Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America/Archive 12

"world's tallest"
A link with the Totem pole article/title was on Alert Bay, British Columbia and I know there's several other places that make this claim about their poles. Strikes me there should be a List of tallest totem poles or some such list where they can be listed and compared; each in succession no doubt was the tallest of its time, or in its original location sometimes, but clearly "there can be only one".Skookum1 (talk) 08:03, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
 * There is also a question of what is an authentic totem pole verus some derivative piece of junk put up outside a tourist trap. Height is not what is relevant.  I'm generally a friend of the "citation needed" tag.  Montanabw (talk) 21:45, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
 * true enough, it's just that there are many different pages all claiming the same thing......if I get the time/inclination I'll assemble a bunch here as a demonstration......from London to Victoria to Alert Bay and elsewhere, the claim is made....."but there can be only one". List of totem poles might be a good thing, and many probably deserve separate articles, but could otherwise link to place/subsection names.Skookum1 (talk) 07:46, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

CfRs on Nuxalk, Sto:lo and St'at'imc categories
This is an advisory that I've started CfRs on the Sto:lo, St'at'imc, and Nuxalk categories to remove the diacriticals that are there for easier typing (the colon in Sto:lo is a convention in Canadian English now, though not a regular Roman character; it makes the "o" more like "aw", kinda; and the apostrophes in St'at'imc are not ejectives or glottal stops, they make the "t" into a "tl/lh"; but the diacriticals I mean are the o-circumflex and accent-a and other things that aren't readily available as you type and have to be copy-pasted. That's the thrust of the CfRs.....I was making British Columbia Indian Reserve redirects and stubs today and various fixes and wanted to use the Sto:lo category a good twenty times but didn't want the time copy-pasting it; it's not that petty though; the issue is standard anglicization of words originally spelt in another orthography; really the St'at'imcets spelling system is as alien from regular Romanization (deliberately so) almost as much as Tsalagi. Don't mean to rub anyone the wrong way, just explaining why the cat names need changing; just simplified, not harmonized with the people or language articles, that's not the intent of the CfRs; unless the convention of using indigenously-proper terms on NA and FN categories is to be discontinued, that is. As I pointed out to someone else, it's not the external name that counts for the category, it's what the people call themselves e.g. St'at'imc Nation is the main tribal council article, one of the lesser ones is Lower Stl'atl'imx Tribal Council (for the Lillooet people, as they are commonly known in English (though in BC St'at'imc is increasingly a norm). Oh, This is the Sto:lo CfR - the St'at'imc and Nuxalk one are next above it.Skookum1 (talk) 17:05, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Category:Squamish was a bad move
Squamish has more primary meanings than the Skwxwu7mesh people, the Cydebot cat-name change was ill-advised; please see comments at Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_May_3. I'll be having to make another CfR now, for Category:Skwxwu7mesh so it conforms to NorthAmNative guidelines re indigenous ethnocategory names and existing norms in Category:First Nations in British Columbia. I've advised User:The Bushranger and User:The Man in Question about their erroneous misapplication of Cydebot; this came from changing the name of the Swxwu7mesh article to Squamish people recently, along with others like it. Conventions for ethnographic categories exist in NorthAmNative, maybe it's time to codify them. Needless to say a category Category:Squamish people as the "individuals who are from the Squamish people" isn't workable as it also means "people from Squamish (place)".Skookum1 (talk) 06:42, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
 * CfR started see Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_May_4 and note also the Cree governments vs Cree nations one.Skookum1 (talk) 07:30, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_May_2#Category:Native_American_women_poets
You are invited to join the discussion at Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_May_2. Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 04:19, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_May_3#Category:Native_American_children.27s_writers
You are invited to join the discussion at Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_May_3. Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 04:19, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

RM - Chilcotin people back to Tsilhqot'in
Please see Talk:Chilcotin_people.Skookum1 (talk) 12:40, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Also similar at Talk:Lillooet people, Talk:Shuswap people, Talk:Kutenai people, Talk:Thompson people. Colonialist and indigenously insensitive attitudes towards indigenous preferences and the prevalent modern and accepted usage are being made by the editor opposing these reversions, which he did by speedy moves and without RMs.Skookum1 (talk) 06:59, 11 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Weighed in. That said, Kootenai is probably the most debatable, as there seem to be different issues on each side of the US/Canadian border, the other three seem pretty obvious. That said, if the Canadian side has really strong feelings on the issue, that's worth deference, so I supported all moves.  Montanabw (talk) 23:56, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Neither "Kutenai" nor "Kootenai" are used on the Canadian side of the border; only the Creston BC group uses "Kootenay" (Lower Kootenay First Nation and there, that's a reference to the river-name). "Kootenai" is used in one tribal organization name in the US, but they embrace the term Ktunaxa, notably in the cross-border organization's name, whatever it is (Canadian groups are in the Ktunaxa Kinbasket Tribal Council but there's a pan-Ktunaxa organization also).  My understanding is that the use of "Ksanka" in Montana is viewed as a dialect-form of "Ktunaxa" and is not a different name...or an English adaptation like Kootenai/Kutenai/Kootenay.  As with "Squamish" and "Lillooet" and potentially others, if "Kootenay" were to be used, it would cause huge confusion with "Kootenays" and all that article's attendant subarticles and categories.  All I  can say about Ktunaxa and Kutenai, comparing them, is that the latter is never heard/seen in Canada, and "Ktunaxa" is embraced by these people on both side of the border, and is also formal style in Canadian media and government publications now.....and drowns "Kutenai" with profoundly more google hits.Skookum1 (talk) 09:38, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm OK with whatever the consensus of the people themselves happens to be. "Kootenai" is more common in the USA, but just as with the "Sioux/Lakota" debate, I'm fine with whatever the people so named prefer.  I've personally only heard Kootenai/Kootenay, never Kutenai, and "Ksanka" is not a word used much in the general vernacular at all (maybe amongst academe...?)  but I'm in Montana, and I would agree that if the majority of the population is in Canada, and if folks on both sides of the border prefer the same name, I'm fine with Ktunaxa if that's the preferred form.   I suspect my own ear is just hearing something more like the "Blackfoot/Blackfeet" thing where the border shifts a vowel and those who care seem to care a lot.  But FWIW, I'm with you for all practical purposes. No worries here, I'm not really arguing the point, just mentioning it.  Montanabw (talk) 16:19, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Indian massacre


The article Indian massacre has been proposed for deletion&#32; because of the following concern:
 * Racist and POV attack list

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Montanabw (talk) 16:26, 13 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Started the merge discussion at Talk:Wars of the indigenous peoples of North America. Except for revisionism of inconvenient and unpleasant historical truths, there's no justification in deleting or merging Indian massacre. -Uyvsdi (talk) 16:52, 13 May 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
 * the merge and the PROD were both declined. Let's continue this above ^^^. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:25, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * That list is a historical farce. Too many gaps, misnamed encounters...I don't even know where to start, honestly. Intothatdarkness 18:31, 13 May 2013 (UTC)


 * And, unlike a PROD, you don't "decline" a merge. But let's discuss below Montanabw (talk) 18:36, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Indian massacres
Hi, I started a bit of clean-up in the category. For now, we have four subcats - massacres by, and of, First Nations and native americans. I suppose these correspond more or less to whether the acts happened in what is now the US vs what is now Canada - is that fair?

Secondly, the metric I've been looking at is the following - for "massacres by {x}", I was going to include in the category, even if they killed other Indians - there are several examples of this. Trickier examples are where settlers and native americans together raided another village and killed people there - but if there was a significant contingent of native americans present in the belligerent party, I added them to the "massacres by" category. "Massacres of X" is when, similarly, native americans were massacred, regardless of who was doing it. In some cases, I had to determine which side was the victim of the massacre, and which was the belligerent - in those cases, I usually went (rather ghoulishly) by body counts - if one side lost 2 and the other side lost 20, I considered it a massacre for the side that lost 20, but not for the side that lost 2. Let me know if this makes sense at all...

Another thought here is to eliminate the by/of categories, capture them in a list with more nuance, and group them all together into a more general massacres category - since there is a sort of continuum between a battle in which both sides lose men, a battle when one side crushes the other, and an attack by armed men on more or less unarmed civilians - and then there are campaigns and rebellions where all of the above happen - so I'm also not totally convinced that we need to split by/of here, as the nuance if perhaps a bit more subtle than that, and people on both sides usually died (either during the action, or during reprisals)

Another option that seems in a way more WP:Neutral would be to eliminate the "massacres of" category entirely, and create a new category on "massacres by european settlers" or something like that, to capture the active vs the passive sense.

Sorry if this is all a bit gruesome, I'm just trying to bring some order to these categories...

