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The scope of this indigenous peoples of the Americas article encompasses the definitions of indigenous peoples and the Americas as established in their respective articles.
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Early history
See also: Archeology of the Americas, Models of migration to the New World
The Bering Strait Land Bridge Theory
Based on anthropological and genetic evidence, scientists generally agree that most indigenous peoples of the Americas descend from people who migrated from Siberia across the Bering Strait, between 17,000–11,000 years ago.
The exact epoch and route is still a matter of controversy, as is whether it happened at all. Until recently there was a consensus among anthropologists that the alleged migrants crossed the strait 12,000 years ago via the Bering Land Bridge which existed during the last ice age (which occurred 26,000 to 11,000 years ago), and that they followed an inland route through Alaska and Canada that had just been freed of its ice cover. There are a number of difficulties in this theory — in particular, growing evidence of human presence in Brazil and Chile 11,500 years ago or earlier 1. Thus other possibilities, not necessarily exclusive, have been suggested:
- The migrants may have crossed the land bridge several millennia earlier and followed a coastal route, thus avoiding the ice-covered interior.
- They may have been seafaring people who moved along the coast, a theory disputed due to the relative lack of seafaring skills of peoples of this time period.
- The crossing of the Bering Land Bridge may have occurred during the previous ice age, around 37,000 years ago. This is also supported by the archaeology dating of some sites in South America prior to the previously assumed date of 12–14,000 years ago.
- A more radical alternative is that the Siberians were preceded by migrants from Oceania, who arrived either by sailing across the Pacific Ocean or by following the land route through Beringia at a much earlier date. Proponents of this theory claim that the oldest human remains in South America and in Baja California show distinctive non-Siberian traits, resembling those of Australian Aborigines or the so-called "negrito" peoples of South and Southeast Asia, such as the Andamanese of the Andaman Islands. These hypothetical American Aborigines would have been displaced by the Siberian migrants, and may have been ancestral to the distinctive indigenous peoples of the Tierra del Fuego, who are nearly extinct.
An Inuit womanSome mainstream anthropologists and archaeologists consider the genetic and cultural evidence for a primarily Siberian origin overwhelming. According to their theories, at least three separate migrations from Siberia to the Americas are highly likely to have occurred:
- The first wave came into a land populated by the large mammals of the late Pleistocene, including mammoths, horses, giant sloths, and woolly rhinoceroses. The Clovis culture would be a manifestation of that migration, and the Folsom culture, based on the hunting of bison, would have developed from it. This wave eventually spread over the entire hemisphere, as far south as Tierra del Fuego.
- The second migration brought the ancestors of the Na-Dene peoples. They lived in Alaska and western Canada, but some migrated as far south as the Pacific Northwestern U.S. and the American Southwest, and would be ancestral to the Dene, Apaches and Navajos.
- The third wave brought the ancestors of the Eskimos and the Aleuts. They may have come by sea over the Bering Strait, after the land bridge had disappeared.
- In recent years, molecular genetics studies have suggested as many as four distinct migrations from Asia. These studies also provide surprising evidence of smaller-scale, contemporaneous migrations from Europe, possibly by peoples who had adopted a lifestyle resembling that of Inuits and Yupiks during the last ice age.
One result of these successive 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 life styles. (See Classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas.)
While many indigenous peoples of the Americas retained a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle through the time of European occupation of the New World, in some regions, specifically in the Mississippi River valley of the United States, in Mexico, Central America, the Andes of South America, they built advanced civilizations with monumental architecture and large-scale organization into cities and states.
See also: Mississippian culture, Cahokia, Mesoamerica, Maya, Olmec, Zapotec, Toltec, Teotihuacan, Aztec, Aymara, Inca, indigenous people of Brazil.
European colonization of the Americas
The European colonization of the Americas forever changed the lives and cultures of the indigenous peoples of the continent. In the 15th to 19th centuries, their populations were ravaged by the privations of displacement, by disease, and in many cases by warfare with European groups and enslavement by them. The first indigenous group encountered by Columbus were the 250,000 Arawaks of Hispaniola. They were enslaved, and only 500 survived by the year 1550. The group was extinct before 1650.
