A Map of Native American Tribes | Hacker News Reader

A Map of Native American Tribes

npr.org

194 pointsjb1991111 comments

I appreciate the effort and think it's a good idea in that it tries to help people remember that this wasn't a barren empty land before European settlers arrived.

That said, I think the NPR article overstates the quality of the map. I can't speak with any authority about any Native American tribes outside the upper Great Lakes, but the map understates the extent of both the Odawa and Potawatomi tribes, and fails to recognize the relationship among those tribes by, e.g., failing to list the Odawa name for the Odawa (Nishnaabeg), which would clearly mark them as closely related ethnolinguistically to the Ojibwe.

If you look at the PDF there is an email address for sending updates. I would encourage you to send that information on.

That said, self taught cartography is like self taught coding (or anything else for that matter), it is an ongoing learning process.

I'm sorry, but self taught or otherwise, learning is always an 'ongoing process.' Learning is never complete, cartography, coding, or anything else.

Uhm, why the downvote?

Just because someone took a formal course in something does not give them the right to say that I have nothing further to learn in a subject.

Probably (not the downvoter myself), you veered off too tangentially. It's not that you are wrong, it's that you wrote a whole comment about a particular way that another commenter bothered to emphasize the idea of updating the map (the real point, as opposed to the didactic status of the cartographer)

it is great work. true, improvement is always possible.

For that matter, the Ojibwe didn't reach northern Minnesota until after European contact and live accross a large area of land. They (and related nations) had a long westward migration that started prior to European contact and continued until after the founding of the US. Before that the Dakota were in northern Minnesota (likely after an earlier westward migration). There was a huge amount of diversity prior to European contact so this kind of project is quite difficult.

There are some good histories here (most are fairly long, only covers a relatively small number of nations): http://www.tolatsga.org/Compacts.html

Edit: It looks like there is an updated map with some corrections now available (still has some issues in the great lakes region): http://www.tribalnationsmaps.com/store/c2/Tribal_Nations.htm...

I was recently wondering why there are no restaurants serving American Indian foods as a cuisine[0]. I'd have to think that it could be quite rich in variety, given the number of tribes and their dispersion across the continent. Any ideas why that food is not represented?

[0] Yelped 'American Indian restaurant' and got zero results.

Much of what you'd recognize as Mexican food or Central American food has roots in Native American food of those that spoke Nahuatl and its dialects (Southwestern tribes and further south). Many versions of corn, many non-sweet versions of potatoes, and many peppers are native to the Americas and have obviously been integrated into other cultures and cuisines. As for reasons why such food is not represented as Native American . . . Imperialism? Appropriation? Assimilation?

If you're truly interested Native American food, don't Yelp it. You'll probably have to speak to several people at a Reservation, Tribal Council, Cultural Group or perhaps a museum curator.

Wasn’t bison a huge part of Native American food though? I haven’t seen it represented at any Mexican or Central American restaurant I’ve been to.

Wasn't that just the Plains Indians? Bison might be overrepresented in popular culture because Hollywood emphasizes the years we spent subjugating the Plains Indians.

Yes, it was only the plains Indians, and Hollywood lumped them all into generic Native America.

Proteins were used much more sparingly than they are today. And if it was used, I suspect it to be more likely to be the local variants of pork, poultry, antelope, deer, fish, lizards and snakes, small rodents like squirrels. IMO, uses for pork are more indigenously varied and seem to be less European influenced (Mediterranean specifically, as you would expect from the Spanish), such as (Mexican) Carnitas, Al Pastor, Pozole, Chicharrones, Tamales, Chile Verde, Chile Rojo, Barbacoa. Bison (at least for North American peoples) as a meal takes lots of preparation and butcher work so I suspect it would not be as easy of meal to prepare.

Eating native plant species in the U.S. may have been stigmatized due to racism. I submitted an article about this a while back, here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11931250

One problem is that American Indian is about as useful as saying African for a cultural perspective. The tribes are not of one piece and many really, really didn't get along. Sure, there is a bit of commonality, but it does not extend to the food. The second problem is many of the tribes weren't city dwellers and I've noticed hunter / gathers don't complicate their food enough to get to cuisine that has a place in a restaurant. Plus, much of the way the tribes cooked ended when they were thrown on reservations. The "Indian Taco" is a product of reservations, not of the open plains for example. Also, some of the food ingredients are unacceptable in the modern age.

There are a couple of Native-owned food trucks in my area serving frybread[1] and other foods.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frybread

The frybread @ http://www.sanxaviermission.org is amazing... along with everything else there. A delightful place to stop if you are in southern AZ.

