Show HN: Tribalpedia – Free Learning About Native American Indians
tribalpedia.com
tribalpedia.com
We added "Show HN" to the title because that's the convention when sharing something you have personally worked on.
The most accurate and respectful approach is to ask what actual nation some one is. Terms like 'Native American', 'what tribe are you from', etc., are frankly way off course. The best way to explain what I am trying to get at is to refer to the word 'European'.
When I fly and land in Germany, I don't ask someone which European tribe are they frok, or, 'how do I say Hello in European?'. When I go to Italy or Sweden or the Netherlands and ask, "how do I speak European?", the response will be, " well, since you are in Italy, you speak Italian", or, "In the Netherlands we speak Dutch". No European I've ever met self-identified, nor liked being called, a tribe of Europe. Nor would most visitors think in such terms.
But for some reason the various Nationalities in what is called the Americas have all been lumped into one large ephemeral group 'called' Indian, or Native American, or First Nations. When those terms are used with the same kind of understanding that the word European is used it reflects actual learning, understanding, and respect, which appears to be the attitude those involved in these discussions aim to possess.
So forget the words Indian, first Nations, Native American. What is important is what nation, or, what nationality the person, or group, is. The more this is practiced the more I believe the overall situation is helped.
Tl;Dr. Ask someone which nation they are, NOT what tribe they are.
Certainly not a "tribe" of europe but as someone who changes country on a regular basis, which would not be possible if not for Europe's wonderful no-visa-needed travel policies, I enjoy being called (and calling myself) european rather than French or Greek or whatever. I care little for patriotism and what not - we're all sharing the planet.
ymmv. :)
Is there such a map for the First Nations? Can I rely on that map to identify with the people?
Hopefully, that kind of thing might find its way into this project...or maybe a new project will spin up to tackle it. Regardless, I think it'd be really valuable. So many folks live within a few hour drive of tribal lands, and yet I doubt most people ever visit (except to gamble or buy cheap cigarettes or alcohol) or go to the trouble to learn anything about the history or culture.
Also, as you might imagine you might not like everything you see you there. The beauty of the terrain was stunning, but a lot of issues like poverty, drugs, drinking and such (even though alcohol I understand is prohibited on the reservation, there are places selling it around the border).
I never want to be the asshole tourist who assumes everyone wants to cater to my whims, but I also know that many folks enjoy showing new people how they live and explaining their history (while maybe making a few extra bucks as a tour guide or similar). If I had a way to find those folks and those places, that'd be awesome.
One thing I was looking for and didn't see were maps. I love maps. I'd love to see maps of Native American tribes populations, be it current or historical (or both!). It gives context as to where tribes are currently located and the land masses they once controlled years ago.
Anyway, great resource. Thanks for putting it together.
Maps are a great idea! I'll think about it. Thanks
This site leaves a little to be desired :), do you by any chance need a little help :)? Seriously, contact me and I will be happy to help.
Other than maps (someone already suggested this) What additions would you add? Cawbv
"Native American Indians" suggests that the nomenclature is more subtle than that. So, what is the difference between "Native Americans", "Indians", and "Native American Indians"?
1) I'm not going to get into the dot / feather comments other than to say I've heard the phrase.
When I was a kid, our 2nd grade class went to tour the "ancient Indian burial grounds". Today, I work with so many people from India such a statement couldn't be made without qualification.
Some people also say "Indigenous Peoples" and that seems to be something that a lot of people do not readily understand. If you grew up hearing "Indians" before that got changed to "Native Americans", then "Native American Indians" helps clarify that you are talking about indigenous peoples of the North American continent without sounding like some stiff academic paper.
/off the cuff pontificating
I have never heard anyone on a reservation use the term "Native American Indians". [edit: removed].
Native:
1.a person born in a specified place or associated with a place by birth, whether subsequently resident there or not
All I am saying is that it is potentially linguistically confusing because although I am not by blood Native American in that I am not mostly descended from indigenous peoples who lived here prior to the "discovery" by Columbus, I am still a native American in that I am an American by birth. When you say that verbally, you don't know if the letter N is capitalized or not.
I am sure most white folks would sound like heathens when visiting a reservation and trying to engage the members of the tribe.
> I am sure most white folks would sound like heathens when visiting a reservation and trying to engage the members of the tribe.
Not in normal conversations, its still America (or Canada for reserves), but anyone debating what someone else should call themselves does lead to a bit of trouble. The history of the Sioux alone shows that.
Indians: Columbus thought he had discovered India. It thus completely annihilates the identity of the peoples of this continent by assuming they are something else entirely and, oh, hand wavy, SKIN COLOR, close enough! --- we don't really care that they aren't.
Native Americans: There was no "America" to be "native" of before white peoples came and stole the lands of the indigenous peoples. Nor was it even called America when Columbus first found it. He thought he found India. It was called The New World for a time. It wasn't named America until Amerigo Vespucci came here. (No, I don't recall all the details.) It is rather insulting to retroactively designate them by a country name that didn't exist when this was their lands.
Indigenous Peoples: Most Americans hear that and think you mean tribes in some other part of the world, not tribes native to this continent.
I don't think we have a really good expression for the entire group of many different tribal peoples who are descended from the people who were here well before Europeans discovered this continent and ....lots of events later a country called The United States of America was formed. Even the term "America" as a means to refer to citizens of the U.S.A. is problematic when speaking on the Internet because Canadians and people living in South America and Central America (etc) feel like we are appropriating a term that could also refer to them.
