Portal:Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Introduction

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...)

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The Aztec Pyramid at St. Cecilia Acatitlan, Mexico State.

The Aztec /ˈæztɛk/ people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica from the 14th to 16th centuries. The Nahuatl words aztecatl [asˈtekat͡ɬ] (singular) and aztecah [asˈtekaʔ] (plural) mean "people from Aztlán", a mythological place for the Nahuatl-speaking culture of the time, and later adopted as the word to define the Mexica people. Often the term "Aztec" refers exclusively to the Mexica people of Tenochtitlan (now the location of Mexico City), situated on an island in Lake Texcoco, who referred to themselves as Mēxihcah Tenochcah [meːˈʃiʔkaʔ teˈnot͡ʃkaʔ] or Cōlhuah Mexihcah [ˈkoːlwaʔ meːˈʃiʔkaʔ].

Sometimes the term also includes the inhabitants of Tenochtitlan's two principal allied city-states, the Acolhuas of Texcoco and the Tepanecs of Tlacopan, who together with the Mexica formed the Aztec Triple Alliance which controlled what is often known as the "Aztec Empire". In other contexts, Aztec may refer to all the various city states and their peoples, who shared large parts of their ethnic history and cultural traits with the Mexica, Acolhua and Tepanecs, and who often also used the Nahuatl language as a lingua franca. In this meaning it is possible to talk about an Aztec civilization including all the particular cultural patterns common for most of the peoples inhabiting Central Mexico in the late postclassic period.

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Selected images

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

Selected biography

Leonard Peltier (born September 12, 1944) is a Native American activist and member of the American Indian Movement (AIM). In 1977 he was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment for first degree murder in the shooting of two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents during a 1975 conflict on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Peltier's indictment and conviction have been the subject of much controversy; Amnesty International placed his case under the "Unfair Trials" category of its Annual Report: USA 2010.

Peltier is incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary, Coleman in Florida. Peltier's next scheduled parole hearing will be in July 2024. Barring appeals, parole or presidential pardon, his projected release date is October 11, 2040.

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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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Selected panorama

Ball court, Chichen Itza, Mexico

image credit: Martinelli95

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