Portal:Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The Indigenous peoples of the Americas Portal

Current distribution of Indigenous peoples of the Americas

In the Americas, Indigenous peoples comprise the two continents' pre-Columbian inhabitants prior to European colonization of the Americas in the 15th century, as well as the ethnic groups that identify with the pre-Columbian population of the Americas as such. These populations exhibit significant diversity; some Indigenous peoples were historically hunter-gatherers, while others practiced agriculture and aquaculture. Various Indigenous societies developed complex social structures, including pre-contact monumental architecture, organized cities, city-states, chiefdoms, states, kingdoms, republics, confederacies, and empires. These societies possessed varying levels of knowledge in fields such as engineering, architecture, mathematics, astronomy, writing, physics, medicine, agriculture, irrigation, geology, mining, metallurgy, art, sculpture, and goldsmithing.

Indigenous peoples continue to inhabit many regions of the Americas, with significant populations in countries such as Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, and the United States. There are at least 1,000 different indigenous languages spoken across the Americas, with 574 federally recognized tribes in the US alone. Some languages, including Quechua, Arawak, Aymara, Guaraní, Mayan, and Nahuatl, have millions of speakers and are recognized as official by governments in Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay, and Greenland. Indigenous peoples, whether residing in rural or urban areas, often maintain aspects of their cultural practices, including religion, social organization, and subsistence practices. Over time, these cultures have evolved, preserving traditional customs while adapting to modern needs. Some Indigenous groups remain relatively isolated from Western culture, with a few still considered uncontacted peoples. (Full article...)

Selected article

Community of igloos. (Illustration from Charles Francis Hall's Arctic Researches and Life Among the Esquimaux, 1865) — Community of igloos. (Illustration from Charles Francis Hall's *Arctic Researches and Life Among the Esquimaux*, 1865)

An igloo (Inuit language: iglu, Inuktitut syllabics ᐃᒡᓗ [iɣˈlu] (plural: igluit ᐃᒡᓗᐃᑦ [iɣluˈit]) or snowhouse is a type of shelter built of snow, originally built by the Inuit.

Although igloos are usually associated with all Inuit, they were predominantly constructed by people of Canada's Central Arctic and Greenland's Thule area. Other Inuit people tended to use snow to insulate their houses, which were constructed from whalebone and hides. Snow is used because the air pockets trapped in it make it an insulator. On the outside, temperatures may be as low as −45 °C (−49 °F), but on the inside the temperature may range from −7 °C (19 °F) to 16 °C (61 °F) when warmed by body heat alone.