Listening to interviews with native Americans on the radio - frybread was an adaption to forced living on reservation land with limited rations provided by the US government in pretty inhospitable locales - instead of the diet they had before they had been defeated. Having this be a main part of their diet has led to an outsize number of cases of diabetes in the population that is susceptible to it and other health issues.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4975889 There's a recent episode on it. http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2017/07/20/navajo-nation-fry-...

Which, by the way, is one of the subjects of controversy whenever anyone tries to open a Native American restaurant - whether they offer frybread, or refuse to do so, there will always be a lot of people criticizing them for it.

One time while traveling in the Southwest I stopped at a roadside fair hoping to sample such foods, but was told that the event was for Indians only and I wasn't welcome. I got back in the car and left. I still haven't eaten Native American food.

That was their right, of course. Though the event was open to the public, it was on reservation land, and the history leading to that situation was pretty heavy. If they don't want to serve whites food in exchange for money, they're welcome not to do so. In a few more generations, no one will eat that food anymore. Meanwhile, dozens of other culinary cultures will live on for centuries, because they have a different attitude. That isn't necessarily better, but it is different.

What tribe was this?

Pretty sure this was Navajo, although if there is another one tucked in among the Navajo it might have been that instead.

Hopi is next to Navajo land.

If they don't want to serve whites food in exchange for money, they're welcome not to do so. In a few more generations, no one will eat that food anymore.

Well, it could have been any number of ceremonies[1] going on and some tribes are a bit touchy about non-tribal members since they've had some really bad experiences. After a while, you just loose patience. Its hard to have a community event when you feel like a zoo exhibit.

Although I would love to know what other ethnic groups you could write the same comment in the same tone about and not have the hammer fall.

1) most of the major religious ceremonies are open air in the plains and the south, its not like a lot of tribes built churches.

This was explicitly a roadside fair. A bunch of booths and tables were set up around a gravel parking lot, and most had pots of stew and trays of other foods. This has been some years, so I can't recall what else was on offer. People continually drove in, bought containers of food, and either started eating or drove away. Also there was a sign (in English) on the road indicating the fair. I saw no one take any action which could be considered religious or ceremonial. The point is, they were selling food but not to me. Which is perfectly fine, but it is relevant to thread parent's dilemma.

I couldn't write the same comment about Mexicans or Japanese or Germans or Armenians or Ethiopians or Afghans or Filipinos, because I've eaten in restaurants they own in which they happily serve their delicious food. I've also eaten at non-tourist roadside stands serving many of those cuisines to those people in those nations, and felt welcome. On that particular day, I ate at a Taco Bell up the road, along with what seemed to be every teenage member of the tribe. Of course Taco Bell is not authentically anything ("American", maybe?), but that's the direction culinary habits seem to be moving.

I've been rejected at a Chinese restaurant but writing something like you did: "If they don't want to serve whites food in exchange for money, they're welcome not to do so. In a few more generations, no one will eat that food anymore." would be inappropriate. Putting everyone in a racial group in a bucket for the behavior of one and condemning them to non-existence is a bit too far. You couldn't do that to any other group without a bit of outcry.

A Native American chef in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN is currently working to open just such a restaurant [1]. I've read a little about his menu and it does sound quite different from the euro-centric diet most Americans eat. This catering menu[2] seems more mainstream.

It will be interesting to see how he overcomes ingredient sourcing challenges. Many ingredients are far outside the current industrial food system. From the site: " We are naturally Gluten, Dairy, Soy, Processed Sugar, Beef, Pork, & Chicken FREE!" [1] http://sioux-chef.com/ [2] http://sioux-chef.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Sioux-Chef-...

Sioux Chef! Perfect name for a Native American restaurant.

I found a handful of results by searching "Native American restaurant" on Google Maps. I'm sure that different restaurants are putting very different spins on how widely they cast their culinary nets, geographically and temporally—some of them could be "this is what our family likes to eat, and what we would make for family gatherings" and some of them could be "we spent a year and a half researching regional culinary history in a university library".

In a lot of California, if you wanted to eat some of the most traditional local foods, you'd probably be eating acorns:

http://www.csus.edu/anth/museum/pdfs/past%20and%20present%20...

Whereas here's a fancy Native American-inspired restaurant in the Bay Area

https://www.yelp.com/biz/werowocomoco-geyserville

that's named after places and people from the other side of the continent and is serving a lot of food that's originally from pretty far away from Northern California (though, sure, all of it from North America!).