There are other issues, for example with some of these cats being sub-cats of White supremacy - I'm not really sure that works, as I don't think we can easily say it was white supremacy that led to these massacres of native americans, there are many other complex reasons why these things happened. Thoughts welcome on proper and non-POV placement of these stories in the category tree in general. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 02:23, 12 May 2013 (UTC)


 * This is a horrible category and IMHO needs to be deleted entirely. The Native American and First Nations subcats are of minor value, but the very word "massacre" is inherently POV.  The word most often appropriate is "battle," though in those cases where unarmed non-combatants were killed in cold blood [{Fetterman massacre]] or Wounded Knee massacre, for example) the word "battle" doesn't really fit either.  Curious what is used for similar situations in non-Native American contexts...  Montanabw (talk) 16:22, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Follow up: I've PROD tagged the article Indian massacres, the creator is someone I've come across in a few other articles trying to insert a pro-southern white man agenda and the rest of the editors seem to be debating the very "massacre" versus "battle" issue themselves. Montanabw (talk) 16:26, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Bit confused - mine is the first name in that article history. And I don't think I fit that description. But I can say with certainty that I am not the original author of it. The old software did not save all edit history - bit suspicious that such a page has no talk page edits until seven years after it was created but I couldn't find any earlier ones. Rmhermen (talk) 04:31, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Massacre is not more inherently POV than genocide is for example, and of course we need to be able to describe and categorize both genocides and massacres. But I agree it is not useful to have a single category encompassing both massacres against and by native americans and pitched battles between military forces. The prod is not going to work as the topic is clearly notable and well described in the literature. The only way out of this is to actually improve the article.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:30, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree - in this case, we have plenty of sources to back up the use of the word massacre, which I don't think is POV - especially given the use of the term by many reliable sources. The tricky thing here is whether we categorize the massacres by victim or belligerent, or just keep them all in a single category. And the question of whether we should separate battles between military forces and attacks on unarmed civilians. In any case, this isn't the venue for making a final decision on these categories, but I'd prefer to discuss here, get some sense of where the editors here feel is a good direction, then propose a CFD to make a final decision. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 17:13, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

File:SpiritCaveMan.jpg
File:SpiritCaveMan.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 08:35, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

possible subject expansion needed
The Reference desk is currently answering a question related to native culture groups, pointing out that our coverage may be incomplete. (Possibly our articles are too inconsistently named.) See Reference_desk/Humanities. Rmhermen (talk) 19:01, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Good point, but that particular question is straight from someone's American History textbook and they want us to do their homework for them! (grin)   Montanabw (talk) 22:36, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Aside from that referencedesk question, there are a lot of gaps in our coverage of "culture" articles...at the moment culture/ethno information is often on reserve or reservation articles, or on government pages; I was cruising around some of the Category:First Nations reserves in Ontario and related cats last night....; trying to untangle them is a big job, as some writeups are done as reserve titles, others as band-government titles (or reserve-government, when more than one people are part of the government), or as placename articles.....and also in some cases culture/ethno articles. And there's probably more to be done on "macro culture" articles, i.e. the ethnocultural region articles and people-as-language group articles; see Talk:Dene about Denendeh and the issues of that name for example.  The reserve/place/government/culture/language article separation "ideal" isn't across the board yet, and there's lots of "tangle"...that Ontario category has subcats that are parent cats of others, and so on....Skookum1 (talk) 02:21, 24 May 2013 (UTC)


 * And we have a WP:OR/SYNTH issue as well, in that, for example, almost every US history book out there uses the basic culture groups bunching in teaching pre-Columbian culture, yet that is a bit overbroad - yet, to do otherwise is to go off on tangents that probably exceed the scope of wikipedia.  And naming, oh man...  Montanabw (talk) 16:46, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * yeah those divisions have their issues; the Tsilhqot'in and Dakelh I'd consider "Plateau" rather than "Subarctic", and the Wet'su-we'ten have close ties to the Gitxsan; who are part of the coastal culture/civilization but not actually on the Coast...."Plains" is kinda amorphous in Canada and peoples bridge into the Subarctic...but like you say, those classifications come from the ethnology folks, and everyone knows native people can't be trusted to classify themselves, white people have to do that for them, huh? Joke.  And re naming, all I fundamentally understand is Wikipedia shouldnt' retrench names come up with by the Catholic Encyclopedia and Boas/Teit and others from over a hundred years ago, when clearer and more authentic and also culturally/politically-acceptable terms are now just not the norm; but the media/government standard.....Skookum1 (talk) 16:56, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Fallen Leaf
List of women warriors in folklore refers to a woman called Fallen Leaf, a Crow warrior who was Gros Ventre by birth. There is currently no Wikipedia article on any person named Fallen Leaf, but the article on Spotted Tail notes that he had a daughter called Ah-ho-appa (Fallen Leaf). Spotted Tail was Brulé Lakhota. The list of warriors doesn't include a date of birth or anything. Does anyone know if these are the same person? Is there some published source that might identify her (them)? Cnilep (talk) 06:45, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

NPOV and the word redskin
A few days ago an anonymous (IP) user tagged the article Redskin (slang) for POV. Two issues were cited: 1) whether the current meaning of the term is pejorative 2) the validity of polls reflecting a majority opinion regarding the use of the term as the name of the Washington NFL team.

As the major contributor to the article I see no reason for the tag; there may be issues in the content but POV is not one of them. Given the wide range of opinion, all points of view are given equal treatment in the current article. The use of Red and even Red-Skin may have originated in the late 17th to early 18th centuries as a neutral designator of race as were black and white. However, according to the OED the term became pejorative with time, and is now defined variously as insulting, demeaning, disparaging, or taboo in five American English dictionaries. It is also usually defined as archaic given that it has fallen out of general usage due to its connotations. The only remaining usage is in the names of sports teams. Only the owners and fans of these teams continue to maintain the neutrality of the term, or claim that they are "honoring" Native Americans in this usage, both of which are nonsense in the face of protests to the contrary. The fans continue to point to the two polls done, now many years ago, that a majority of Native American responding take no offense at the team names; thus labeling the individuals who protest as a minority of activists with a personal agenda. It was not difficult for me to find academic rebuttals to the validity of polls where Native Americans are self-identified, but my addition of these citations is seen as "slanted" by the anonymous editor.

There has been no other activity in the discussion, so I would likely remove the POV tag after a week; or does an Admin need to do so? FigureArtist (talk) 14:17, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * The tag can be removed if the editor placing it doesn't justify it at Talk:Redskin (slang). That would be the best place to discuss how to discuss this specific debate neutrally. It seems the vast majority of the Native community is not offended by "Washington Redskins" and the ones who say they are offended by it, are indeed very few in number, so perhaps unsurprisingly someone would challenge their credentials to speak for others.  Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 14:54, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I posted here to stimulate a discussion on the article's talk page; given the extremes of opinion I am bending over backward to deal with the POV tag fairly in spite of my first impulse to simply remove it as unjustified. I attended the recent symposium on the issue at the National Museum of the American Indian, and can assure anyone that the majority of Native Americans are offended by the name of the Washington team based upon scholarly research and true representatives of Native American opinion, such as the NCAI.


