Indigenous peoples of the Americas

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According to current scientific knowledge, no humans evolved in North America or South America but instead arrived by sea or by a land bridge that formerly connected North America with Asia. Most (if not all) of those indigenous peoples descend from peoples from Siberia, who probably entered North America more than 16,000 years ago and spread and diversified into hundreds of culturally distinct nations and tribes.

While many of these indigenous peoples retained a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle until modern times, others lived in permanent villages and were primarily farmers, and in some regions they created large sedentary chiefdom polities, and even advanced state level societies with monumental architecture and large-scale, organized cities.

See also: Mississippian culture, Cahokia, Mesoamerica, Maya, Olmec, Zapotec, Toltec, Teotihuacan, Aztec, Aymara, Inca, indigenous people of Peru, Urarina, indigenous people of Brazil.

History

See also: Archaeology of the Americas, Models of migration to the New World

The Bering Strait Land Bridge Theory

Based on anthropological, genetic, and linguistic evidence, scholars generally agree that most indigenous peoples of the Americas descend from people who probably migrated from Siberia across the Bering Strait, 15,000-9,000 years ago. The exact epoch and route is still a matter of debate, and continual challenges are issued to this model. For more information, see Models of migration to the New World and Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact.

Migration waves

In spite of the lingering controversy about who were the first Americans, anthropologists and archaeologists generally agree that most of the indigenous peoples who lived in the New World right before the European conquest descended from Siberian hunters, who entered North America about ten millennia ago, and then gradually spread to Central and South America.

Several genetic surveys have indicated clear affinities between present-day indigenous American populations and peoples of Siberia. According to Ilya Zakharov of Moscow's Vavilov Institute of General Genetics, the Northern Native Americans are related to the Tuvans, a Turkic group of people located in the Tuva Republic at the southwestern edge of Siberia. The general consensus of such studies is that at least three separate migrations from Siberia to the Americas are highly likely to have occurred:

• The first wave came into a land populated by the large mammals of the late Pleistocene, including mammoths, horses, giant sloths, and woolly rhinoceroses. The Clovis culture would be a manifestation of that migration, and the Folsom culture, based on the hunting of bison, would have developed from it. This wave eventually spread over the entire hemisphere, as far south as Tierra del Fuego, and became the American Indian peoples of central to eastern North America and most if not all of Central and South America.
• The second migration brought the ancestors of the Na-Dene peoples. They lived in Alaska and western Canada, but some migrated as far south as the Pacific Northwestern U.S. and the American Southwest, and would be ancestral to the Dene, Apaches and Navajos.
• The third wave brought the ancestors of the Eskimos (Inuit) and the Aleuts. They may have come by sea over the Bering Strait, after the land bridge had disappeared.
• In recent years, molecular genetics studies have suggested as many as four distinct migrations from Asia. These studies also provide surprising evidence of smaller-scale, contemporaneous migrations from Europe, possibly by peoples who had adopted a lifestyle resembling that of the Inuit and Yupiks during the last ice age.

European colonization

Europeans also brought diseases against which the indigenous peoples of the Americas had no immunity. Chicken pox and measles, though common and rarely fatal among Europeans, often proved fatal to the indigenous people, and more dangerous diseases such as smallpox were especially deadly to indigenous populations. It is difficult to estimate the total percentage of the indigenous population killed by these diseases. Epidemics often immediately followed European exploration, sometimes destroying entire villages. Some historians estimate that up to 80% of some indigenous populations may have died due to European diseases. (For more information, see population history of American indigenous peoples.)

The Native Americans at the beginning of the 21st century

The Native Americans at the beginning of the 21st century are at about 35 million on the continent.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}

Culture

Music and art

Native American music of North American Indians is almost entirely monophonic, but there are notable exceptions. Traditional Native American music often includes drumming but little other instrumentation, although flutes are played by individuals. The tuning of these flutes is not precise and depends on the length of the wood used and the hand span of the intended player, but the finger holes are most often around a whole step apart and, at least in Northern California, a flute was not used if it turned out to have an interval close to a half step.