Anyway, you might not find a lot of options near you, but it seems like you'll find more searching "Native American" instead of "American Indian".

In Washington, D.C. the National Museum of the American Indian serves indigenous food in the cafe. This includes from both North and South American cultures.

There are a few appearing in Toronto, I keep meaning to go when I go back to visit my family, haven't had a chance yet but they are getting popular.

Also, I remember getting frybread at food trucks in rural parts of Oregon and Wyoming or Montana somewhere.

In Toronto, there is NishDish (Anishnaabe/Anishnawbe) on Bloor near Christie. I don't live near there anymore, so it hasn’t been convenient, and they are only open 9–5 Tuesday–Sunday (it’s an outgrowth of a catering company). I have heard nothing but good things about it, although the menu will be limited for me as I am vegetarian (they do have veg/vegan offerings, but those are obviously not going to be traditional Anishnaabe foods).

I'm aware of two here in New Mexico, the Pó Restaurant in Pojoaque, and I believe there is a new one in Albuquerque by the Native American Cultural Center. I've eaten at the Pó restaurant about 12 years ago, and it was not a great experience, but I hesitate to hold that against them since it was ages ago; it might have just been a bad night. The other one I haven't tried yet.

My impression as a New Mexican is that the local cuisine has elements of native cuisine (tamales seem more native than enchiladas). But, I also have the impression, perhaps unfairly, that native cuisine was kind of bland. I think Bourdain did an episode where he went onto the big Navajo reservation and they roasted and fed him sheep; I recall they ate basically the entire animal, but I didn't see salt or a spice being put on it. I'm sure every native group is different but around here, there was sheep, corn, squash, beans and not a lot else. Even the chile we're famous for was imported (from California, hilariously).

Some of it is simply "American" food now (e.g. cornbread, turkey, jerky; barbecue and jerk if you count the various Carribean tribes). Others are probably a bit harder to market as restaurant fare (e.g. acorn mush, bird brain stew, "Indian ice cream"). Some of it is also very specific to certain tribes or otherwise has a more regional than national appeal (e.g. succotash, hominy).

I definitely agree with you that restaurants specializing in traditional American Indian cuisine (whether in general or with an emphasis on a specific tribe or tribes) would be a great idea.

Here is a NPR article about some traditional Native American nutrition. Maybe not glamorous food, but you have to realize that a lot of the food we eat in restaurants comes from haute royal cuisine and most of our ancestors were eating the European equivalent of corn mush too.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/08/21/544191316/to-...

My first reaction matched a lot of the comments, of questioning the accuracy based on my knowledge of my local area. But I'm quickly getting over that reaction, realizing it is just an ego driven, "Well, actually..."

The truth is that these maps are trying to make a bigger point -- to remind people that there is a bigger picture to the history of this continent. And no history lesson is going to be perfect, so I am going to resist the temptation to let imperfections distract from this work -- they are pretty cool maps, and a worthwhile project.

"before their first contact with Europeans" is a very long time. Such map necessarily must reflect an idealised take on facts.

This is usual in history. They have some sources and try to do their best effort to make a reliable map. [I'm not a historian, so I can't be sure how good is this map.]

When you see a map of Europe in 1000AD, you have almost the same problems. Europe is easier because they had a written record, and some map from that epoch. Anyway, the historical records may be wrong due to political reasons ... so it's not easy.

Another point is that maps changes with time. The map of Europe in 1000AD, 1100AD, 1200AD, 1300AD, 1400AD, 1500AD are different. The maps of America in the same years should show the change of the territories each one had.

Edit: Fixed DC->AD

Point of information. I've heard of AD and BC, CE and BCE, but I've never heard of DC. What is DC?

Some Romance languages use that for AD, like Italian "dopo Cristo" and Portuguese "depois de Cristo" ('after Christ').

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/AD#Translations

Exactly. I'm from Argentina and I forget to "translate" that part

Fixed. Thanks to both.

I've never heard of this before. Does anyone else find it strange that two very strongly Catholic societies abandoned the Latin version, while other societies didn't?

I think abandoning ecclesiastical Latin terms for things is kind of random, and isn't usually very correlated with religiosity. (If people actually wanted to be secular about it, they would nowadays say "era volgare", "era comune", "era comum", etc.)

Edit: for example Portuguese has retained numbered weekdays (like Hebrew and ecclesiastical Latin practice), while Spanish has gone along with the widespread European trend of using the classical Roman names. In Spanish the first work day is the Moon's Day, while in Portuguese it's Second Day (based on the Biblical second day of creation).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_the_days_of_the_week

I don't think we can read any huge theological or cultural implications into this difference, though.

