Talk:List of Indigenous peoples

Dominant populations as potentially indigenous
Clearly, there are multiple and at times somewhat conflicting definitions of indigeneity, and this is translating into significant disagreement, particularly over the the matter of whether largely dominant cultures in areas such as Africa and the Pacific Islands can be deemed indigenous. Obviously, the end-goal basic requirement for all entries is to simply be reliably sourced a statement by a subject-matter expert. For the moment, however, while where we have numerous dominant, but only potentially indigenous populations, two pertinent further questions (based on the various definitions at our disposal) are: were these populations the first settlers, or are they an amalgam of successive waves of migration? And, if they are culturally dominant, does the population at large maintain strong ties to their ancestral tradition and culture? Any first settlers have a strong case to indigeneity, even if they remain culturally dominant to this day, but the links to tradition and culture are also key to the notion of indigenous society. In dominant populations, the likelier candidates for indigeneity may well be much smaller communities or groups within a society that have maintained clearer links to their ancestral traditions than society at large. Such groups might contrast with the wider population, which may no longer be so tied to traditional culture. This culture can be defined in a variety of ways, including through language, but language alone is not really useful in instances where you are talking about whole populations and not discrete groups. These are the sorts of questions that subject-matter experts will have asked and answered, and the answers to such questions are what we should be searching for. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:46, 11 January 2022 (UTC)


 * The dictionary definition does not exclude them. Therefore, they should be included on this list. Chamaemelum (talk) 00:24, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Discussion: Editor Scope, Inclusion Criteria, and Definitions

 * Your points regarding experts and citations are essential. We are getting sidetracked with "defining" indigeneity which is not in our scope as editors. Additionally, non-dominance is only one part of the criteria in the UN definition; the UN itself explains that the definition is a "working definition" and fluid.


 * In respect to this, I think what needs to be done here is to apply a generally inclusive, multi-dimensional approach. Open to discussion:
 * We can only cite information. We cannot draw conclusions. It is not in our scope nor within our ability to define or identify indigenous peoples.
 * If a reliable source claims indigeneity of a group, then it should be cited and included in this list.
 * A reliable source in this case would be (not limited to):
 * The people themselves
 * An organization representing those people
 * Various indigenous rights organizations, humanitarian organizations, NGOs, etc.
 * A third-party academic and establishment of general consensus in the academic community
 * Some formal recognition (government or otherwise)
 * In the absence of all the above, application of the definitions provided by the UN, ILO, etc. (Are there other notable definitions?) There is no one definition of indigenous, so the best we can do is collect all definitions by reputable organizations.


 * This is in line with and an expansion of the previous guidelines provided, which were erroneously removed by a bot in December 2012:


 * KaerbaqianRen 💬 17:28, 11 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I generally agree with this, with the proviso that we need to be cautious about groups claiming to be indigenous that are unable to present evidence of meaningful continuity from an indigenous people, such as many of the organizations listed in List of unrecognized tribes in the United States. - Donald Albury 17:51, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Agreed. The sources we should be most wary of are those defining themselves. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:56, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I understand your concern and feel the same. I am unsure how to weight self-determination in regards to credibility. You can see this being a bit of an issue with any number of groups attempting to claim indigeneity in the archives. At the same time, we can keep this list generally inclusive while addressing any issues on the talk page as has done before--unless you all can think of a different method. KaerbaqianRen 💬 18:10, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, if we stick as closely as possible to reliable, secondary and ideally scholarly sources, and ideally, wherever possible, to clear subject-matter experts, that should keep bogus claims to a minimum. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:29, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
 * (ec) I share the same concern, which is pushing me toward supporting taking the pre-2012 language and adapting from there. While in my professional, non WP-editor life, I'm 100% on board with indigenous self-identification, I recognize that this approach probably wouldn't stand up to WP's editing policies and procedures. The pre-2012 language makes it clear, we include groups which have first and foremost been reported by reliable sources to be indigenous. Then there's an explanatory list of the generally-considered reasons that reliable sources might report a group as indigenous, which could include self-identification. This keeps WP editors out of the business of evaluating statements - determining whether or not the statement speaks for the group, whether or not it's accurate, etc. - and falls in line with what WP editors do best: rely on the expertise of reliable sources. --Pinchme123 (talk) 19:37, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Which national variety of English?
changed the spelling of some words from British to American, and I reverted them. Pinchme123 sees a prevalence of American spelling in the article. I think that is not so clear cut for words that do vary between those two varieties of English and are not in quotes or part of citations. I do not have a set preference (I am American). Any opinions? Donald Albury 00:01, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Prior to the edit that prompted me to take a closer look, the count was 7 American words ("colonized", "recognized" twice, "colonization", "centered", "caribbeanization", "capitalization") to 2 British ("recognised" and "criticised") by my count. These counts exclude all wikilinked words, though I would note that all the wikilinked words are the American versions (e.g. versions of -ization). I'd also note that I missed a "practices". So I think it's 8 to 2, not including the wikilinks. Here's the prior version I was looking at: . I'd also note, the creator of this page used one word that would signal the regional preference in that first edit: "recognized". --Pinchme123 (talk) 00:21, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
 * OK. I have reverted myself. I apologize for any misunderstanding. Donald Albury 01:06, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Where's Mali people for instance, the Dogon etcetera? Saharan people
This article is deceptive, it's missing information Qwepo (talk) 05:15, 23 October 2023 (UTC)


