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 settlement 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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Chaco Culture National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park hosting the densest and most exceptional concentration of pueblos in the American Southwest. The park is located in northwestern New Mexico, between Albuquerque and Farmington, in a remote canyon cut by the Chaco Wash. Containing the most sweeping collection of ancient ruins north of Mexico, the park preserves one of the United States' most important pre-Columbian cultural and historical areas.

Between AD 900 and 1150, Chaco Canyon was a major center of culture for the Ancient Pueblo Peoples. Chacoans quarried sandstone blocks and hauled timber from great distances, assembling fifteen major complexes that remained the largest buildings in North America until the 19th century. Evidence of archaeoastronomy at Chaco has been proposed, with the "Sun Dagger" petroglyph at Fajada Butte a popular example. Many Chacoan buildings may have been aligned to capture the solar and lunar cycles, requiring generations of astronomical observations and centuries of skillfully coordinated construction. Climate change is thought to have led to the emigration of Chacoans and the eventual abandonment of the canyon, beginning with a fifty-year drought commencing in 1130.

Composing a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the arid and sparsely populated Four Corners region, the Chacoan cultural sites are fragile; fears of erosion caused by tourists have led to the closure of Fajada Butte to the public. The sites are considered sacred ancestral homelands by the Hopi and Pueblo people, who maintain oral accounts of their historical migration from Chaco and their spiritual relationship to the land. Though park preservation efforts can conflict with native religious beliefs, tribal representatives work closely with the National Park Service to share their knowledge and respect the heritage of the Chacoan culture.

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An Andean man in traditional dress. Pisac, Peru

image credit: Cacophony

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General images

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

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

Selected biography

Moctezuma II (c. 1466 – 29 June 1520), also known by a number of variant spellings including Montezuma, Moteuczoma, Motecuhzoma and referred to in full by early Nahuatl texts as Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin (Moctezuma the Young), was the ninth tlatoani or ruler of Tenochtitlan, reigning from 1502 to 1520. The first contact between indigenous civilizations of Mesoamerica and Europeans took place during his reign, and he was killed during the initial stages of the Spanish conquest of Mexico, when Conquistador Hernán Cortés and his men fought to escape from the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan.

During his reign the Aztec Empire reached its maximal size. Through warfare, Moctezuma expanded the territory as far south as Xoconosco in Chiapas and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and incorporated the Zapotec and Yopi people into the empire. He changed the previous meritocratic system of social hierarchy and widened the divide between pipiltin (nobles) and macehualtin (commoners) by prohibiting commoners from working in the royal palaces.

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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?

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Raqchi archaeological site, Peru

image credit: AgainErick

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