Music from indigenous peoples of Central Mexico and Central America often was pentatonic. Before the arrival of the Spaniards it was inseparable from religious festivities and included a large number of instruments such as drums, flutes, sea snails shells (used as a kind of trumpet), "rain" tubes, etc. No string instruments were used, though, only percussion and wind.

Art of the indigenous peoples of the Americas comprises a major category in the world art collection. Contributions include pottery, paintings, jewelry, weavings, sculptures, basketry, and carvings.

Statistics on indigenous populations

The following table provides estimates of the per-country populations of indigenous people, and also those with part-indigenous ancestry, expressed as a percentage of the overall country population. of each country that is comprised by indigenous peoples, and of people with partly indigenous descent. The total percentage obtained by adding both of these categories is also given (One should note however that these categories, especially the second one, are rather vaguely defined and measured differently from country to country).

Indigenous populations of the Americas¹
as estimated percentage of total country's population

Country	Indigenous	Part-indigenous	Combined total
Argentina3	1%	13%	14%
Bolivia	55%	30%	85%
Brazil4	0.4%	[?]	[?]
Canada5	1.9%6	2.7%	4.6%
Chile	3%	[?]	[?]
Cuba2	0%	NA	NA
Costa Rica3	[?]	[?]	[?]
Colombia	[?]	58%	[?]
Dominican Republic	2%	60%	0%.
Guatemala	44 %	52%	96%
Ecuador	25%	55%	80%
El Salvador	5%	94%	99%
French Guyana, Guyana and Suriname	5 – 20%	[?]	[?]
Honduras	7%	90%	97%
Mexico	10-30%	60-80%	90%
Nicaragua	5%	69%	74%
Panama	6%	70%	76%
Paraguay	5%	93.3%	98.3%
Peru	45%	37%	82%
Venezuela	2%	69%	71%
USA6	0.9%	0.6%	1.5%
Uruguay	0%	8%	8%
1 Source : The World Factbook 1999, Central Intelligence Agency. 2 indigenous peoples mixed into the general population; NA = "not applicable". 4 2000 Brazil Census 5 Canada 2001 Census 6 2000 U.S. Census 7 1.9% is for single origins only, Aboriginal identity population is 3.3%

History and status by country

Canada

The most commonly preferred term for the indigenous peoples of what is now Canada is Aboriginal peoples. Of these Aboriginal peoples who are not Inuit or Métis, "First Nations" is the most commonly preferred term of self-identification. First Nations peoples make up approximately 3% of the Canadian population. The official term for First Nations people — that is, the term used by both the Indian Act which regulates benefits received by members of First Nations, and the Indian Register which defines who is a member of a First Nation — is Indian.

United States

Indigenous peoples in what is now the United States are commonly called "American Indians" but more recently have been referred to as "Native Americans". (Although technically, this term encompasses all people born in America, not just the indigenous peoples, and is thus avoided sometimes) American Indians make up 2% of the population, with more than 6 million people identifying themselves as Native Americans, although only 1.8 million are registered tribal members. A minority of US Native Americans live on Indian reservations.

Mexico

The territory of modern-day Mexico was home to numerous indigenous civilizations prior to the arrival of the European conquistadors: The Olmecs, who flourished from between 1200 BC to about 800 BC in the coastal regions of the Gulf of Mexico; the Zapotecs and the Mixtecs, who held sway in the mountains of Oaxaca and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec; the Maya in the Yucatán (and into neighbouring areas of contemporary Central America;the Purepecha or Tarascan in present day Michoacán and surrounding areas and, of course, the Aztecs, who, from their central capital at Tenochtitlan, dominated much of the centre and south of the country (and the non-Aztec inhabitants of those areas) when Hernán Cortés first landed at Veracruz.