In the 15th century 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. Ironically, the horse had originally evolved in the Americas, but the last American horses, (species Equus scotti and others 2) died out at the end of the last ice age. The re-introduction of the horse had a profound impact on Native American and First Nations culture in the Great Plains of North America. This new mode of travel made it possible for some tribes to greatly expand their territories, exchange many goods with neighboring tribes, and more easily capture game.
Europeans also brought diseases against which the indigenous peoples of the Americas had no immunity. Chicken pox and measles, though common and rarely fatal among Europeans, often proved fatal to the indigenous people, and more dangerous diseases such as smallpox were especially deadly to indigenous populations. It is difficult to estimate the total percentage of the indigenous population killed by these diseases. Epidemics often immediately followed European exploration, sometimes destroying entire villages. Some historians estimate that up to 80% of some indigenous populations may have died due to European diseases. For more information, see population history of American indigenous peoples.
Indigenous peoples in the United States
For more detailed information, see Native Americans in the United States.
Indigenous peoples in what is now the United States are commonly called "American Indians" but more recently have been referred to as "Native Americans".
Indigenous peoples in Canada
For more detailed information, see Aboriginal peoples in Canada.
In Canada, the most commonly preferred term for the indigenous peoples of what is now the country is Aboriginal peoples. Of these Aboriginal peoples who are not Inuit or Métis, "First Nations" is the most commonly preferred term of self-identification. First Nations peoples make up approximately 3% of the Canadian population. The official term for First Nations people — that is, the term used by both the Indian Act which regulates benefits received by members of First Nations, and the Indian Register which defines who is a member of a First Nation — is Indian.
Indigenous peoples in Mexico
The territory of modern-day Mexico was home to numerous indigenous civilizations prior to the arrival of the European conquistadors: The Olmecs, who flourished from between 1200 BC to about 800 BC 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; and, of course, 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 pockets of pure-blood indígenas (as the native peoples are now known) have survived to the present day.
With mestizos numbering some 60% of the modern population, estimates for the numbers of unmixed indigenous peoples vary from a very modest 10% to a more liberal (and probably more accurate) 30% of the population. The reason for this discrepancy may be the Mexican government's policy of using linguistic, rather than racial, criteria as the basis of classification.
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 Nahuas, Purépechas, and Mixtecs are also present in the central regions of Mexico. In Northern Mexico indigenous people are a small minority: they are practically absent from the northeast but, in the northwest and central borderlands, include the Tarahumara of Chihuahua and the Yaquis and Seri of Sonora.
While Mexicans are universally proud of their indigenous heritage (generally more so than of their Spanish roots), modern-day indigenous Mexicans are still the target of discrimination and outright racism. In particular, in areas such as Chiapas — most famously, but also in Oaxaca, Puebla, Guerrero, and other remote mountainous parts — indigenous communities have been left on the margins of national development for the past 500 years. Indigenous customs and uses enjoy no official status. The Huichols of the states of Jalisco, Nayarit, Zacatecas, and Durango are impeded by police forces in their ritual pilgrimages, and their religious observances are interfered with.
Indigenous peoples in Belize
Mestizos (European with indigenous peoples) number about 45% of the population; unmixed Mayans make up another 10%.
Indigenous peoples in Guatemala
The indigenous peoples of Guatemala are of Maya stock. Pure Mayans account for some 45% of the population; although around 40% of the population speaks an indigenous language, those tongues (of which there are more than 20) enjoy no official status. Mayan sources, however, place estimates at around 60% of the population.
Indigenous peoples in Brazil
- Main article: Indigenous peoples in Brazil
Indigenous peoples in Argentina
Argentina's Native American population is a subject of controversy. Estimates vary from a minimum of 300,000 (0.7% of total population) to a maximum of two million (5.6% of the 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, Chané, Tapieté, Mapuche, Tehuelche and Selknam (Ona).
