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...)

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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.

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Canyon de Chelly

image credit: Andreas F. Borchert

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General images

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

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

Selected biography

José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori (Spanish pronunciation: [porˈfiɾjo ˈðias]; 15 September 1830 – 2 July 1915) was a Mexican mestizo soldier and politician, who served seven terms as President of Mexico, totaling nearly three decades between 1876 and 1911. A veteran of the Reform War and the French intervention in Mexico, Díaz rose to the rank of General, leading republican troops against the French-imposed Emperor Maximilian. Seizing power in a coup in 1876, Díaz and his allies ruled Mexico for the next thirty-five years, a period known as the Porfiriato.

Díaz is a controversial figure in Mexican history, with the status of villain among the revolutionaries who overthrew him, and something of a hero in the business community. The Porfiriato was marked by significant internal stability (known as the "paz porfiriana"), modernization, and economic growth. There was heavy investment in mining and railways from American and British business. However, Díaz's regime grew unpopular due to repression and political stagnation, and he fell from power during the Mexican Revolution, after he imprisoned his electoral rival and declared himself the winner of an eighth term in office. Díaz fled to France, where he died in exile four years later.

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Did you know…

... that the Cascajal Block, a serpentinite slab from the Olmec civilization, was dated to the which early first millennium BCE and may represent the earliest writing system in the Americas?
... that Jim Thorpe (Sac and Fox) won the 1912 Olympic gold medals for the pentathlon and decathlon?
...that underwater panthers were creatures appearing in the mythology of a number of Native American traditions, which combined the features of mountain lions or lynx with those of snakes, and were believed to inhabit the deepest parts of lakes and rivers?

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Machu Picchu

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