Talk:Indigenous peoples

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 23 April 2024
Please change "encomieda" to "encomienda" in the sentence "The Spanish enslaved some of the native population and forced others to work on farms and gold mines in a system of labor called ecomienda." Second paragraph in #History; Americas. Pissypamper (talk) 00:56, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅ Cullen328 (talk) 01:06, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Indigenous people
indigenous people were here for 65,000 years 125.253.17.31 (talk) 05:43, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Depends on where "here" is but yes this is true if you're in Australia. See Aboriginal Australians. -- Euryalus (talk) 05:45, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

South Asia
For better visibility, I will continue here with the part of our discussion in Talk:List_of_Indigenous_peoples that directly relates to the contested edits.

To make it short: none of the sources supports the blanket statement that "Dravidian people" (I assume that you mean "Dravidian-speaking peoples") are Indigenous peoples of South Asia. Please only make use of sources that explicitly use the phrase "indigenous people(s)", and ideally sources that cover Indigenous peoples as main topic, such as the ILO report The rights of indigenous peoples in Asia. Needless to say, it does not list the Tamils, Telugu, Kanndigas and Malayalis, or makes any mention of linguistic families at all, but talks at length about "Scheduled tribes" and "Adivasi" (regardless of linguistic affiliation) in the context of Indigenous peoples of India.
 * Masica (1991) and Avari (2007) only talk about the Dravidian language family being indigenous to South Asia, in contrast to Indo-Aryan that entered the region four millenia ago.
 * Sil's chapter in Kopstein & Lichbach (2005) likewise talks about "the dark-skinned Dravidians" as native (NB: not "indigenous") to the Indian subcontinent at the time when Indo-Aryan speakers arrived. Ironically, the only mention of the word "indigenous" (but not "indigenous people(s)") on the same page is in connection with Hindi, being described as "the main indigenous official language".