 * It's racist, flat-out, end of story. But in the cosmic scheme of "which battle do we want to fight against ignorant assholes this week," it's down there quite a ways.  There is a fairly major move to eliminate all mascot names that reference Native Americans, (save for a very few exceptions, such as FSU where the tribal people themselves specifically approve) and I suspect in 20 years they will be gone.   Montanabw (talk) 22:16, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * What's a "fairly major move?" It's the same extremely vocal minority who make a noise level several times larger than their number.  I've never met any actual Native people who get offended by this.  All I ever hear is that it's someone else's battle for people in Washington DC, being foisted onto them like it's a major issue.  There are several reasons why naming a sports team would not be defined as racist, inimical, or disrespectful to any race.  It's just not a real issue for most Native people so be aware that just because you claim it is one, not everyone will automatically agree with you or therefore allow you to become a spokesman for their own opinions. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 23:53, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I guess the civil rights movement was by the same "extremely vocal minority." I'm part Menominee and I'm offended by it.  So was my cousins wife (Lenape) and a host of other Indians I could list.  As far as not being an issue, I would suggest you talk to the University of North Dakota - who had to change their name from the "Fighting Sioux" because the Lakota and Dakota people voted against the use of the name as demeaning to the tribe.  Montanabw is dead on right.   GregJackP   Boomer!   00:11, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * You are wrong, the African American civil rights movement was supported by a significant majority in the US. What is your point or are you implying some other analogy? Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 00:28, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Only at the end was it supported by a majority. The movement went on for decades with almost no support, especially from the Anglo-European Americans, who overwhelmingly supported the status quo.   GregJackP   Boomer!   00:50, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Absolutely correct, GregJackP. Til, you mean well, but lack a complete grasp of US History on this one; the majority backs the status quo until they are beaten over the head with a need to change.  And as for the African-American community, the outrage over the election and re-election of our current President (going beyond mere ideological differences of opinion) is proof positive that even that issue is far from resolved.  Further, where the "vocal minority" happen to be comprised mostly of people actually affected, that is well worth noting.  Not only the "n-word," but also slurs like "retard" and "cripple" are in the process of being eliminated from our vocabularies for reasons of basic human decency; likewise, "redskin" needs to go.   Montanabw (talk) 17:57, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * No, I don't think I do lack a grasp of US History in the least, but thanks for sharing your assessment of my knowledge. Most of what I'm seeing here is strictly your own opinions, and hardly "proof positive" of everything, and there seems to be a kind of expectation for everyone else to automatically view the debate from your vantagepoint, but reality is what it is, it doesn't have to be invented, and if outrage is being pushed onto most people, "affected" or not, don't expect very genuine outrage. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 19:04, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that most of the content on Redskin (slang) should be merged to Washington Redskins mascot controversy with a See link. Moving that three-ring-circus elsewhere will greatly enable a neutral POV to be maintained. Stuartyeates (talk) 00:19, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I recognize that there is an issue regarding a balance of the two articles, however the linguistic history and current meaning of the word as pejorative intersects with the team name controversy. There are no references to the word as neutral that are not biased justifications for keeping the team name. Ironically, fans continue to talk out of both sides of their mouth by saying that the word now only means football, not Indians; and they are honoring Native Americans by putting on feathers and war paint for the games. (And yes, this is important to me because I am a native of Washington, DC, and cannot get away from hearing this racial slur in the media constantly, even in the off-season). I think everything I have contributed is carefully sourced to remove these personal feelings, included the part I wrote debunking the redskin = scalp story for lack of documentation that it is fact rather than legend. The actual use of the word as a slur is bad enough without clouding the issue with unsupported arguments. FigureArtist (talk) 01:40, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I think a fair bit of what's here on the team mascot issue COULD be moved to the other article so long as the POV-pushers there don't engage in troll-like behavior to keep it out; but I'd do it with a section link rather than a see also so that it is more visible. I do think it wise to avoid unneeded duplication. What's the editing climate like over at the other article?  Could a move stick?  Montanabw (talk) 17:57, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * There is little activity on any of these related articles. I account for almost half of it, but am mainly interested in the main article Native American mascot controversy. There was push-back there when I began major changes, but not recently, mainly wordsmiths/grammar not content. FigureArtist (talk) 05:12, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Walkara.jpg
image:Walkara.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 05:58, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Update to WikiProject main page
I've gone and updated our WikiProject main page to make it a little more current, and see if a revised layout can improve our participation rate. Someone with a better grasp of layout could no doubt improve it further ... Djembayz (talk) 19:20, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Six articles about Native American women leaders up for deletion
Please weigh in at Articles for deletion/the remaining members of the council of grandmothers if you have an opinion on this. (Naturally, comments based on Notability (people) ) are most effective. Djembayz (talk) 22:27, 16 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I rest my case that WP is plagued by white male bias.  Sigh...  Montanabw (talk) 17:04, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

TfD
I nominated Template:Five Civilized Tribes for deletion, since it's arbitrary, obsolete term, and the template itself is pretty useless. The discussion is here. I created Template:Choctaw and Template:Seminole, which hopefully do provide useful navigation for Wikipedia users. Ideally every major tribe with a sizable number of articles could have its own navigational template. -Uyvsdi (talk) 18:02, 17 June 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi


 * On any of those of the five, are there any community articles, either in the SE or west of the Mississippi, that could be a separate section? I'm thinking of the broad ones in t he Pacific Northest, e.g Coast Salish and Kwakwaka'wakw and Squamish and the like.....including persons and band goverment and tribal councils and such....i.e. could that template have any more utility if it weren't so stark?  the Coast Salish one is unwieldy to me, but the by-people ones work fairly well e.g. Sto:lo and {{tl}Nlaka'pamux}}.Skookum1 (talk) 18:53, 17 June 2013 (UTC)


 * As I mentioned above, there's Template:Choctaw and Template:Seminole, and there's also Template:Cherokee. My argument is the grouping is arbritary, and while it certainly merits an article (which is has), it doesn't merit a template. -Uyvsdi (talk) 03:01, 18 June 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
 * There's templates for Sto:lo and "Squamish" as I mentioned, who are part of the Coast Salish. The grouping is a historical name and very common, I don't see the need for deletion, only for improving the template.Skookum1 (talk) 03:07, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The term is incredibly Eurocentric and offensive, since it implies other tribes aren't "civilized" (for instance, the still very-much-existent Iroquois Confederacy that helped inspire the US constitution) or that these people have assimilated to European-American culture. I dare you to go tell a Mississippi Choctaw that they are assimilated. -Uyvsdi (talk) 03:18, 18 June 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi

"Squamish" template was wrongly speedied
Re above, Squamish oh no, not another speedy based on an ill-advised RM of the main article.....gree. I'll take this elsewhere......the imposition of non-indigenous names on indigenous items by non-indigenous editors with no respect for indigenous identity and heedless of why such things were created as they were, and by who, has got to STOP. More wrecking-crew damage by the unknowing and arrogabnt and ill=informed....grrrr time for f'in' bed. My proposal to set guidelines for indigenous articles, categories et al and indigenously-correct language I hope you all are giving serious thought to. That one's got to be versed.....people applying guidelines as rules without any consideration for the content and meaning has got to STOP!!Skookum1 (talk) 19:00, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The problem with that one was probably the diacritical structure, people couldn't get past seeing a "number 7" in the middle of a word. Not sure how to get around that.  I'd say see how many other articles you can get to the names preferred by the actual people and once you have 90%+ that way, come back to this one.  The case will be stronger for getting something that "looks weird" to be accecpted.  JMO.  Montanabw (talk) 23:52, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, well we know what happened to Deadmau5 and I shudder to think about what will happen to UJ3RK5 and Esla7an; I brought up Brother XII.........wikipedia should not MAKE reality, or edit it, that's not its place. But tell that to people armed with WP:MOS like it's Holy Writ and out to slay the infidel....no doubt we'll see "consensus" move Sto:lo to Stolo next then insist it should be Stohlo until someone points out that it's pronouncedStaulo oh no wait, Stowlo until some insists that hte "English name" be used ("Fraser River Indians".....next up {Deadmaus]] => Deadmouse.` Everybody playing at being editor, nobody taking time to be a writer....and people making the Deadmau5 "decision" admitted to never having heard of him......Skookum1 (talk) 15:25, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
 * It's a special character, like the colon in Sto:lo (which in Halqemeylem text, isn't a colon either, it's little triangle thingies, the top one pointing down) (diacriticals are accents, underscores etc), which the original title did have, and lots of....as also with St'at'imc and its just-changed category which is now without them). The 7 and the colon are conventions used in English media and publications, same as with St'at'imc which in St'at'imcets (their language) even the [t'] is not just t-apostrophe, it's a diacritical-special character combination.......the main argument in the RM, I think the clincher used by the closer, I'll look again, was that "Squamish" was adjudged to be "MOSTCOMMON"....but it's also much more common as the name of the town....which is the big problem with that category, and why neither the main article nor the category for the people were named that way by the article's creator (User:OldManRivers, who himself is Skwxwu7mesh and Kwakwaka'wakw/'Namgis).  The unworkability of the plain-jane "Squamish" title for the category/template is obvious enough to nearly any British Columbian, same as with why "Shuswap", "Lillooet", "Chilcotin" and "Kootenay/Kutenai" were unsuitable and confusing and those we had recourse to media and government style guides to get them RMd back to where they belong Secwepemc, St'at'imc, Tsilhqot'in and Ktunaxa); also because they were wrongly speedied by a certain kwamster without discussion; the weight of the RM on Talk:Squamish people, which IMO was a faulty decision made by people not familiar either with the town or the people or the context of such terms in modern Canadian English (where Sto:lo, Nlaka'pamux, Secwepemc, Nuxalk and the like are now standard and also official, as well as the preference of the peoples themselves), and whaever happened to, as I said on Good OlFactory's page, WP:NORULES.  People using guidelines as MANDATORY rules is b.s. complete and entire, and with indigenous articles the lack of consideration given to modern and historical contexts and identities has to be part of any discussion on those titles; some said, even (including the k-man) that such points are not valid in Wikipedia, that their own feelings and preferences are irrelevant, what Wikipedia mandates is what is going to go down.  Which is why I'm thinking that rather a passel of RMs and more CfDs and TfDs, and considering the credentials and identity of those who created certain articles (Dakelh now Carrier people and Category:Dakelh were created by User:Billposer, who is the pre-eminent scholar in that field today), that should be taken into account far more than the guideline-imposing/jugggling of the half-informed in other countries.....Skookum1 (talk) 01:55, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
 * and 90% of people are wrong; sheer numbers of the ignorant and not-educated-as-to-the-on-the-ground-reality-and-in-use-modern-terminology does not make anything "right"....or we wouldn't be using "First Nations" or "indigenous" or "Native American", we'd be using "Indian"....90% of people abroad, including Thai in translation as I found out last night, use "Red Indian".Skookum1 (talk) 02:25, 18 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I moved this template in December 2011. As far as I know, no one has taken exception to the move until now. The tribal government uses "Squamish Nation" all over their website, including the copyright notice on the bottom. gives you 11,500 hits,  one. Kauffner (talk) 05:09, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
 * that's because I had no idea the template had been changed as well as the category, and had I know of the RM I would have strongly opposed it for all of the above reason. The BAND government (tribal governance more refers to traditional governance, not Indian Act-mandated band governments, which are entirely different and mandated by the federal government, though it will change a band's name if requested, as in many cases such as among the Tsilhqot'in and others.  The Squamish Nation website if you read more than just the copyright notice, uses Skwxwu7mesh throughout its pages.  The whole idea, and then-existing consensus among those who built the indigenous category structure, of using the endonyms instead of the "common" and/or legal band government names, was to avoid confusion, and to avoid confusing with primary usages of their "common" names which would cause exactly the kind of name confusion that has resulted from with the names or this template and the category, and "FOO people" as a construction is in error, across Wikipedia, because of its other meaning of "people from or belonging to FOO"; a "namespace collision" as Obiwankenobi referred to it.  It's not viable, i.e. using "Squamish" as a title for either the category or the template.  User:OldManRivers who with me and others derived this system, which unfortunately we did not see fit to publish as a convention or consensus, but which was very real AND practical, fought long and hard for the use of the diacritical forms but has since shrugged at this, not because he doesn't care but he knows it's futile arguing with "settlers" about what they want to call native peoples.  Especially if they're not from BC and don't understand the contexts and recent history involved, including the marked distinction between "FOO (people" and "[anglicization] (First) Nation", and how distinct the people calling themselves (and they do, in English) the Skwxwu7mesh are not the same thing as their government, which is a departure from their traditional society and, like all governments, is held in some disregard by those who dislike their policies and practices; This is one case where there is one government for one people, although different communities of them in North Vancouver and in Squamish itself.  The reason that the endonyms were made a standard vs the band-names and tribal council names is because in many cases, there are many separate band councils and tribal councils of the same people; I've listed them in various places; the place that comes immediately to mind where I did that is on User talk:Salix Alba but also in the various RMs and CfDs of late concerning St'at'imc, Nlaka'pamux, Secwepemc, and Tsilhqot'in, also on Ktunaxa (see the RMs on their talkpages).  In the first three cases - no, four - there are independent bands, two or more tribal councils, and some bands that belong to two different peoples, and tribal councils and treaty groups that span multiple peoples and regions.  That standard is workable; imposing outside definitions without considering the overall context or even the local context, in Skwxwu7mesh's/Squamish's case is not workable.  The primary use of "Squamish" is for Squamish, British Columbia, same problem with Lillooet, Shuswap, Chilcotin and Kootenay; "we" have let the Okanagan case slide because "Syilx" which is their proper name has different spellings stateside and because it's not really in use - though Skwxwu7mesh is.  In fact, when you turn off the Lions Gate Bridge east along Marine Drive, around the intersection of Capilano Road, the Squamish Nation has as sign up for a preschool and uses the term Skxwu7mesh.  The expert on these matters is User:OldManRivers who I have notified via FB and I hope he comes by....he's an activist, yes, but also the person leading the Skwxu7mesh snichim revival (that's their language, as it's called in their language). Similarly Category:Dakelh and Dakelh, which was the original name of the article now called Carrier people, their "old" name, was launched by User:Billposer, who is the head of the Yinka Dene Language Institute in Vanderhoof and is the leading modern authority on those people.  That article and category were one of the ones pre-existing at the time OMR and I and several others worked out the consensus that has been ignored, quite summarily IMO, and which I'm constantly aggrieved at the equation of "band=people" for name justifications, such as you have just done.  Not all of the division/separation of language/government/reserve or reservation/people etc articles and categories has been done continent wide; in a few cases such as with Musqueam, who are also in the Vancouver area, it wasn't done because there is no standard accepted spelling for the Hulquminum (Downriver Halkomelem) name, which is something like Hwmethwyem.....note Sts'Ailes vs Chehalis First Nation, Tscwayalc'mc vs Pavilion Indian Band, Lil'wat if it exists yet with Mount Currie Indian Band.  There's good reason for these distinctions, reasons that only a few people around here "get"; I'm not native myself but have lived alongside them and have many friends and have learned a lot about them, and worked with them on cultural matters here and elsewhere.  The rashness of the moves and the lack of information (or false information) fielded in all cases is staggering sometimes; one person (Obiwan?) even though the Skwxwu7mesh were in Washington state; in fact, they did used to be spelled as "Sko-ko-mish" but that was too similar to Skokomish, i.e the Twana, as they are already known, and that's one reason the second 'k' was dropped; they still get confused with the Suguamish.  Strict adherence to supposed "rules" which are in fact only guidelines has caused a lot of wreckage to what has been a very workable system until the fox was set among the pigeons, and IMO chaos has resulted in all the cases I've mentioned. Instead of researching and improving articles, people have been playing name-games without knowing what they're talking about or looking into why and by whom the categories and articles and templates were named and created in the first place.  Instead of doing constructive things about these subjects, the many speedies and the TFDS and CFDS that have occurred - and thankfully in teh above-namned cases has now been prevented.....I hope - has taken up huge amounts of energy....and you know what?  Those who speedied them and in this case RMd them didn't even take time to work on the articles themselves.  Even the ledes remained the same, instead of being reworked to the new (if wrong) titles.  Not just speedy, but sloppy and reckless.  One editor in particular, those here know exactly who I'm talking about I'm sure...See also on User talk:Good Olfactory towards the bottom; sorry I may have spouted off about you, I'm just completely exhausted and frustrated at the number of times I've had to explain and re-explain this and how many articles, categories, and templates have been affected; there's clearly a need for an indigenous-content guideline, like how ENGVAR and CANMOS exist for Canadian English (of which these names are a part).  A bulk RM will not suffice, it's clear that more than article names are affected and will continue to be so if other "rules" are imposed without reference to context or current usage or an understanding of the many distinctions and terminologies at play in these matters.  And it was pointed out by Lili Charlie, I think the user name is, that a main article title does not have to require a name change to cats or templates, and that there are many exceptions to that, especially where there are good grounds for same.  That's why my comment "knee-jerk" and so on- acting without thinking or presuming that a guideline is a rule, It's not, especially given the Fifth Pillar (NORULES).  These all need to be rolled back, RMd or not; Salix Alba is apparently reconsidering his "no consensus" ruling on Category:Cree nations which is different in nature but involves similar issues.  Biggest among them, to me, is lack of knowledge of the subject matter by participants and by closers.....so much time spent fixing what has been broken that was working just fine.....all because people who didn't know, and didn't take time to learn and comprehend, "voted", and made erroneous arguments, often very strange and sometimes "colonialist" to boot.  I've proposed a set of guidelines and explained the old consensus time and time again; it's when there's a "geonamespace collision" as in the Squamish case, the need is clear.  And urgent.Skookum1 (talk) 07:55, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

