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, as well as the ethnic groups that identify with them 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 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 United States alone. Some languages, including Quechua, Arawak, Aymara, Guaraní, Nahuatl, and some Mayan languages, 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 some still classified as uncontacted peoples. (Full article...)

Selected article

The varying cultures collectively called Mound Builders were inhabitants of North America who, during a 5,000-year period, constructed various styles of earthen mounds for religious and ceremonial, burial, and elite residential purposes. These included the Pre-Columbian cultures of the Archaic period; Woodland period (Adena and Hopewell cultures); and Mississippian period; dating from roughly 3400 BCE to the 16th century CE, and living in regions of the Great Lakes, the Ohio River valley, and the Mississippi River valley and its tributary waters. Beginning with the construction of Watson Brake about 3400 BCE in present-day Louisiana, nomadic indigenous peoples started building earthwork mounds in North America nearly 1,000 years before the pyramids were constructed in Egypt.

Since the 19th century, the prevailing scholarly consensus has been that the mounds were constructed by indigenous peoples of the Americas. Sixteenth-century Spanish explorers made contact with natives living in a number of later Mississippian cities, described their cultures, and left artifacts. By the time of United States westward expansion two hundred years later, Native Americans were generally not knowledgeable about the civilizations that produced the mounds. Research and study of these cultures and peoples has been based mostly on archaeology and anthropology.

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Selected image

Crooked Beak of Heaven Mask, Kwakwaka'wakw people

image credit: PierreSelim

General images

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

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

Sequoyah (ᏍᏏᏉᏯ Ssiquoya, as he signed his name, or ᏎᏉᏯ Se-quo-ya, as his name is often spelled today in Cherokee) (c. 1770–1840), named in English George Gist or George Guess, was a Cherokee silversmith. In 1821 he completed his independent creation of a Cherokee syllabary, making reading and writing in Cherokee possible. This was the only time in recorded history that a member of a pre-literate people independently created an effective writing system. After seeing its worth, the people of the Cherokee Nation rapidly began to use his syllabary and officially adopted it in 1825. Their literacy rate quickly surpassed that of surrounding European-American settlers.

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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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First day in school for the new pupils in first grade at the Prinsesse Margrethe School in Upernavik, Greenland. All pupils are wearing the national costumes of Greenland

image credit: Kim Hansen

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American indigenous language Wikipedias

Avañe'ẽ (Warani) · Aymar aru (Aymara) · ᏣᎳᎩ (Cherokee) · Chahta (Choctaw) · ᐃᔨᔫ (Cree) · ᐃᓄᒃ (Inuktitut) · Iñupiak · Kalaallisut (Greenlandic Inuit) · Mvskoke (Muscogee) · Nahuatlahtolli · Diné bizaad (Navajo) · Qhichwa Simi · Tsêhesenêstsestôtse (Cheyenne)

Indigenous languages in Wikimedia Incubators: Alabama · Blackfoot · Chinook Jargon · Choctaw · Creek · Lakota · Micmac · Mohawk · Nheengatu · Northwestern Ojibwa · O'odham · Shoshoni · Unami-Lenape · Wüne pakina (Mapudungun) · Yucatec Maya · Central Alaskan Yup'ik · Zuni

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