(@PadFoot2008: Another thing, the Web Archive links are both dead, so I assume that you have copied them from other articles, but without further scrutiny. Had you actually read the texts by Avari and Sil before making the edit?) Austronesier (talk) 19:38, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for opening this discussion here. I was holding off on opening my own until I could track down a copy of the Sil source to confirm what it contained.
 * I agree with Austronesier's evaluation of the provided sources, or rather, the two for which I could gain access. There is a very large difference between a language family and a specific culture (even accepting, as we usually do on WP, for sake of discussion that specific cultures can be bounded and thus considered as a unified totality). Neither the Masica nor Avari sources characterize "Dravidian" as "the Dravidian people" (singular), nor do they support the assertion that any such singular culture is the "largest indigenous population in continental Indian subcontinent". Given the lack of support in these two, I'm certain there would at least need to be more sources provided here to demonstrate what the edit asserts.
 * --Pinchme123 (talk) 20:57, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @Pinchme123, here are some more sources:
 * PadFoot2008 12:03, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Each one of these sources has the same issues as outlined before.–Austronesier (talk) 14:57, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The first source clearly mentions that the Dravidian languages are spoken by indigenous populations. Please tell what exactly is your issue with the source. PadFoot2008  15:29, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * That Schmidt citation does seem to address the criticisms that have been raised. Note that the contested addition to the article specifies plural, "Dravidian peoples," so it is not suggesting there was one Dravidian people. There were (and are) many indigenous people in the subcontinent who speak Dravidian languages. It would make the edit longer, but maybe it could list several of them, rather than putting them together as "Dravidian peoples" ? --John_Abbe (talk) 17:53, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * (ec)I am glad you've brought sources for discussion, but I do not agree that these support the statement "[t]he largest indigenous population in continental Indian subcontinent are the Dravidian peoples", for a number of reasons. First is one of phrasing: a group of peoples is not one population that can be labeled "the largest". But more importantly, none of these quotations support the statement of them being largest. The first source is about a "second major" linguistic group and clearly describes multiple populations. The source describes the linguistic group as being labeled "Dravidian" but does not claim this somehow unifies the populations themselves into an identifiable group. The second source does not make any claims about the size of "the Dravidians" relative to other indigenous groups, and this source is only an evaluation of past circumstances and not today. The third source is 122 years old (published 1902), refers to Dravidians as a "race", and qualifies its more-specific locative statement about them being indigenous to the south with "perhaps". The fourth and fifth sources do identify "the Dravidians" as a single indigenous population and locate them to south India, but again neither source supports the claim that they're "the largest indigenous population".
 * I would have reverted your edits had Austronesier not already done so because I have these objections. Perhaps others disagree with me (us?), but this is why the Discuss part of WP:BRD is important: there's no consensus built when no discussion has taken place.
 * --Pinchme123 (talk) 15:08, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @Pinchme123, Then the part "the largest indigenous group" can be removed. I'm not saying that it is very important to state that. PadFoot2008  15:27, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Just self-revert. This is very bad style. As for the first source, it doesn't discuss "indigenous peoples". WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. It talks about a linguistic family. Get a copy of that book. The term "indigenous" is used in the very same work a dozen of times not only in relation to Dravidian speakers. From chapters 12 onwards, "indigenous" refers to native South Asian against Muslim Persian and Afghans, e.g. Harsha Vardhana is referred to as "the last indigenous empire-builder in northern India". Starting from chapter 24, South Asians of all faiths are called "indigenous" against European colonialists. Why cherry-pick a demographic event that occurred four thousand years ago?
 * As for the remaining sources, they don't talk about indigenous peoples of today, but about which people were indigenous when Indo-Aryan speakers arrived. None of the present Dravidian-speaking ethnicities existed in their present form at that time (except maybe in some ultra-ethnonationalistic fringe POVs). –Austronesier (talk) 17:11, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * , I still object to the inclusion of this information, and as of this comment appears to as well, so I have reverted your reinstatement. Please do not again add this information before consensus has been found here.
 * The problems with each source, both from before and with those you have now provided here, have been spelled out. Only the fourth and fifth sources potentially support including this information in the article, but I'm still not convinced they're even quality sources, given that so many others do not refer to the Dravidians as some single indigenous population.
 * --Pinchme123 (talk) 17:12, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @Pinchme123, I think we can try following @John Abbe's idea and mention the Dravidian groups that are (and are not) indigenous perhaps? I agree that Dravidians do not form a single indigenous population, and include many populations of Indo-European origin who are Dravidian-speaking but do not have indigenous Dravidian-ancestry, hence, we can specifically mention that they are not indigenous. PadFoot2008  19:27, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @Austronesier, "None of the present Dravidian-speaking ethnicities existed in their present form at that time", what (or where) is the proof for this claim of yours? That in itself is an incredibly POV-ish view in your part. There exist many tribal Dravidian-speaking ethnicities which have no Steppes ancestry at all, so how in the world does your claim make any sense? PadFoot2008  19:22, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Let me answer your above comment here, since I have already gone into some detail regarding the citation from An atlas and survey of South Asian history Karl J. Schmidt, which I refer to in my last comment as "the first source". The full quote goes as follows: The second major South Asian linguistic group comprises the Dravidian languages. Dravidian languages, as spoken by indigenous populations, are confined to South Asia and seem to have no links to any outside language families. Linguistic historians have been unable to determine whether ancient Dravidian speakers were indigenous to  South Asia or,  like  the Aryans, came from outside the subcontinent, but apparently at a much earlier date. Throughout the book, Schmidt follows this pattern in using the term "indigenous" in a relative manner in contrast to ousiders/intruders in the respective period, as I have outlined above. When talking about the colonial period (which is obviously less remote than the period of Indo-Aryan migration), he refers to all native inhabitants of South Asia as indigenous, regardless of whether they're tribal groups or urban literate elites, Dravidian, Munda or Indo-Aryan speakers, Hindus or Muslims etc. FWIW, he doesn't use the term "indigenous" in the present-day context, but this is exactly what we require here: sources that talk about contemporary indigenous peoples.