HERE is another example of why people such as yourself, Kauffner, should not' be moving and changing materials you don't know anything about...."part of a series on Squamish" in British Columbia means the town/district of Squamish''. All of these speedies that happened while OMR and I were away are not just suspect and ill-informed, they were unwise and erroneous. And without context or thoughtful inquiry as to why those things were titled the way they were by the creators....and the "Nation" link goes to the band government, though in Canada that has overtones of nationality and ethnic identity also, which is distinct from band government, and not in subtle ways. And I even heard in the RM, which I found out about after coming back in from the cold, as it wer, people sayhing "well those editors aren't around anymore so it doesn't matter what they think", which is just asinine, given that nobody in that group was FROM either Squamish, or were Skwxwu7mesh themselves. I know CJLippert and Uysvidi get what I'm saying...I have too book off for a few days because my feet are swollen, my blood pressure is through the roof (I'm 57) and I'm tired of having to explain to myself to people who point out about "policy" that's only loose guidelines to justify their mistakes. When I come back, I'm gonna start a sandbox off this WikiProject to address all the issues I know "we" came to a workable, if not fully applied, consensus a few years ago; and which make sense far beyond anything I'm seeing/hearing now. The template should be reverted, the RM overturned, this side bar also, and so on; you were all ignorant (and yes, I'll use that word) of t he causes, teh rationale, the context, "you" are all just applyling gidelines with no regard for content or context, especially the wording and titles resulting from your changes, but also how articles will read once links and pipes are changed willy-nilly......CHAOS. Rewriting and renaming thoughtfully-arrived at content on the basis of a pack of conflicting and ill-conceived "rules and policies" (guidelines) is more than unworkable, it's destructive.Skookum1 (talk) 10:47, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I have more to say, though more constructive for me when the time comes, since my time is short (and I don't mean just limited) is to start the guidelines and hope the informed take part. Wikipedia' credibility is low enough as it is in the real world....you're not who this is about but another editor liked a quip I made about the endonym RMs he drafted a draft comment page about it WP:Brat in a bubble.  All the construtive work I put in here for a number of years has been overturned, I'm not talking about WP:OWN but there should be a WP:RESPECT piece on respecting the work of those who came before you, instead of saying "oh they're not here any longer, we don't have to pay attention to anything they said/did", which was the gist of those comments in teh Squamish RM.  One of the people who helped "us" construct all these systems of organization and naming, by the way, is User:Phadriel, may Great Coyote bless her soul, I hope she is well.  If only there were those of her sagacity and deep knowledge and spirit still around to keep the white wolves at bay.  Quite literally.Skookum1 (talk) 10:51, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Just found another "k-speedy" from the same time period, and also with complications, especially now as Sechelt, British Columbia is now Sechelt. See here. All such speedies by that editor should be reverted as being undiscussed; I have yet to get on about the parallel changes to the language pages, the peoples articles were enough strain to "win" (overturn). As mentioned, I have health problems and other work to do, but encountering these moves all the time and sometimes when they affect language in other articles, or in articles planned, is a real pain in the a##.Skookum1 (talk) 02:48, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Five Civilized Tribes
template:Five Civilized Tribes has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 02:23, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
 * See two discussions above this. -Uyvsdi (talk) 03:02, 18 June 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
 * So based on recommendations on the discussion of this template, it's now Indian Removal. The scope of template is the question, since almost every tribe in the US has been removed, if even just to a portion of their original homeland. This would refer to "Indian Removal" as a US federal policy in the 19th century. Typically it refers to Eastern tribes removed to Indian Territory and surrounding areas; however, I wonder if the western tribes should be included as well? And this template will have to be distinguished from Aboriginal title in the United States. Any improvements on the template would be greatly appreciated. Cheers, Uyvsdi (talk) 19:00, 22 June 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
 * So it went from bad to worse? Can you give URL /wikilink to actual discussion??
 * Didn't "we" go through a long discussion about something very much like this re Indian Wars, which I think now is title American Indian Wars, and is somehow distinguished from the "massacres" topic/category, since renamed...to something? Most people think of the Indian Wars as those on the Great Plains, and maybe the Southwest; those in the Pacific Northwest are kind of separate but not unconnected (i.e. the Yakima, Cayuse, Nez Perce, Rogue River, Puget Sound etc....).  Five Civilized Tribes, at least to me speaking as someone from "outside and far away", is an identifiable group of tribes and a certain period, and about their local civilization; "Indian Removal" means the physical act of forced relocation......reductio in absurdum is going on all over the place in Wikipedia, the levelling and merging of terms and such......not just in IPNA material I mean......so much energy with so little mental fertilizer yielding stale fruit that all tastes the same, with the same label.Skookum1 (talk) 01:07, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, to quote my mother quoting Bridwell, "What you mean 'we', white man?" All Native American studies programs go through the basic steps of US federal Indian policy, and "Indian Removal" is Native American history 101. The primary article is Indian Removal, which is reflected in the published literature. -Uyvsdi (talk) 15:52, 23 June 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
 * I agree Indian removal is a policy characterizing a specific historic period of US-Native relations. I think it should include any Western tribes as for which we have a source stating that they were affected by the Indian removal act. Presumably this would include the tribes inhabiting those areas where the relocated Eastern tribes arrived. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:18, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
 * So if the scope included all tribes removed during the 19th century, probably linking to individual tribes would not be feasible, and instead the template should stick to the articles that are overviews of removal? -Uyvsdi (talk) 17:04, 23 June 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
 * Yeah, if we want a template on Indian removals and we don't want it to just be a list of most US tribes we would somehow have to have a somewhat stricter criterion for inclusion. I think articles that specifically are about removal events would be a good way to restrict it. But how many articles do we have about such events?User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:14, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your practical suggestions, User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw·. I'll initiate discussion of the scope of the template on the Template talk:Indian Removal. Cheers, 16:23, 24 June 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi


 * Believe me, I know I'm a sama7 all too well (St'at'imcets for "whitey", more like "honky" with a dark edge on it, almost the equivalent of the n-word). My point is that the subject of the Five Civilized Tribes per se is somewhat different than the subject of the Indian Removal.  That term was also not used as part of the wars in the Pacific Northwest, or in California.  To me, speaking as someone external to the US who nonetheless, like other Canadians and other non-USians, it speaks to that policy, not to the era when the Five Civilized Tribes were still on their home turf; as different as the article on the Sioux and the Indian Wars or the Cayuse people and the Cayuse War.  Up here, we don't merge the Metis with the Riel Rebellions, even though the latter is about what happened to the former....Skookum1 (talk) 16:33, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I confess I'm fascinated by the complete lack of communication that is transpiring during this entire procedure. Regarding "the era when the Five Civilized Tribes were still on their home turf" — the Mississippi Choctaw, the Eastern Band Cherokee, the Poarch Creeks, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida are still in their traditional homelands today. -Uyvsdi (talk) 17:04, 23 June 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
 * Well, if they're still there, then why talk about their removal? Just a rhetorical question; I'm referring to their state before the removals, when all of their bands were still in their homelands.  My point remains the same; there's a distinction between peoples and events and policies affecting them.Skookum1 (talk) 21:33, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The trail of tears, Skookum, one of the more public genocidal actions of the US Government. That's why this is a big deal. A few bands managed to evade removal, mostly by disappearing into remote areas.  Most of their fellow tribal members got ousted.  Nasty stuff.  Montanabw (talk) 17:33, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The merge has already happened.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:53, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
 * So all this is a moot point.....to me though unfamiliar with all the material in these cases, it sounds like a merge between potlatch and potlatch ban.Skookum1 (talk) 21:33, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