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Ruins, Uxmal, Mexico

image credit: Magister Mathematicae

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General images

The following are images from various Indigenous peoples of the Americas-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Proportion of Native Brazilians in each department in 2022. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 2"The Maiden", one of the discovered Llullaillaco mummies, a preserved Inca human sacrifice from around the year 1500. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 3The Rarámuri marathon in Urique (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 4Proportion of Native Mexicans in each municipalities in 2020. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 5A Choctaw artist in present-day Oklahoma (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 6Owners of a roadside cafe near Cachi, Salta Province, Argentina (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 7A Huichol woman from Zacatecas, Mexico (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 8Guambía people relaxing in Colombia (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 9A qpGraph on the formation of Ancient Paleo-Siberians and Native American populations. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 10A map showing the origin of the first wave of humans into the Americas, including the Ancestral Northern Eurasian, which represent a distinct Paleolithic Siberian population, and the Northeast Asians, which are an East Asian-related group. The admixture happened somewhere in Northeast Siberia. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 11Maya glyphs in stucco now on display at Museo de sitio in Palenque, Mexico (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 12An Indigenous woman in traditional dress near Cochabamba, Bolivia (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 13A Quechua woman and child in the Sacred Valley in Cuzco Region, Peru (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 14Language families of Indigenous peoples in North America shown across present-day Canada, Greenland, the United States, and northern Mexico (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 15The ancient mesoamerican engraving of maize now on display at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 16A schematic illustration of maternal (mtDNA) gene-flow in and out of Beringia, from 25,000 years ago to present
Image 17A representation of the domesticated plant species cultivated by Indigenous peoples have influenced the crops that were produced globally. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 18The major indigenous language families of much of present-day South America and Panama (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 19Areas of Indigenous peoples in North America at time of European colonization (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 20Indigenous peoples textile art in 1995 by Julia Pingushat, including Inuk, Arviat, Nunavut, Canada, wool, and embroidery floss (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 21A Mapuche man and woman; the Mapuche make up about 85% of Indigenous population that live in Chile. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 22A Mapuche man in present-day Chile (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 23Wayuu women in the Guajira Peninsula, which comprises parts of Colombia and Venezuela (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 24Proportion of Native Argentines in each department in 2022. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 25Shaman of the Cofán people from the Amazonian forest in present-day Ecuador (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 26Embera girl in the Darién Province, 2006. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 27Amerindian and Inuit populations of the Americas as of year 2024 (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 28A Navajo man on horseback in present-day Monument Valley in Arizona (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 29The bean is native to Mexico and Central America and later began to be cultivated in South America. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 30Indigenous Pipil women dancing in the traditional Procession of Palms in Panchimalco, El Salvador (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 31Quechua women in festive dress on Taquile Island on Lake Titicaca, west of Peru (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 32Areas of Indigenous peoples in South and Central America at the time of European colonization (in Spanish) (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 33Members of an uncontacted tribe encountered in Acre in present-day Brazil in 2009 (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 34A map of Canada showing the percent of self-reported indigenous identity (First Nations, Inuit, Métis) by census division, according to the 2021 Canadian census (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 35Chimu culture feather pectoral, feathers, reed, copper, silver, hide, cordage, c. 1350–1450 (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 36A Mayan woman (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 37The Kogi, descendants of the Tairona, are a culturally intact, largely pre-Columbian era society. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 38Tunumiit Inuit couple from Kulusuk, Greenland (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 39The West Indies (or Antilles) in relation to the continental Americas (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 40A bison hunt depicted in a painting by George Catlin (1844) (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 41A carnival with Tzeltal people in Tenejapa Municipality, Chiapas (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 42An Indigenous man playing a panpipe, antara, or siku (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 43The tomato (jitomate, in central Mexico) was later cultivated by the pre-Hispanic civilizations of Mexico. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 44An Indigenous Terena man from present-day Brazil (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 45An illustration in Florentine Codex, compiled between 1540 and 1585, depicting the Nahua peoples suffering from smallpox during the conquest-era in central Mexico (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 46A Navajo boy in the desert in present-day Monument Valley in Arizona with the "Three Sisters" rock formation in the background in 2007 (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 47A Warao family traveling in their canoe in Venezuela (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 48Proportion of Native Americans in each county in 2020. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 49Maya women from present-day Guatemala (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 50Evo Morales, an Aymara member and former President of Bolivia (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 51Indigenous people at a farm plantation in Minas Gerais in present-day Brazil, c. 1824 (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 52Principal component analysis showing the Native American cluster in other Eurasian populations. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)

Selected biography

Francisco Javier Eugenio de Santa Cruz y Espejo (Royal Audiencia of Quito, 1747–95) was a medical pioneer, writer and lawyer of mestizo origin in colonial Ecuador. Although he was a notable scientist and writer, he stands out as a polemicist who inspired the separatist movement in Quito. He is regarded as one of the most important figures in colonial Ecuador. He was Quito's first journalist and hygienist. As a journalist he spread enlightened ideas in the Royal Audiencia, and as a hygienist he composed an important treatise about sanitary conditions in colonial Ecuador that included interesting remarks about microorganisms and the spreading of disease.

Espejo was noted in his time for being a satirist. His satirical works, inspired by the philosophy of the Age of Enlightenment, were critical of the lack of education of the Audiencia of Quito, the way the economy was being handled in the Audiencia, the corruption of its authorities, and aspects of its culture in general. Because of these works he was persecuted and finally imprisoned shortly before his death.

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Did you know…

... that Lutheran priest Henrik Lund wrote Greenland's nation anthem, Nunarput utoqqarsuanngoravit, in the indigenous Greenlandic language?
... that the artwork of full-blood Tsimshian photographer Benjamin Haldane has enjoyed a revival after his glass plate negatives were discovered in an Alaskan dump?
... that in traditional Plains hide painting, Native American women painted abstract, geometric designs while men painted representational, narrative images?

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Raqchi archaeological site, Peru

image credit: AgainErick

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