Indigenous peoples in 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, Argentina, Dominican Republic, and Uruguay. At least three of the Amerindian languages (Quechua in Peru and Bolivia, Aymara also in Bolivia, and Guarani in Paraguay) are recognized along with Spanish as national languages.
Cultural aspects
Though cultural features including language, garb, and customs vary enormously from one tribe to another; there are certain elements which are encountered frequently and shared by many indigenous peoples.
Gender
Most indigenous peoples had traditional gender roles. Agriculture was often women's work while war and hunting was men's. In some tribes, social and clan relationships were matrilinear and matriarchal but several different systems were in use. Men filled the war leader role. The cradle board is used by mothers to carry their baby whilst working or traveling.
As in many indigenous cultures around the world, homosexual and transgender individuals (and animals) are considered routine and expected. Many indigenous groups formally recognize these homosexual and transgender individuals in the role of the "two-spirit" person (previously labeled by Europeans as "berdache", a term now considered obsolete). Two-spirit transgender and homosexual roles are known to have been recognized and honored, at the present time or historically, in more than 150 different tribes.
The two-spirit is a man or woman who mixes gender roles by wearing clothes of the opposite or both genders, doing both male and female (or primarily "opposite-gender") work, and often engaging in same-sex relations with other members of the tribe. Two-spirit people often are shamans, performing religious and/or mediating functions. Their special status is thought to invest them with exceptional spiritual power, as a result of which they are both feared and respected.
Music and art
Native American music of North American Indians 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 inseparatable from religious festivities and included a large number of instruments such as drums, flutes, sea snails shells (used as a kind of trumpet), "rain" tubes, etc. No string instruments were used, though, only percussion and wind.
Art of the indigenous peoples of the Americas comprises a major category in the world art collection. Contributions include pottery, paintings, jewelry, weavings, sculptures, basketry, and carvings.
Controversial terminology
- See discussion in Native American name controversy article.
Generally, ethnic groups desire that others use the name they give themselves. This preference has gained importance recently as a means of avoiding ethnic discrimination. The principle applies poorly to larger, multi-ethnic groups since different sub-groups often have incompatible preferences. English, like other natural languages, has traditionally ignored this principle, exerting its privilege to invent its own ethnic terms, such as German, Dutch, and Albanian, and disregarding the self-appellations and preferences of the subjects. Not surprisingly, English names for the pre-Columbian Americans are largely assigned by tradition, and are not always accepted by the peoples themselves.
The terms Indian or American Indian were born of the misconception by Christopher Columbus that the Caribbean islands were the islands in Southeast Asia known to Europeans as the Indies. Despite Columbus's mistake, the name stuck, and for centuries the native people of the Americas were collectively called Indians.
Canada and the North
A more serious difficulty with this term is that several ethnic groups traditionally excluded from the American Indians were just as "native" to the Americas as them. These groups include the Inuit, Yupik, and Aleut peoples of the far north of the continent. Eskimos was once used for these groups, but this term is in disfavor because it is perceived by many of them as derogatory.
In Canada the term First Nations has generally replaced the use of the word Indian, though the Canadian Indian Act which defines the rights of recognized First Nations, does refer to them as Indians. The term First Nations does not refer to the Inuit, Inuvialuit, or Métis. Collectively they and the First Nations are referred to as Aboriginals. In Alaska, the term Alaskan Native predominates, because of its legal use in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANSCA) and because it includes the Eskimo peoples. In Latin America, the preferred expression is Indigenous Peoples (pueblos indígenas in Spanish, povos indígenas in Portuguese). However, Indians (indios, índios) is often used too, even by indigenous peoples themselves. Red Indian is a common British term, useful in differentiating this group from a distinct group of people referred to as East Indians, but considered offensive in North America, where it is rarely if ever used. In the French language, the term Amérindien has been coined, and the English term Amerindian (sometimes abbreviated Amerind) is sometimes used in the social sciences to refer collectively to all indigenous peoples of the Americas or their cultures.
See also
- Population history of American indigenous peoples
- Indigenous languages of the Americas
- Category:Indigenous languages of the Americas (division into geo-cultural areas)