 * I concur. The West African peoples were removed by an editor. There was a West Africa section years ago . Very strange!Tamsier (talk) 15:01, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Because if we're just going to include every ethnic group in Africa, it may as well be called List of contemporary ethnic groups, which already exists. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:07, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I 100% disagree with this sentiment. If groups are indigenous and spoken about as such by relevant sources, then they should be included. As for singling out "Africa", there are very specific ethnicities found on the continent that do not qualify for this article because they are not indigenous, so no, we won't be "includ[ing] every ethnic group in Africa". That the great majority of the others on the continent do belong here does not then mean the whole concept of indigeneity for the continent should be ignored.
 * and I did my best to undo the damage that editor did to the part of this article with which I have much more familiarity (restoring nearly all of what was incorrectly deleted to that part of the article, which was ~30% of all that were deleted) and would encourage anyone else who can bring a source to support reinstating West African indigenous groups to this article to do the same.
 * --Pinchme123 (talk) 06:21, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
 * You did an awesome job, but you need to create a new sub heading for West Africa under Africa section, because some of the West African peoples are placed under North Africa. Tamsier (talk) Tamsier (talk) 09:36, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Apologies, but I edited the sections of the article with which I am most familiar (Horn of Africa and African Great Lakes). I did not do any work to restore any of the West Africa section, which appears was fully deleted at that time. If you notice a problem with some other section or a section heading missing, I encourage you to add it to fix the categorical error. --Pinchme123 (talk) 16:47, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