Given that we're fast approaching the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's famous door-nailing, the roles of vulgar languages and schism with Catholic doctrine might be related to this, though I'd have to look into the history.

The AD/BC system is formally known as the Dyonisian Era System, and dates to ... 525, er, CE, when it was created by Dionysius Exiguus.

The use of "common era" dates to 1615.

The English Reformation (schism with the Catholic Church) to 1532 - 1534.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Reformation

Of course maps change with time, that is the point of my comment.

Well let's just say the period immediately predating the European invasion, that generally occurred starting around the 1600s in North America. Of course this isn't static but the perspective is important because a lot of displacement occurred post contact with Europeans and a lot more warfare and disease resulted. The perspective this map provides could be compared to a post contact map of tribes to highlight the many migrations that occurred.

Europeans contacted different areas at different times, and I can imagine some of these areas and borders changed. It's probably going to be a rough approximation no matter what you do.

That's no reason to belittle this effort, though. There's enormous amounts of information on that map, and even if it's not 100% perfectly accurate, it's still way better than what we had before.

I wonder how far before contact because some of the placements don't jive with what I was taught as a youth.

For the current map of Federally recognized tribes in the US: https://www.nps.gov/nagpra/DOCUMENTS/ResMAP.HTM or https://www.blm.gov/cadastral/biamaps/biaoffices.htm

I always found it surprising that the US calls regions where people live the same as regions where protected animals live (reservations). Isn't that offending to anyone? I would be deeply offended.

They're both derived from "reserve", which is just saying that this land is reserved for these people.

I find etymology fascinating and really enjoy noticing and reflecting on cognates. That said, the actual uses of the words in their current context and their connotations is more important for communication and understanding what people mean and intend to convey.

It's not offensive, though, unless you are trying to be offended.

The reservation system is a broken acknowledgement that the US stole land from all of those tribal groups, but the purpose of a reservation is to set land aside, to reserve it for those tribal groups, to say the government cannot go any further.

There's much better things to be offended by. Nobody is offended by hotel reservations.

That's a much better and more respectful explanation I think of your position than calling someone's opinion silly or goofy. I'd have a hard time unpacking your second comment from your first.

Particularly on difficult topics, if you think someone's giving something too little thought, err on the side of giving it more thought rather than something shorter. I sympathize with a desire to be concise and pithy, but it can so easily be read in more ways other than it's intended. There's just less info there: fewer error correction bits, so to speak.

Equally deeply offended that your saved area at a restaurant is also named after where protected animals live? While it doesn't apply to me, I would not be deeply offended, but I also don't try to find reasons to be offended.

Well, reservation is actually what the US Military called their military outposts. So, its a pretty unoffensive term and I have never heard anyone on the reservation call it such. Although the current term that seems to be going around is "Nation". I would guess either from the first nations in Canada or the Navajo. Heck, the phrase "off the reservation" is often used in spy movies.

Speaking of Canada. They call their's "reserves" which almost got me into a fight in Canada when someone asked the Dakota I was traveling with "what reserve are you from?". He took it, uhm, poorly. It took some fast talking to calm him down. He did not come away with a good impression of Canada although winning at the track later in the day put a positive note on our travels.

Beyond the obvious etymology that others have stated, the terms "sanctuary", "refuge", and "preserve" are used far more by the US to represent the idea you describe for animals, so the equivalence in terminology doesn't seem well founded at all.

Don't ever watch a baseball game then, relief pitchers are kept in a bullpen.

Tangentially... The title could just as easily be "A Map of American Tribes".

There are many tribes that are not federally recognized for many arbitrary reasons.

Many states recognize tribes that the federal government doesn't recognize.

Many states don't recognize tribes that are trying to get the state to recognize them.

My family's tribe only got state recognition less than 15 years ago. This delay was mostly from being broken up and mixed with Africans and the master's families during slavery. But enough genealogy was possible with updated tools to show a cohesive unit and re-establish the tribe for official purposes.

I know of other tribes in the same quandary.

And that's why I stated the the maps were of the "Federally recognized". California has some state-only recognized tribes, and it is a hard process to get state or federal recognition, but it still happens. There is a reason "enrolled member" shows up in a lot places.