And as usual, Native people's views about themselves are again ignored. Sigh... Montanabw (talk) 17:33, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Except it was Uyvsdi who nominated it for deletion.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:36, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Not the original, the solution that made the problem worse. I have too many pots to stir to tackle this one too...   Montanabw (talk) 21:07, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Consolidated "massacre" discussion here
Maybe instead of having this scatter all over several articles and categories, we can centralize the discussion here. I'll lay out my concerns, and everyone else can lay out theirs for more discussion. I am not particularly concerned about where these categories and articles are merged to, I threw in the ones I used as a quick and simple solution (geez, but this is WP, nothing is ever quick and simple), what I really take issue with is using inflammatory language where it is not needed - and inaccurate or incomplete descriptions. So that's where I am going. Montanabw (talk) 18:33, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * A massacre is a massacre and it would be wrong to call it anything else. Whether something is a massacre is determined by whether that is how it is described in reliable sources. The term "Indian Massacre" has historical baggage that I agree is undesirable and it is also imprecise in that it describes very different kinds of scenarios. The solution is to have different kinds of massacres involving Native Americans in different lists.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:40, 13 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Problem 1: The  phrase "Indian massacres" is overbroad and holds the potential to perpetuate the "bloodthirsty savage" stereotype.  Also, to the casual reader, it grammatically implies acts committed BY native people against white people; no amount of explanatory text can fix that problem.   Montanabw (talk) 18:33, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Problem 2: Both Category:Indian massacres and the article Indian massacres are crappy lists, including a lot of incidents that were actually battles that may have been one-sided, but scarcely a genocidal attack on unarmed noncombatants.  Conversely, both also EXCLUDE several notable events where unarmed noncombatants WERE, basically, murdered.    Montanabw (talk) 18:33, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Problem 3: While I agree that many individual events have been labeled this-or-that "Massacre" by history (take, e.g. Boston Massacre, for example), sometimes for political reasons, that doesn't mean that an overview category or wikipedia list article should do the same.  Overview titles should be neutrally phrased.   Montanabw (talk) 18:33, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually your problem 1 has a reverse side as well. It can also perpetuate the myth that all encounters were between those bloodthirsty soldiers and innocent villages. We need to balance both those perceptions with the reality, and using inaccurate language doesn't do that. Intothatdarkness 18:45, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * This was the problem I ran into when first looking at these cats - as they had this notion of "by" and "of" - but if for example a bunch of white (english) soldiers went in a massacred a bunch of french (white) settlers, that wouldn't fit in any of the categories, unless they happened to bring along a few Indians, in which case it now becomes a Massacre by Native Americans. There is also, as I noted above, a continuum between a bald massacre of unarmed women and children by whichever side, and an authentic battle in which one side just smashes the other - and the reality is many situations were somewhere between - belligerents attack a village, the men (and women) raise arms to defend, some attackers are killed, the remaining villagers are massacred. These events happened, and they were (rightly) called massacres, so we need to group them somehow - and calling them "wars" or "rebellions" doesn't cut it. But I don't know the best name.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:05, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * There are a number of issues surrounding some of this, and it partly comes down to how Frontier history is approached here. You have articles like Comanche Campaign that refer to things that didn't exist in the sense (or even under the name) that the article claims. The coverage is, on the whole, slim and biased by large events (anything relating to Custer will wrack up tons of stuff). Sorry for the side rant, but I think some of that does play into how these things are grouped and then discussed. Intothatdarkness 19:09, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * re: Indian massacres list, look at the a version from say 2008, which contains the following lede: "In the history of the European colonization of North America, the term "Indian massacre" was often used to describe either mass killings of Europeans by indigenous people of the North American continent ("Indians") or mass killings of indigenous peoples by Europeans (or occasionally mass killings between different groups of indigenous peoples, as in the Cutthroat Gap Massacre). In theory, massacre applied to the killing of civilian noncombatants or to the summary execution of prisoners-of-war. In practice, the label was often haphazardly applied, rarely without bias, and was sometimes used to describe an overwhelming (though lawful) military defeat. Similarly, massacres were sometimes mislabeled "battles" in an attempt to give legitimacy to what would today be considered a war crime. Some incidents remain disputed as to whether they were massacres or battles." This seems like a bit of nuance that is now left out. I also note that, in spite of it's problems, the Indian massacres article has been around since 2001! - I didn't know of many articles that are that old, so please keep that in mind as you launch critiques against it - of course it's not perfect, etc, but it has survived the test of time somehow... --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:17, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * re: problem #2 - the answer there is easy - WP:SOFIXIT. I don't think anyone is fighting to say certain incidents where say civilians - either native americans or europeans - were killed - by native americans or europeans - should be left out of these lists. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:24, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The mess of an article I linked above has been around since at least 2005...and it's based on a term that the Army cooked up to award streamers to unit flags for lineage purposes. The article may have survived because it's good and even-handed, or it may have survived because it happened to fit the preconceptions of people, or maybe it survived because no one really looked at it in a serious way. It's hard to say. Intothatdarkness 19:27, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I'll copy-paste my comments from the other discussion verbatim here, though the opening concerns a matter which needs its own section, and maybe a group sandbox to begin work/discussion towards; the rest is a loose list of native-against-native massacres (and they were) and a few native-against-whites ones, too (mostly marine fur trade items) :::WP:IPNA needs to be more pro-active about a series of guidelines for MOS and also a set of "indigenous sensitivity/authenticity" guidelines within the project and a template like the Canadian English one, I think it is, that can be placed on Canada-topic articles about Canadian English overriding "global" standards. About this "massacres" business, it's always been a loaded word on both sides; there's a Category:Mass murders in Canada that was added to the Klatassine or Chilcotin War articles recently, and that was about the group execution of the natives, not about the slaughter (and it was) of the white road crew that launched things off.  Applying that was POV in nature, from the native view that judicial murder is still murder etc. (retroactive apology/pardons have been made in recent years).  As for natives killing natives, there's a BC Names item on an island in Owikeno Lake that's, um, disturbing, as also the slaughter of the Comox by the Haida recounted in the Adam Grant Horne article, I think it is; the Tonquin incident, the Susan Sturgis incident in what is now officially Haida Gwaii, the rapine of the Straits and Puget Sound Salish, every four years or so like the "wraith" in Stargate: Atlantis (scary masks and all), by the certain Haida, Tlingit and Tsimshian in a regular raiding/killing alliance (see Puget Sound War and  the USS Massachusetts (1845) article, the Tsilhqot'in attacks on Chinlac and also on the St'at'imc (no article or section on that yet, it's hard to cite but common knowledge in local history), the genocide against the Lakes Lillooet (Seton and D'Arcy bands) that was part of Nicola's War and lots more....the extermination of the Stuwix by Secwepemc raids, and so on.....  I suggest "conflicts" vs "massacres" for any of these categories/articles as being "safer" and more NPOV. Skookum1 (talk) 02:46, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It's tricky, and a fuzzy continuum. But when one group camps outside a village, sneaks in during the night, slaughters the men and walks off with the women and children, it's kind of hard to call that a 'conflict'. I'm all for removing any perceived bias against or for native americans in the category names, and clearly people on all sides committed atrocities - but conflicts just seems weak as a grouping name.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 02:53, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Regarding the suggestion of "indigenous sensitivity/authenticity" guidelines, I doubt very much that will fly with mainstream editors. Non-Native online seem to go ballistic when asked to be culturally sensitive to Indigenous peoples, so I usually argue for factual accuracy. List of events named massacres uses Oxford's definition of massacre, "the indiscriminate and brutal slaughter of people or (less commonly) animals; carnage, butchery, slaughter in numbers," so that's a starting place. Meanwhile battle requires "two or more armed forces, so when there is only one armed force, and the victims are largely unarmed, that suggests a "massacre." Since the First Nations and Native Americans have been distinguished as "by" and "of," Category:Indian massacres can be used as an umbrella category and for all Indian people not from Canada or the United States, for instance, Selknam Genocide. -Uyvsdi (talk) 05:51, 14 May 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
 * indigenous sensitivity over the use of their endonyms vs what a certain pack of WP:Languages editors want/have decided (without cites or facts) has already been ignored/dismissed on the RMs underway at the moment, and no doubt of the UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights were cited re this matter, it would be dumped on too. Wikipedia's brat-in-a-bubble tendencies are an obstacle to fair and just coverage of FN/NA content..."only English names are allowed in Wikipedia" is pretty out of left field when Kauxuma Nupika, Maquinna, Wickaninnish to say nothing of a good few hundred placenames in BC alone.......some kind of MOS guideline governing FN/NA categories and articles is needed in relation to such loudly-thumped absurdities.Skookum1 (talk) 09:03, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

"Brat in a bubble!" OMG, LOL, ROFLMAO! Love it! But seriously, "Non-Native online seem to go ballistic when asked to be culturally sensitive to Indigenous peoples" is a real problem I have run across in places other than wikipedia, and it seems to stem from ignorance that Native/indigenous people are REAL LIVE people now, not some quaint historical anachronism studied by teams from National Geographic. However, more to the point, can't we find SOMETHING better to name this than "Indian massacres" for a parent category? I say this in part because more than half the stuff in it ARE just articles about those kinds of battles where the "waah mommy, the mean Indians beat us up for being idiots" thing happened. And I didn't see any actual "massacres" of unarmed civilians in there at all, though I could have overlooked something. Montanabw (talk) 17:37, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I think that's the key issue before us - but the name can come later. First,
 * How do we want them grouped together- e.g. do we divide by time? By location? by belligerent/victim?
 * How do we distinguish between massacre of civilians, and a battle/ambush/rebellion/war? Can we find a neutral definition of "massacre", and then only group those which fit that definition within? Then, we can create other cats for battles/ambushes/rebellions/wars
 * What is the topic here? - the most broad topic would be IMO "groups of people that massacred other groups of people, somewhere in North America, in the past 500 years" - but it seems there is in the sources a desire to talk about this in terms of native americans, so perhaps if a bunch of british massacred a bunch of white colonists, we don't put it in the same cat. So, the next level of specificity is "groups of people that massacred other groups of people, where native americans/metis/inuit/first nations were involved on one side or the other, and where it was not a regular battle between two sets of armed forces" Then, you have to decide, ok do we group by location? by current day boundaries (US/Canada)? by time period (e.g. 1400-1830, 1831-1900, etc)? Put them all together? I do think the current "by" and "of" categorization is somewhat flawed, and won't work that well - I think the list can capture better the nuance of who did what to who - but we do need a container of some sorts, and I think it shoudl be possibel to have a container that is not just one big bucket but that has some smaller buckets underneath. Again, let's worry less about what we *call* it, and what we *call* the head cat for now, let's talk about how from a taxonomy perspective this info should be organized - once we have agreement on the scope of the categories, the names can be more easily decided.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 17:57, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Good discussion. My own view is that A) Historically, "massacre" was used too often when Indians killed white people and not often enough when white people killed Indians, but at the moment may be overused in general.  B)  Thus, we should start with a narrow and clearly defined neutral definition of "massacre", noting that even at massacre they seem to be having trouble defining it. I would say that the word in general refers to (mostly) single events, whereas genocide refers to more of a pattern of multiple incidents. However, there will be relatively few massacres, which I think of as things like Wounded Knee massacre or Sand Creek massacre, wherein you pretty much have a military force killing a bunch of mostly unarmed civilian noncombatants. Where we have two essentially military forces, however one-sided the outcome, I'd say we have a "battle" or "ambush" or "conflict" or "war" (or something like that). THOUGHT: AHA! Perhaps this could be a question to pose to WP MILHIST; what is the standard used in other conflicts? IS there a standard? Where does military history in general draw the line when white people killed other white people? (other than, of course, the winners get to write the history books...) History clearly distinguishes a one-sided tragic battle like the Charge of the Light Brigade from, for example, recently, the Srebrenica massacre, but is there an example of a "close case" where we are shown where the line (or fuzzy gray area) is? Thoughts? Montanabw (talk) 22:16, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I seriously doubt you'll get a different view at MILHIST than what you just posted, MT (in fact, they might complicate it more in some ways). "Massacre" might simply (even though I hate to use that word, since this isn't simple) come down to numbers of non-combatants killed. The list as it exists now contains nothing about the conflicts on the southern Plains...the series of bloody raids and skirmishes that led to a number of settler deaths. And calling the Big Hole a massacre seems to stretch the point just a bit. In you're getting into specific military history terms, "massacre" tends to come up primarily when a force of combatants (uniformed or otherwise) kill a number of non-combatants in what might be considered cold blood (with some element of pre-meditation). It has also been assigned to one-sided victories, but that's really fallen out of use/favor in the last 40 years or so (at least in serious military history). Intothatdarkness 22:27, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I think there is a workable path here. I completely agree that whatever we choose, it should not reinforce notions that either white people or native americans were more prone to do this sort of thing - let historians battle that one out - for our cats, we should be as neutral as possible. I also agree that, even though something *may* have been called a massacre in the past, if it was primarily armed, military-age combatants vs armed military-aged combatants, it's best to call that a battle or ambush - that way we aren't prepetrating prejudice in the sources. So now the question is, we could make a big bucket and put all of them in it - from all of north america, or even all of the americas. The question now is, do we want to subdivide further, and if so, how? --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:54, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