In contrast to what was the general rule in the rest of North America, the history of the colony of New Spain was one of racial intermingling (mestizaje). Mestizos quickly came to account for a majority of the colony's population; however, significant pockets of pure-blood indígenas (as the native peoples are now known) have survived to the present day.

With mestizos numbering some 60% of the modern population, estimates for the numbers of unmixed indigenous peoples vary from a very modest 10% to a more liberal 30% of the population. The reason for this discrepancy may be the Mexican government's policy of using linguistic, rather than racial, criteria as the basis of classification.

In the states of Chiapas and Oaxaca and in the interior of the Yucatán peninsula the majority of the population is indigenous. Large indigenous minorities, including Nahuas, Purépechas, and Mixtecs are also present in the central regions of Mexico. In Northern Mexico indigenous people are a small minority: they are practically absent from the northeast but, in the northwest and central borderlands, include the Tarahumara of Chihuahua and the Yaquis and Seri of Sonora.

While Mexicans are universally proud of their indigenous heritage (generally more so than of their Spanish roots), modern-day indigenous Mexicans are still the target of discrimination and outright racism. In particular, in areas such as Chiapas — most famously, but also in Oaxaca, Puebla, Guerrero, and other remote mountainous parts — indigenous communities have been left on the margins of national development for the past 500 years. Indigenous customs and uses enjoy no official status. The Huichols of the states of Jalisco, Nayarit, Zacatecas, and Durango are impeded by police forces in their ritual pilgrimages, and their religious observances are interfered with.

Belize

Guatemala

Colombia

A small minority within Colombia's overwhelmingly Mestizo and Afro-Colombian population, Colombia's indigenous peoples nonetheless encompass at least 85 distinct cultures and more than 700,000 people. A variety of collective rights for indigenous peoples are recognized in the 1991 Constitution.

Brazil

Argentina

Argentina's Native American population is about 403.000 (1% of total population)[INDEC: Encuesta Complementaria de Pueblos Indígenas (ECPI) 2004 - 2005]. Indigenous nations include the Toba, Wichí, Mocoví, Pilagá, Chulupí, Diaguita Calchaquí, Kolla, Guaraní (Tupí Guaraní and Avá Guaraní in the provinces of Jujuy and Salta, and Mbyá Guaraní in the province of Misiones), Chorote, Chané, Tapieté, Mapuche, Tehuelche and Selknam (Ona).

Bolivia

Most Peruvians are either Indigenous or Mestizos (of mixed Indigenous, African, European and Asian ancestry). Rampant racism in Peru has caused poverty and neglect among indigenous peoples and their traditional communities since the Spanish invaded this land, and has continued for centuries from the centralist government of Lima. Arguably, Peru has the second largest indigenous population of South America, and their traditions and customs have shaped the way Peruvians live and see themselves today. The most visited tourist destinations of Peru were built by indigenous peoples (the Quechua, Aymara, Moche, etc.), while Amazonian peoples, such as the Urarina and the Aguaruna, developed elaborate shamanic systems of belief prior to the European Conquest of the New World. Macchu Picchu is considered one of the marvels of humanity, and it was constructed by the Inca Civilization. Even though Peru officially declares its multi-ethnic character--it has at least six dozen languages, including Quechua, Aymara and hegemonic Spanish--discrimination and language endangerment continue to challenge the indigenous peoples of this culturally diverse country of many nations.

Other parts of the Americas

Indigenous peoples make up the majority of the population in Bolivia and Peru, and are a significant element in most other former Spanish colonies. Exceptions to this include Costa Rica, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Dominican Republic, and Uruguay. At least three of the Amerindian languages (Quechua in Peru and Bolivia, Aymara also in Bolivia, and Guarani in Paraguay) are recognized along with Spanish as national languages.

See also

• Population history of American indigenous peoples
• Native Americans in the United States
• Indigenous languages of the Americas
• [[1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus]]
• (division into geo-cultural areas)

References