 * You appear to be stuck in the thought that "Dravidians" are a biologically defined block of people and that indigeneity itself is biologically determined. They are not. Dravidians are multiple distinct ethnic groups that are solely linked by the common genealogical affiliation of the languages they speak, and a statistically greater amount of Ancient South Indian ancestry when compared with Indo-Aryan speakers (but keep in mind that this correlation has a large bandwidith: individual Indo-Aryan speaking tribal groups may have more ASI ancestry than the sanskritized major Dravidian-speaking groups). So again: none of the present Dravidian-speaking ethnicities (I am not talking about genes, but ethnic groups!) existed in their present form at that time. I am aware of South Indian primordialist ideologies, but do you in all earnest believe that there were Tamils, Telugus, Tuluvas, Kanndigas in the 2 millenium BCE (e.g. check when the linguistic split between Kannada and Tamil is generally assumued to have occurred)? I'm not talking about their ancestors, but individual ancient ethnic groups that were exactly aligned by the same divisions as individual present-day ethnic groups? –Austronesier (talk) 19:41, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @Austronesier, you completely misunderstood me. I never said that all Dravidian-speakers are a genetically united group. That would be a stupid statement to make. There are multiple Dravidian-speaking ethnic groups which have no actual Dravidian-ancestry. If we were to exclude peoples of Indo-European origin who simply adopted Dravidian languages, then, most Dravidian-speaking peoples (in plural), are genetically indigenous. And additionally I think you have another confusion here. The Ancient South Indian genetic component is not equal to Dravidian peoples. The Dravidian peoples, prior to the Indo-Aryan migrations, were composed of an Ancient South Indian component (predominantly) and a Neolithic Iranian component as well, and most of them still are. And lastly, I think you are confusing "people" with "language groups" here. Tamil, Kannadiga, etc. are linguistic groups. But the people here are, in fact, indigenous, of course excluding those who do not have indigenous Dravidian ancestry but only speak those languages. This is not about linguistic groups but about the people and their ancestry. A change to my original proposal I would suggest is too mention that not all, but most Dravidian-speaking peoples are indigenous. PadFoot2008  20:03, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * "most Dravidian-speaking peoples are indigenous"
 * Something like this seems a good direction to go. John_Abbe (talk) 22:01, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Let me answer your above comment here, since I have already gone into some detail regarding the citation from An atlas and survey of South Asian history Karl J. Schmidt, which I refer to in my last comment as "the first source". The full quote goes as follows: The second major South Asian linguistic group comprises the Dravidian languages. Dravidian languages, as spoken by indigenous populations, are confined to South Asia and seem to have no links to any outside language families. Linguistic historians have been unable to determine whether ancient Dravidian speakers were indigenous to  South Asia or,  like  the Aryans, came from outside the subcontinent, but apparently at a much earlier date. Throughout the book, Schmidt follows this pattern in using the term "indigenous" in a relative manner in contrast to ousiders/intruders in the respective period, as I have outlined above. When talking about the colonial period (which is obviously less remote than the period of Indo-Aryan migration), he refers to all native inhabitants of South Asia as indigenous, regardless of whether they're tribal groups or urban literate elites, Dravidian, Munda or Indo-Aryan speakers, Hindus or Muslims etc. FWIW, he doesn't use the term "indigenous" in the present-day context, but this is exactly what we require here: sources that talk about contemporary indigenous peoples.
 * You appear to be stuck in the thought that "Dravidians" are a biologically defined block of people and that indigeneity itself is biologically determined. They are not. Dravidians are multiple distinct ethnic groups that are solely linked by the common genealogical affiliation of the languages they speak, and a statistically greater amount of Ancient South Indian ancestry when compared with Indo-Aryan speakers (but keep in mind that this correlation has a large bandwidith: individual Indo-Aryan speaking tribal groups may have more ASI ancestry than the sanskritized major Dravidian-speaking groups). So again: none of the present Dravidian-speaking ethnicities (I am not talking about genes, but ethnic groups!) existed in their present form at that time. I am aware of South Indian primordialist ideologies, but do you in all earnest believe that there were Tamils, Telugus, Tuluvas, Kanndigas in the 2 millenium BCE (e.g. check when the linguistic split between Kannada and Tamil is generally assumued to have occurred)? I'm not talking about their ancestors, but individual ancient ethnic groups that were exactly aligned by the same divisions as individual present-day ethnic groups? –Austronesier (talk) 19:41, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @Austronesier, you completely misunderstood me. I never said that all Dravidian-speakers are a genetically united group. That would be a stupid statement to make. There are multiple Dravidian-speaking ethnic groups which have no actual Dravidian-ancestry. If we were to exclude peoples of Indo-European origin who simply adopted Dravidian languages, then, most Dravidian-speaking peoples (in plural), are genetically indigenous. And additionally I think you have another confusion here. The Ancient South Indian genetic component is not equal to Dravidian peoples. The Dravidian peoples, prior to the Indo-Aryan migrations, were composed of an Ancient South Indian component (predominantly) and a Neolithic Iranian component as well, and most of them still are. And lastly, I think you are confusing "people" with "language groups" here. Tamil, Kannadiga, etc. are linguistic groups. But the people here are, in fact, indigenous, of course excluding those who do not have indigenous Dravidian ancestry but only speak those languages. This is not about linguistic groups but about the people and their ancestry. A change to my original proposal I would suggest is too mention that not all, but most Dravidian-speaking peoples are indigenous. PadFoot2008  20:03, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * "most Dravidian-speaking peoples are indigenous"
 * Something like this seems a good direction to go. John_Abbe (talk) 22:01, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Now we're getting somewhere. It's not that I've "completely misunderstood" you. Your text goes The largest indigenous population in continental Indian subcontinent are the Dravidian peoples. (07 June 2024) and Numerous indigenous groups are present in South Asia. These include the Dravidian peoples. (15 June 2024) "The Dravidian peoples" are the Dravidian-speaking peoples in toto. If this hasn't been your intent, all the better.