OK, here are some more of my thoughts: OK, more thoughts? Montanabw (talk) 22:36, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) Let's at least go through all the "massacre" categories and toss all essentially military fights (battles/skirmishes/what-have-you), no matter how one-sided, as well as military conflicts where civilians may also have died, but there were military forces sufficient to make it more of a battle. (For example, Battle of the Big Hole and Battle of the Little Bighorn both being, in my view, "not massacres")
 * 2) Let's create some sort of appropriate category (if there isn't one already??) for said "not massacre" fights.
 * 3) Start a conversation at the various category talk (and ping us here) as to what articles SHOULD be added; for example if Wounded Knee massacre and Sand Creek massacre are NOT included, are they not classic examples of what SHOULD be included?
 * 4) Then, the tricky part; is there a clear line, or at least a fuzzy line and thus, what is in a gray area? Shall we create a "gray area" category, or agree that some things could be diffused into both " gray area" categories?
 * I'd be curious to see how the Tonquin incident fits into this...and the flip side the Susan Sturgis (that may need a dab) and various other "ship slaughters" in that region, either giving or getting.....also the incident which saw John Jewitt captured and enslaved with the the only other survivor of that vessel by Maquinna.Skookum1 (talk) 14:20, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I just had a look, and it's got major problems now...including a POV fork kind of article which I've never heard the name of the Battle of Woody Point before, which is odd given how much I've read on the early history of the region; the title itself seems OR....more to the point it's got sloppy/fuzzy ethnography in it, including the out-of-date and wholly incorrect use of "Nootka" instead of Nuu-chah-nulth and both it and the Tonquin's article have Tla-o-qui-aht as the name of the Aht group in question; but that name was not devised until the 1980s or so; it's not the same as Clayoquot, which is from "people of Clayoqua", which was a community at the mouth of the Clayoquot River. They're extinct, along with a half dozen other Aht groups in the Tofino-Ucluelet area, the particular subgroup that the Tonquin incident was about I'm not sure which of the three "Aht" groups comprising the Tla-o-qui-aht Nations band government it was....point is sloppy ethnography and history/geography is all over the map with many articles and seems to get added regularly, as does the perpetuation of the misnomer "Nootka" (which refers only to the Mowahchaht of Friendly Cove.  This relates to the whole "most common name" being thrust to the forefront without any concern for modern reform of such usages and the new common names, but I'll leave that here, it's just what I found is emblematic of that "from-outside" way of thinking/describing local history/geography/ethnography....Skookum1 (talk) 15:07, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Those are good ideas, but think we should try to come to consensus on a new structure and the criteria for inclusion in that structure - if we start editing the current status quo we may lose information that has accrued over time for whatever reason - we shouldn't toss battles out unless we have a good place for them for example - and we have confirmed that we don't want them under massacres anymore. Once we have consensus here it will be easy to go and move things around, and we can then bring any categories needed to CFD for renaming/etc - and hopefully all who agreed here will weigh in at CFD. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:40, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
 * On the general topics of the pre-Contact inter-native wars and the coverage of FN/NA peoples in general this bit of satire is worth a read and has some points about what could be included in ethno articles and FN/NA history articles....some do, most are of the "they were advanced hunter gatherers and used canoes/bows whatever". I've tried to add some of the pre-Contact history that we know of to various PacNW articles, though haven't added all that I know of; on the overall topic of Indigenous peoples of North America, the kind of summary that's in that satire is very pointedly on-mark and has details worth including in macro-articles about NA/FN cultures/civilizations ("civilization" being a word not generally used for their societies, but many were indeed just that).Skookum1 (talk) 03:45, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, once you start looking at the articles themselves, it's a life's work to fix more than the most racist and appalling -- I just did a run-through trying to remove the overuse of the word "chief: in titles (it's an honorific, not used by all groups, and never someone's name) and found myself going down an endless rabbit hole (though I succeeded in renaming "infobox Indian Chief" at least...) But to the point here, as originally stated, I'd personally like to see the "Indian massacres" category eliminated entirely and all articles diffused into either a parent cat or a new and more appropriate new cat. So, what, in sentence form, are we classifying, and then what is a simple way to define these?

