly Eurasian
Germs
- American Indian Epidemics
- Smallpox: The Disease That Destroyed Two Empires
- Epidemics
- American plague, New Scientist
- Oaxaca
- Smallpox's history in the world
- Stacy Goodling, "Effects of European Diseases on
the Inhabitants of the New World"
- " Aboriginal Distributions 1630 to 1653".
Natural Resources Canada.
- David A. Koplow, Smallpox: The Fight to Eradicate a
Global Scourge
- Dutch Children's Disease Kills Thousands of
Mohawks
- Smallpox
- Iroquois
- Smallpox epidemic ravages Native Americans on the
northwest coast of North America in the 1770s.
- The first smallpox epidemic on the Canadian Plains:
In the fur-traders' words
- Mountain Man Plain Indian Fur Trade
- Lewis Cass and the Politics of Disease: The Indian
Vaccination Act of 1832
- Wicazo Sa Review: Vol. 18, No. 2, The Politics of
Sovereignty (Autumn, 2003), pp. 9–35
- '500 Years of Brazil's Discovery'
- Brazil urged to protect Indians
- See Varese (2004), as reviewed in Dean (2006).
- Ancient Horse (Equus cf. E. complicatus), The Academy
of Natural Sciences, Thomas Jefferson Fossil Collection,
Philadelphia, PA, (See: species Equus scotti) Others died out at the end of the
last ice age with other
megafauna.
- "Native Americans: The First Farmers."
AgExporter October 1 1999
- Lay summary
- Michael
Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma
- Elizabeth Hill Boone, "Pictorial Documents and Visual Thinking
in Postconquest Mexico". p. 158.
- Aboriginal Ancestory, 2006 Census
- Overview of Race and Hispanic Origin, 2000 US
Census (Page 3-4)
- Bonilla et al., Ancestral proportions and their association
with skin pigmentation and bone mineral density in Puerto Rican
women from New York City. Hum Gen (2004) 115: 57-58, and
Reconstructing the population history of Puerto Rico by means of
mtDNA phylogeographic analysis, Martinez-Cruzado et al, Am J Phys
Anthropol. 2005 [1]
- Primeros Resultados de la Encuesta
Complementaria de Pueblos Indígenas (ECPI)
- População residente, por cor ou raça, segundo a
situação do domicílio - Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e
Estatística
- INDEC: Encuesta Complementaria de Pueblos Indígenas
(ECPI) 2004 - 2005
- Brazil sees traces of more isolated Amazon tribes
- Aboriginal People. Statistics Canada.
Release No. 5: 15 Jan 2008 . Retrieved 12 March 2009.
- George
Woodcock A Social History of Canada, 1988;
Eric Wolf,
Europe and the People
Without History, 1982.
- Wolf, chapter 8
- El gradiente sociogenético chileno y sus implicaciones
ético-sociales.
- DANE 2005 national census
- " HEALTH EQUITY AND ETHNIC MINORITIES IN EMERGENCY
SITUATIONS", Pier Paolo Balladelli, José Milton Guzmán, Marcelo
Korc, Paula Moreno, Gabriel Rivera, The Commission on Social Health
Determinants, Pan American Health
Organization, World Health Organization,
Bogotá, Colombia,
2007
- . Second article.
- Dean, Bartholomew 2009 Urarina Society, Cosmology, and
History in Peruvian Amazonia, Gainesville: University Press of
Florida ISBN 978-081303378 [2]
- Dean, Bartholomew 2009 Urarina Society, Cosmology, and
History in Peruvian Amazonia, Gainesville: University Press of
Florida ISBN 978-081303378 [3]
- The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 2000. ISBN 0-395-82517-2 (hardcover),
ISBN 0-618-08230-1hardcover with CD ROM)
- Mandel, Michael. The Charter of Rights and the Legalization of
Politics in Canada. Revised, Updated and Expanded Edition.
(Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing, Inc., 1994), pp.
354-356.
- ( R.S., 1985, c. I-5 )Canadian Constitution Act, 1982, Section
Twenty-five of the Canadian Charter of
Rights and Freedoms 35.
- http://africa.reuters.com/world/news/usnTRE49M10G.html
Reuters
-
http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7B59DF5FFB-B4C1-4E06-B315-BA3A23C1F081%7D)&language=EN
References
External links