But at the risk of becoming repetitive: it is not a useful approach to dissect and interpret a single cherry-picked sentence from a source that employs a context-dependent use of the term "indigenous" that can result in different scopes of applicability in different historical periods. Schmidt's usage makes perfect sense for the purpose of his topic (= South Asian history), but is of little value for this article, especially when multiple sources are at hand that explicitly discuss the topic of Indigenous peoples in Asia. I've already presented one above, here is another (NGO-based) valuable open-access book: The Concept of Indigenous Peoples in Asia: A Resource Book, chapter "The Concept of Indigenous Peoples in India" (p. 223). The author describes at length the issues that come with the literal application of the word "indigenous" in the Indian context and the inadquacy of linguistic affiliation as a marker of indigeneity. He also explains why "indigenous peoples" are not simply peoples who are/were indigenous:

For a handy definition, this is from a chapter by Mitra & Gupta in Land and Cultural Survival: The Communal Land Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Asia (J. Perera, ed,. 2009, ADB):

But they add in a note:

Last but not least, here's a source from an academic publisher that is entirely devoted to the core issue here: Indigeneity in India (Karlson & Subba, eds., 2006, Routledge). I won't quote from it, but I strongly suggest to make use of it and thus finally build the South Asia section on adequate sources that are directly tied to the topic of this article. –Austronesier (talk) 08:59, 16 June 2024 (UTC)


 * @Austronesier, @Pinchme123 and @John Abbe, then I would suggest is to simply mention "most Dravidian peoples" as indigenous without going into much detail, while perhaps also mentioning that their inclusion is contested due to most not being marginalised. Also as a side note: I think we are putting too much emphasis on "marginalisation" here. The two are related but not synonymous, and you don't need to be necessarily marginalised to be indigenous. PadFoot2008  11:36, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Based on what source do want to include such a text? And please note that this article is about "indigenous peoples", not simply peoples that are somehow considered to have been indigenous somewhere at some time. It is reliable sources about the topic of indigenous peoples that define what "indigenous peoples" refers to, not the dictionary definition of the word "indigenous". While "you don't need to be necessarily marginalised to be indigenous", marginalization is an essential component in the description of "indigenous peoples" in the relevant literature. And virtually every source that talks about the indigenous peoples of India takes the adivasi-categorization as a starting point, rather than linguistic affiliation or biological ancestry. So this is what we will have to reflect when expanding the section about South Asia. –Austronesier (talk) 16:26, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Page move discussion of interest
Given how often the subject of capitalization of "Indigenous" has been discussed here, I thought I would notify those here about the page move discussion at Talk:Genocide of Indigenous peoples. --Pinchme123 (talk) 02:57, 11 June 2024 (UTC)