It wasn't clear you understood that, you could have easily been using federally recognized as the infallible source to see tribal maps, and it also isn't clear that anybody else would understand that

I'm a bit familiar with the subject since I am typing this from one of those places on the map. I'm also a bit familiar with the unrecognized while watching a particular tribe of Chippewa trying to get their recognition. Land ownership will be a rather large issue with these fights.

He's also made a map of South America which for some reason isn't mentioned in the article.

https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/history/events/new-pre...

In school, we learned about the Yokut tribe who inhabited the central valley floor and foothills from Bakersfield to Merced/Stockton. The map didn't show this tribe, however, looking up the Yokut on Wikipedia revealed that the tribe names are different and the map correctly shows these names. Interesting to get the real info 50 years later.

This is a great point. Many comments are noting that Carapella's map doesn't jibe with history books or government records or even local lore. But all of these sources tell the story of the victor. We may never know the truth, but we non-natives rarely have access to this perspective.

Not all of the sources tell the story of the victor. Some of us are going from what had been told by enrolled members of the tribes themselves. HN is a surprisingly diverse community.

I can't even read the map on my phone - on both the PDF and the website, the text is too low res to read. I have no idea whether this is a problem with my phone or the content (I'm on wifi so it's not my ISP "helping"), but this is a constant frustration.

In Chrome, go to the ... menu and pick "request desktop site". Many sites that are customized for mobile have massive failures and it's easier to just get the proper version which you can zoom and scroll to see all the details. I get a good map that way.

I'm just surprised that I saw the same problem on the PDF.

It is difficult to write history for any culture without a written language, but it can be approximated as the current "best guess" which can be improved over time. It is a great leap forward to begin this process, especially with autonyms. Future versions of this map might be color-coded to show tribal geography by century, as known from artifacts, oral histories, fossil remains, and general archeology. Rather than a monograph of anthropological scholarship, this strikes me more as a statement of cultural pride. It says to me that, even though history is written by the victors, there are other perspectives worth sharing.

Of course all species on earth as well as the entire surface of the earth are silent witnesses to this relentless shoveling under of prior lifeforms ... humans have no monopoly of this dynamic

Life is palimpsest.

Wow that is one horribly incomplete map. Where are the Kansa, the Wichita, the Osage, etc

Sounds like you want to help out.

I would hope that people who are interested in this type of thing contact the folks at the tribes about their own efforts.

Pull request.

Couple other places to help that might have wider impact:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Indigeno... https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Maps_of_the_indi...

Note that they are labelling tribes based on the names the tribes called themselves, not the names that history or non-Indians would know. Not sure that explains it in your specific question.

Those are the names the tribes call themselves. Half of the midwest is named after local tribes of the area.

Kansa listed as "Hutanga (Kanza)" (in Kansas), Osage listed as "Niukonska (Osage)" (in Oklahoma), Wichita listed as "Kitikiti'sh (Wichita)" (in Texas) — all three that you mentioned are present on the map.

Those are not where the tribes lived. That may be where they are now.

I don't have the expertise to evaluate the accuracy of the geographic placements. There was a whole other part of this thread talking about the issue that the map does not pick a single point in time to represent, and therefore there will be anachronisms where different groups shown on the map never lived in the places indicated at the same time (or conceivably never existed as nations at the same time as one another!).

I wouldn't be surprised if the mapmaker had a source indicating that each of those groups had lived in the place indicated during some pre-contact period. But especially without choosing a date for the map, it's tough to say what the "traditional" or "original" location should mean.

There are detailed PDFs on Carapella's site, noted at the end of the article: http://www.tribalnationsmaps.com

I really dislike sites that prevent me from zooming in on mobile.

This map might give the misleading impression that the American Indians were a static mix of tribes, sitting in a time capsule, waiting for the Great White Man to stir things up.

In reality, the situation was fluid. The standard forces of disease, warfare, trade networks, natural disaster, and human ingenuity were always at play.

Doesn't any map with political borders give that misleading impression?

Any map.

It might be inaccurate, too.

I got a little too interested in the Comanche over the summer, which the article notes is actually a Ute word basically meaning "enemy". The Utes called them enemy because the Comanche prior to European contact lived in the Rockies much farther north. It was only the horse which allowed them to move out onto the plains. He's got them located in the plains of Texas, which again, they weren't at until probably after 1700 and when they were they completely dominated a region way bigger than that.

Wiki:

The Comanche emerged as a distinct group shortly before 1700, when they broke off from the Shoshone people[15] living along the upper Platte River in Wyoming. In 1680, the Comanche acquired horses from the Pueblo Indians after the Pueblo Revolt.[16] They separated from the Shoshone after this, as the horses allowed them greater mobility in their search for better hunting grounds.

http://www.npr.org/assets/news/2014/06/Tribal_Nations_Map_NA...