South Asian section
Hello @Pinchme123, much of the content in the section South Asia is completely unsourced. Indo-Europeans are not considered indigenous to South Asia, (Kalash people only speak an Indo-European language but have an indigenous isolate ancestry). Additionally, all Adivasis too are not indigenous to the subcontinent, rather the term refers to both indigenous and non-indigenous tribal groups. PadFoot2008 16:12, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The image you removed using the edit summary "Unsourced" is of an Assamese woman, who is indeed indigenous. I have added two scholarly, unambiguous citations supporting Assamese as an entry on this list (and in those references I have included the exact quotations supporting them). Determining whether a culture is considered indigenous and thus appropriate for inclusion in this article is done by consulting reliable sources, particularly peer reviewed journal articles written by scholars. Given that Assamese are called indigenous by reliable scholars, and that Assamese are considered one of many cultures under the Adivasis label, it seems it isn't accurate to assert "all Adivasis too are not indigenous to the subcontinent". --Pinchme123 (talk) 17:20, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @Pinchme123, Since when did the Assamese as a whole start to be considered Adivasis? And this is incorrect Assamese are sometimes referred to as indigenous to distinguish them from Bangladeshi immigrants, they are not actually indigenous. See this source: . Also you are yet to prove that Indo-Europeans are indigenous to South Asia. That just seems like you are propagating Indigenous Aryanism which has been disproved by scholars. And just see the Adivasi article, it clearly states (with sources) that all Adivasis are not indigenous communities, only some are. PadFoot2008  17:52, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't know what technicality this author is referring to, can you point to elsewhere in the source where this technicality is spelled out? Because this could mean anything, including defining the technicality as 'what the government of India decides', which is in no way the ultimate authority of indigeneity. At any rate, we have here two sources explicitly asserting Assamese indigeneity (linked in the article), compared to one with a qualified (i.e. not full) refutation; in my estimation the sources favor the indigenous label. If "only some [Adivasi] are" indigenous, then there's nothing here refuting that Assamese are indigenous. I don't have to "prove" anything, you are the one here proposing a change to consensus, the onus is upon you to provide sources supporting the change. I'm not "propagating Indigenous Aryanism" by providing sources supporting their inclusion here as there's nothing here suggesting Assamese migrated out of the area to Europe (apparently a key component of the fringe theory you've accused me of). --Pinchme123 (talk) 18:39, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Indigenous Aryanism (incorrectly) claims that Indo-Europeans (the Assamese are IE) originated in India, which you too are claiming by mentioning that Assamese are indigenous to the region. The Assamese are Indo-Europeans, a group not indigenous to South Asia. See the article on Indo-Europeans. Besides the section also lists multiple other Indo-European groups for which sources have not been provided. Btw there exists no community consensus on this article talk page that says that Assamese are indigenous. Pinging @Austronesier, an expert in the field for his opinion on this matter. PadFoot2008  18:54, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * From WP:EDITCON: "Wikipedia consensus usually occurs implicitly." Not sure why you think there must be discussion on Talk for consensus to be established. I strongly suggest you familiarize yourself with Wikipedia's consensus policy.
 * I reject your absurdly simplistic description of the fringe theory, just so you can shoe-horn it into this conversation. At no point have I even suggested that any Assamese people spread out away from India and populated anywhere else, much less Europe (a key component of the fringe theory). Not to mention, none of this is relevant to determining what reliable sources say about Assamese groups and indigeneity.
 * If other editors wish to bring reliable sources here for discussion, I greatly welcome that! Please do! For now, the sources I see support the page's standing consensus, which is to include "Assamese" as a category on the page.
 * --Pinchme123 (talk) 19:29, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * And what is perhaps even more horrifying is that this article calls the Assamese people "Sino-Tibetan speaking peoples". PadFoot2008  19:02, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * So wait, is your entire objection based on your misreading of the entry? It clearly says "Indigenous Assamese people" and is therefore clearly in reference only to the indigenous groups listed underneath. Is your objection that the Assamese label is applied both to a narrowly-specific group of people (who are ethnically Assamese) indigenous to the area called Assam (presumably how the area got its name), and to other groups who are also found in that area and so called this because of the area's label? I see you've removed other entries, did you check any if they could be verified before you removed them? I seriously doubt this... --Pinchme123 (talk) 19:29, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I've gone ahead and moved entries around in that section of the article, to remove confusion over all this. Sourcing supports inclusion of Assamese people on this list. However, there's no reason to list the other groups under an "Assamese" label when that label is one of geography and not of ethnicity/language, so I removed that over-arching label for those groups and then moved them for alphabetical ordering. --Pinchme123 (talk) 19:45, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I disagree when you say: The Assamese are Indo-Europeans, a group not indigenous to South Asia. The Assamese speak an Indo-Aryan, thus Indo-European language, but (like – to various degrees – many other Indo-Aryan-speaking peoples of South Asia) have a complex history of ethnogenesis that involved assimilation of non-Indo-Aryan-speaking peoples and language shift over many centuries. Sure, Indo-Aryan speakers encountered autochthonous inhabitants when they migrated into South Asia four millenia ago. But you cannot apply this ancient migration event for labeling present-day ethnicities as "indigenous peoples" or "non-indigenous peoples" of South Asia. Most sources talk about Indigenous peoples in the context of colonialism and the resulting economic/cultural marginalization of native populations—in the worst case, expulsion and genocide (see the lede of Indigenous peoples). Contrasting Indo-Aryan vs. non-Indo-Aryan isn't relevant at all for this topic. It is also for this reason that I have reverted your recent addition to Indigenous peoples.
 * I cannot comment yet on the question of whether it is appropriate to include the Assamese people in this list article. Undeniably, the Assamese have experienced large-scale demographic pressure in the last century, but I am not sure if the majority of reliable sources cover this topic under the label of indigeneity, or if the use of this label is just a politicized POV. (You can check the history of Indigenous peoples and Talk:Indigenous peoples to see how that page regularly gets hijacked by POV-pushers in the Arab–Israeli conflict.) For this matter, I'm sure User:Chaipau can weigh in here much better than I can. –Austronesier (talk) 18:21, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @Austronesier, yes maybe there are some Assamese who are indigenous populations who adopted the Assamese language, but not all Assamese are indigenous even though all Assamese have some degree of indigenous ancestry. Just because a non-indigenous population has some degree of indigenous ancestry that wouldn't make the population indigenous. Native Americans are regarded as indigenous to the Americas, but Mestizos (Spanish people with varying degrees of Native American ancestry) are not regarded as indigenous. Similarly Anglo-Indians too are not "indigenous" to India. Additionally, the most important classifying criteria in the Indigenous peoples article are reliable sources that call them so, which there are plenty for Dravidians. See the section above . The only required criteria is for the group to be called indigenous by a reliable academic sources, the government, an NGO or a body that is represents the people (any one). Nad nowhere is it mentioned that indigenous peoples should only be used with regard to colonialism and/or a genocide is mandatory. PadFoot2008  03:56, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @PadFoot2008, I agree with @Austronesier. Let us not confuse "ethnic group" and "indigenous"/"autochthonous".  All the people in Northeast India are immigrants.  The earliest immigrants were Austroasiatic people, and linguists today agree that Austroasiatic languages form a substratum for the Assamese language.  So the Assamese people do constitute an indigenous people.  It also is indigenous in the sense that the Assamese people formation occurred in Assam.  It is definitely not an immigrant community. Chaipau (talk) 13:55, 11 June 2024 (UTC)