The arrogance of mainstream culture in the U.S. is incredible and galling and I am not fond of it. But I am only one person and often use terms I do not like because I am just one person and I need to communicate with other people and communication requires that we use terms that will get us understood, no matter how much we think their history and usage is deeply troubling and problematic.
Use of the term Indian is considered rude in Canada where "First Nations" is widely accepted as the preferred term. However, Canada did previously use Indian, such as their law known as the Indian Act. The term "Aboriginal" in Canada has generally replaced Indian in legal and formal contexts outside of the Indian Act to inclusively refer to First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples collectively.
In the US, American Indian, Indian, and Native American are all used. Among younger indians NDN, and Skins are popular endonyms. These terms probably should not be used by those who are not Indian themselves though unless they have been given the go ahead, any more than one would use the term "homeboy" inappropriately.
In both US and Canada indians generally prefer the names of their nation when dealing with issues specific to a particular nation or their own culture. But there is also a need for a term to distinguish indigenous peoples of the americas collectively, hence Indian, American Indian, West Indian, and First Nations.
Why do we use an english word? Because there are hundreds of different indigenous american languages represented. English is now a commonality in the US and when we use the term we often do so when we find ourselves speaking the English language to someone. Historically, there was no one term used by all nations that had the same sort of meaning. Many of our native languages don't use any term exactly like "indian" in meaning. However, in many native languages of what is now called the United States, our own word to collectively refer to the original peoples of Turtle Island, distinguishing us from the invaders and occupiers (sometimes called white men), is red man, red skin, red person. So that would be the most appropriate sort of term were we to use something with an indigenous perspective. Unfortunately, these days there are some activists claiming these traditional concepts are bad. So it is quite common to find whites tell us that redskin is racist, to tell us that indian is wrong, and to tell us that we are all natives, including them, the illegal alien white occupiers of and squatters upon our sovereign lands.
As far as the term "Indian" is applied to the many various peoples groups east of the Indus River Valley, that term used with them is a european construct as well. It was not used by people in that area to describe themselves until european colonialists and occupiers arrived and promoted the term. So to say it is correctly applied to people from that region, but not to us is a claim that comes from historical ignorance.
Also because many members cannot speak their tribe's language. Its a real push to get the language(s) integrated into pre-K through 12 and college. Some tribes are much more successful than others (up to requiring fluency to hold tribal office).
Thanks for sharing that! That is interesting and would probably be surprising to most people in US.
There is a joke Slavoj Zizek has, how he was told by a friend the term Indian is preferred, as it is a testament to white men's stupidy, who thought they found India when they came here.
But the same time, I recognize that there are other peoples for whom 100% of their ancestry has been here since the last ice age. I wish we had a term that recognized that they were more native than I am.
This is quite an odd claim. Most of the countries of the world that weren't named quite recently were named by outsiders, including most of Europe. This is probably just a function of the fact that, before the very recent notion of a map full of well-defined state lines, outsiders were much more likely to define them broadly as an entity than they themselves were. Using this as a litmus test for any useful notion of "correctness" is just silly, since it would invalidate the names of most of the world as "wrong".
When people talk about one name being less "correct" than the other, they're talking about whether the naming has anything to do with the land being named. India comes from the Greek word, which is describing a feature of the terrain. Columbus deciding the people he encountered were Indians was based on mistaking the land for an entirely different one on the other side of the world. It doesn't require a condescending diagnosis of "historical ignorance" to explain why some hold the opinion that those two instances of naming may differ in their level of "correctness".
> India comes from the Greek word, which is describing a feature of the terrain
I'm not a scholar on these matters, but my impression was always that the terms 'India' and 'Hindu' were closely related. It's not like the Greeks just made up a Greek name for the place.
From your source:
> The name [India] is derived ultimately from Sindhu, the Sanskrit name of the river
and
> The name Hind (Persian: هند) is derived from the Iranian equivalent of Indo-Aryan Sindh
I know it's a little ironic that this is sort of what ended up happening anyway with this comment, but at least in this case I can firewall my main point off by saying "sure, using your suggestion doesn't affect my main point (or indeed strengthens it)".
> [The term India] was not used by people in that area to describe themselves until european colonialists and occupiers arrived and promoted the term.
But your source indicates it was Persians who used the term Hindus while they had conquered India. So it's probably not entirely true that European colonialists gave the country its present name, except maybe to prefer the Greek variant over the Persian.
The underlying problem here is that non-wandering non-seafaring peoples often had no good pre-established name for themselves. The question "what is the name of your people and land" was sort of nonsensical to them. They might answer a term like "the people" or "the land" in the local language.
The term "Aryan" literally seems to mean "the land" or "farmer" as in "one who works the land". But the land they're referring to is ... Iran. Get it? It's the same word. White supremicists actually love Iranians.
I think you are reading in subtlety that likely does not exist. In addition to what I said yesterday, I will suggest that whoever created the site may have mentally put two terms together without realizing it: "Native American" and "American Indians". They may have just run them together without intending to create anything new or realizing it was not a standard term.
A few words about the term Native American Indian.
If you google Native Americans, you come up with the following: “a member of any of the indigenous peoples of the Americas.” The same with the term American Indian.
The operative word is “indigenous”. Also, many members will identify themselves as the name of their specific Tribe or Nation (e.g., Cherokee, Mohawk, Navajo etc.) rather than say “I’m American Indian.” We are all Americans.
In creating this site as an ongoing resource there was a need for a term that identified all indigenous peoples. The term Native American Indians works in this instance. Also,this is an ongoing process so Tribes will be added on a continuing basis.
Thanks for the feedback and ideas (especially the maps) and I hope some of you find the material useful.
Cawbv
Cawbv