I'm not sure exactly what he's representing. It can't be a single moment in time.

https://www.amazon.com/Empire-Summer-Moon-Comanches-Powerful...

Wouldn't the obvious answer seem to be to provide certainty factor estimates where varying degrees of evidence are available?

Anyways, I've rarely ever seen historians qualify their data points. Unfortunately humility is only for the scientists, and because they can't escape the same consequences of uncertainty when drawing conclusions from data (i.e. statistical significance). Confidence is for the rest of us, not because it is helpful, but because our human nature commands it.

Instead of trying to conduct some kind of comprehensive probability analysis, admirable as the idea might be, you could just be clear and say "this is roughly the point in history I'm representing."

I was thinking more along the lines of a metric indicating the probability the conclusion is correct, based on the strength of evidence.

You might be interested in Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen. He's a sociologist but he brings up this point when talking about the different possible discovery dates fo the Americas by the Japanese, Africans, Polynesians and others at one point - history books have a tendency to wrongly paint many things as objective truth when there should be more subtlety. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies_My_Teacher_Told_Me

> Wouldn't the obvious answer seem to be to provide certainty factor estimates where varying degrees of evidence are available?

The uncertainty involved in history is rarely quantifiable. How would you go about attaching a number to, say, the probability that Jesus existed? Where such quantifiability is possible--dates in radiocarbon and demographic estimates come to mind--you in fact do see estimation ranges from historians.

> Anyways, I've rarely ever seen historians qualify their data points.

Having read a few archaeological papers out of curiosity, yes, these data points are often qualified where prudent. This is much less the case in popular history books, but it's worth noting that popular science books are equally egregious in omitting such details.

> Unfortunately humility is only for the scientists, and because they can't escape the same consequences of uncertainty when drawing conclusions from data (i.e. statistical significance).

Let's not put scientists on some holy pedestal here. Having read science papers as well, I can tell you that scientists are quite bad at being humble and qualifying their results with limits of uncertainty.

I'd prefer for the map to err on the side of including more names of tribes over having those tribes' territories be more accurately drawn. Every map is a simplification.

Of course, and I don't think it's intended to be misleading. In the interest of accuracy, it would be great if he'd make clear what his map is displaying.

The legend says:

This map represents the original pre-contact homelands....

Is it a simplification, or is it wrong?

The map of Europe might give the misleading impression that European nations were a static mix of people, sitting in a time capsule, [...]

In reality, the situation was fluid. The standard forces of disease, warfare, trade networks, natural disaster, and human ingenuity were always at play.

Your reaction gives the implication that he was suggesting Europe didn't have that issue, but I'm fairly certain the standard in "The standard forces of disease, warfare, trade networks, natural disaster, and human ingenuity were always at play." is acknowledging that. That's the entire point of what he is saying.

The OP did seem to be suggesting that this map was somehow different from other political maps, otherwise why make the point at all?

Sure, think of europe of before 2nd world war. It was full of disease, warfare, trade networks, natural disaster, and human ingenuity were always at play.

Don't need to denigrate the work, though.

Perhaps such a map displayed prominently in every US school would be appropriate. Kudos to the map's author.

....why? I mean, yeah, maybe in a social studies class, but I fail to see any reason otherwise.

It's history. It's a good thing to be aware of it.

The map should be renamed to "North America prior to illegal immigration".

To all the critics, what would be a better map of say 1400 with the distribution of tribes?

The game Europa Universalis 4 maybe? I'm sure it's full of inaccuracies, omissions and generalizations, but it comes with different map modes that show things like religion, culture and various relationships between the tribes at the time.

a map of the whole of North America would make more sense in this context (instead of a map of "U.S. and Canada", which do not even appear in the map itself).

One positive thing about the modern US and Canada is at least a lot of native names have been kept or are used for names of states, provinces, towns and regions. In Australia there seems to be far less of this.

Is it possible in Australia you're just not recognising the aboriginal words because pretty much everywhere I've lived in Australia has been full of areas named using aboriginal words.

Sydney eastern suburbs have places like Bondi, Coogee, Maroubra, Woollahra, Woolloomooloo.

There is even a very long list of place names of Aboriginal origin on wiki and it is very far from complete [0].

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_place_names...

(2014)

Have we never seen it before because it's inaccurate and irrelevant?

Not sure those are criteria for visibility, as I definitely see this comment yet it has the same qualities.

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