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 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 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...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Selected article

The Arapaho (in French: Arapahos, Gens de Vache) are a tribe of Native Americans historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota. The Arapaho language, Heenetiit, is an Algonquian language closely related to Gros Ventre (Ahe/A'ananin), whose people are seen as an early offshoot of the Arapaho. Blackfeet and Cheyenne are the other Algonquian-speakers on the Plains, but their languages are quite different from Arapaho.

By the 1850s, Arapaho bands formed two tribes: the Northern Arapaho and Southern Arapaho. Since 1878 the Northern Arapaho have lived with the Eastern Shoshone on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming and are federally recognized as the Arapahoe Tribe of the Wind River Reservation. The Southern Arapaho live with the Southern Cheyenne in Oklahoma. Together their members are enrolled as the federally recognized Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes.

More...

All selected articles

edit

Selected image

Cree man, Maple Creek, Saskatchewan, Canada, 1903. photograph by G. E. Fleming

image credit: British Library

Full set of selected images

General images

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

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

Selected biography

Buffy Sainte-Marie, OC (born February 20, 1941) is a Canadian-American Cree singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist. Throughout her career in all of these areas, her work has focused on issues of Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Her singing and writing repertoire also includes subjects of love, war, religion, and mysticism.

She founded the Cradleboard Teaching Project, an educational curriculum devoted to better understanding Native Americans. She has won recognition and many awards and honours for both her music and her work in education and social activism.

More...

All selected biographies

Did you know…

... that even though the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma only has 519 members, they created the first and only eagle rehabilitation center in Oklahoma?
... that among the Taíno people of the Caribbean, a zemi is a spirit or a sculpture representing the spirit?
... that critically acclaimed Bolivian Aymara painter, Alejandro Mario Yllanes, disappeared from New York after winning, but not claiming, the Guggenheim fellowship in 1946?

More…

Subcategories

Category puzzle

Select [►] to view subcategories

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Indigenous peoples of North America

Indigenous peoples of South America

Indigenous people of the Americas

Lists of Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Afro-Indigenous peoples of the Americas

America Indigenous peoples templates

Anti-Indigenous racism in the Americas

Battles involving Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Non-fiction books about Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Children's books about Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Indigenous culture of the Americas

Extinct Indigenous peoples of the Americas

History of Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Indigenous feminism in the Americas

Indigenous peoples of the Americas and the environment

Indigenous peoples of the Americas portal

Massacres by Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Indigenous rights organizations in the Americas

Indigenous languages of the Americas

Indigenous politics in the Americas

Wars involving Indigenous peoples of the Americas

WikiProject Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Related portals

Things you can do

Join a WikiProject:
Suggest featured articles and pictures.
Help maintain the Indigenous peoples of the Americas portal.

Selected panorama

Sacsayhuamán Inca site, Cusco, Peru.

Topics

Recognized content

This is a list of recognized content, updated weekly by JL-Bot (talk · contribs) (typically on Saturdays). There is no need to edit the list yourself. If an article is missing from the list, make sure it is tagged (e.g. {{WikiProject Indigenous peoples of the Americas}}) or categorized correctly and wait for the next update. See WP:RECOG for configuration options.