So that's where we are going. Montanabw (talk) 18:45, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) we are looking at situations where a bunch of people died and Native people are involved, somehow.  So...
 * 2) What EXISTING categories, particularly for battles, do we have that we can use?
 * 3) Next, we are looking at the type of incident: was it a conflict between two armed groups, was it an attack by an armed group against an unarmed group, or what?
 * 4) Maybe we are looking at when
 * 5) Maybe we need to look within the context of a series of Indian Wars, or in unprovoked attacks on settlements of either white or native people
 * Your point on looking at a series of Indian Wars is well-taken, but wikipedia's articles on these have some major issues of their own. Comanche Campaign, to go back to my original example, only exists here and on unit campaign participation streamers. It's military shorthand, not a term or concept used elsewhere (and is grotesquely inaccurate). SmallChief has done some nice work on some of these, but there's much more yet to be done. I'm not a fan of the broad cat "Indian massacres" as it's just flawed. If you take it based on time frame you could use "Frontier massacres" or "Old West massacres." Not sure, since I'm not crazy about either of those. But if there's a way to base the initial definition on time frame or geography that might be a better starting point. Intothatdarkness 18:51, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree on trying to divide between battles and massacres. Do we *always* want to *only* include massacres that included native americans? What if a bunch of english soldiers murdered a bunch of white colonists? Should that be categorized in a separate tree?
 * If not, one neutral way of doing this would be something like, and then sub-cat by century, e.g. 14thc, 15thc, 16thc, and so on. We use north america so as to not worry so much about boundaries that didn't exist. Or, one could use the existing and , and subdivide those by century. It's neutral, and it's also quite typical to have anachronisms in the category tree (e.g. categorizing things that happened even if the country didn't exist at the time). If people are really uncomfortable with that, we could create a parent cat , and then have century cats for 9th-21st century, and then by-century sub-cats for US and Canada starting when those countries came into being. We would lose the specificity of saying that native americans were involved, but that may actually be more neutral - we're just talking about bad things that happened in a defined geographic area during a certain time - so the "indian" massacres would be mixed up with white-on-white massacres. This doesn't really bother me, but we also have to see if there are RS that categorize the indian massacres differently - and the problem is, they do call out these european-native american encounters differently than european-on-european ones.
 * The tree is quite complex and informative - they seem to use the idea of "Battles involving", so we could use  and  for some of the battles themselves. Not sure if we need to categorize massacres in the same way however - I kind of prefer by location (whether continent or current country) and century.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:10, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * One more thing - there may be articles which, by their nature, cover both military action, battles, and outright massacres; in this case, the article should be classified in both the "battles" tree and the "massacres" tree.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:13, 16 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I like the direction we are heading, but I'd very much like to hear Uyvsdi's views on this. We don't want to erase Native people, and the "involving" might be one solution, for at least some things.   Montanabw (talk) 00:11, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Just to note, please be careful in naming things "Native American" if the subject matter includes Canadian or Mexican indigenous peoples; this project for example is titled a certain way for good reason; the USian usage is not "global", though it's assumed by USians that it is. I always come across categories applied to Canadian subjects or find articles with that usage in it; just as in some cases First Nations has been put in when not appropriate as American-side peoples are included; it's especially weird to see South American indigenous peoples described as "Native American"....Skookum1 (talk) 01:36, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
 * They're Native to the Americas. Wikipedia has its MOS; the outside world doesn't necessarily follow it. -Uyvsdi (talk) 06:20, 17 May 2013 (UTC)Uyvsdi
 * Canada certainly doesn't. i.e. follow the USian usage, native peoples themselves especially don't.Skookum1 (talk) 06:23, 17 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Noogies to Skookum, aw shuck, you Canadians are always throwing a monkey wrench into things! "Centre" "Colour" "aboot" where will it end, eh?  LOL!  (said in good humor).   Montanabw (talk) 22:49, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Blame it on the FN peoples themselves, they were the ones who didn't want to be called "Native Americans"....it was a decidedly p.c. term at first but quickly took hold (First Nations as both noun and adjective to replace "Indian") and is now the accepted, and also constitutional, standard. "Native Canadians" wasn't good enough, and raised the issue of "I was born here too" with many non-natives, and the "First Nations" thing was also a response to the shibboleth of the deux nations concept of the origin of Canadian culture/identity, with the new term being a reminder there were nations here before the famous/archetypal founding two Euro-colonies.....it emerged during the time the constitutional squabbling between Quebec and the RoC ('rest of Canada') was at fever pitch and natives wanted "in" on constitutional debates. "Native American" is simply not used in Canada, and is rejected by the peoples themselves; and IMO it's not a New World standard...only to Americans it is.....the "global standard" I keep on hearing from Brits and others is "Red Indian"....Skookum1 (talk) 04:00, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * And "red Indian" is unbelievably racist... always love how Europeans in particular love to claim that they aren't as racist as Americans, yet go to a soccer match... sheesh! Montanabw (talk) 21:02, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * They're unaware of the racial context of the term, and also of course they have "Indian" in a totally different context, and "West Indian" also. I've told my Brit friend here, he understands; but he still has to use the term to explain to other Brits that it's North American indigenous people we are mentioning....BTW from my understanding of the history of the term, it was first applied to the Beothuk, who painted themselves red, not sure with ochre or what.....Skookum1 (talk) 02:13, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Arbitrary break
Hi - just a thought - can we *not* get caught up in the naming issues, quite just yet? IMHO, we need to determine scope FIRST - per the proposal I put above, at least for the massacres, the word "native american" would never really come into it at all. In any case, let's first agree on the scope - are all massacres in the 17th century in what is now US/Canada/Mexico grouped together? If we subdivide further, based on what? Names will then flow naturally from how we decide to split. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:24, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Hm maybe by ethnographic area, but that doesn't necessarily work either; I'd say it just has to be chronological, as if there's any connections/continuity it comes from there....as far as the 17th C in my part of Canada (BC) that's a non sequitur, unless it's only native vs native war we're talking about....Contact in BC didn't start until the 1780s, on the coast, and not really until the '10s (1810s) despite Thompson and Fraser before that; but I'd think each of the colonial presences had their own timelines for such interactions; ethnographic divisions I don't think would work....regional maybe, but even that's fluid.....in the 18th C "the West" was Ohio and Indiana....Skookum1 (talk) 15:35, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd say we stick with Chronological for the main framework. Intothatdarkness 15:48, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Ok, and what about geography? All of north america? Start using US/Canada cats? Do we accept anachronism, and have things like 14th-c massacres in the United States (that would be bizarre). Also, are people ok with *not* having a special cat for these involving indigenous americans, vs european-on-european violence (which will, likely, be less covered in any case) - and noting that for battles, we do already have such a divide. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:30, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd be ok with a geographic anachronism, simply because I suspect most people using the cat for research would be doing it along those lines in any case. I also wouldn't have an issue if consensus goes to a more general North/South America model. Not sure that we need the special cat you mentioned, either. Intothatdarkness 16:38, 17 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I"m afraid that we can't duck that either. I think geography is a start, but we don't want to erase native people from history, either. Possibly a way to  incorporate both.  Montanabw (talk) 22:44, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Remember, this all started b/c you didn't like the category Indian massacres! In any case, no-one is talking about removing anyone from history - I'm leaning more and more towards a neutral intersection of geography + century. Something like this: (and so on)
 * Massacres in North America
 * Massacres in Canada
 * Massacres in Mexico
 * Massacres in the United States
 * Massacres in North America by century
 * 15th-century massacres in North America
 * 16th-century massacres in North America
 * 17th-century massacres in North America
 * 17th-century massacres in the United States
 * 17th-century massacres in Canada
 * 17th-century massacres in Mexico
 * 18th-century massacres in North America
 * 18th-century massacres in the United States
 * 18th-century massacres in Canada
 * 18th-century massacres in Mexico

If you *really* wanted a special cat for the indigenous ppl, then you could have an additional child of which would be  - and then everything involving NA+FN/etc would go into that as well as the by-century cats, which provide a more neutral grouping, while still allowing other types of massacres such as european-on-european to be side-by-side the "indian" massacres that occured in the same century and same geographic region....--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:01, 17 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Frankly, I don't like either concept, all that much but your breakdown is perhaps a bit too detailed, IMHO. We do somehow need to classify stuff specifically linked to various Indian Was, though my goal is basically to separate military conflicts from civilian attacks, with an eye to avoiding terminology that could be viewed as inflammatory.  But I am curious:  What other cats that do NOT involve indigenous people are titled "massacre"?  Can you point me to them?  I'd like to see what they do for, say, the Irish or Armenians, or perhaps, Srebrenica massacre...  which is categorized under "crimes against humanity" but not a "massacre" category.  Montanabw (talk) 22:19, 20 May 2013 (UTC) Follow up: So I did find, for example, Category:Massacres in Israel during the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.  Hmmm... maybe the idea of having the historical period or war and then the "massacres" subcat... the American Indian Wars encompassing a specific time period, for example...perhaps we have similar main articles on Canadian and Mexican conflicts?  Thoughts?   Montanabw (talk) 22:22, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * [ec]I actually like Obi's start on this. Given the nature of most of the Frontier conflicts, you're going to have a hell of a time linking stuff to specific Indian Wars (unless you overlay yet another wikipedia fictional process to things). Many of the Mexican conflicts get wrapped up in the various tribal articles or some of the general mishmash (Texas-Indian Wars is one example, Apache-Mexico Wars another). Intothatdarkness 22:28, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * See Category:Massacres - The Srebrenica massacre is indeed in a massacre category, under the tree. I also agree, let's separate out battles, and there is a pretty good tree setup for these battles already. The idea of separating the massacres by campaign, etc, may be workable, but I'm not sure if all of these fit - sometimes they just happened, and weren't part of any well-identified war or whatever. The advantage of the century-cats is they will still tend to group together things that happened more or less closely in time, without worrying about deciding which particular "campaign" this massacre occurred during (which may have very different descriptions if you're telling history from a NA vs. European POV for example.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:27, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I'll wait to see what Skookum1 and Uyvsdi think before I comment further, they are closer to the issues. I can see both ways, my goal is to be as respectful to the actual people and avoiding of stereotyping as possible.  So if this gets us there...  Montanabw (talk) 23:12, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * in certain cases, indigenous vs "settler" wars/conflicts were part of the "American Indian Wars", as has been observed by various historians about the Fraser Canyon War and the conflicts along the Okanagan Trail, which are seen as a northward extension of the Cayuse War/Yakima War. Terminology is a big issue; the Haida/Tlingit/Tsimshian raids of Puget Sound that led to the USS Massachussetts's response in 1854 (56?) were contemporaneous with the Battle of Seattle, which was part of the Yakima War, or is said to have been, but the naval interaction was with what historians called "Russian Indians", though part of the alliance was coming from British territory (the Charlottes/Haida Gwaii and I'm not sure which Tsimshian group, Lax Kw'alaams maybe, not sure.  Tlingit are not "Native Americans", they're Native Alaskans, as are some Haida and Tsimshian; the bulk of Haida and Tsimshian now are "First Nations".....so while that happened during an Indian War and happened in US waters and on US islands, the term "indigenous" is required, or the by-tribe-name as I recall doing in the related articles on that matter.  So the proposed list or whatever will be for indigenous vs. settler wars ("settler" is the "new term" for "us") or will indigenous-indigenous massacres like Chinlac be included?  Also, the Metis conflicts, some of which can be construed as massacres, definitely are neither "Native American" nor "First Nations"....the term "aboriginal" in Canada is now constitutional for all indigenous groups in Canada btw....First Nations, Metis and Inuit.Skookum1 (talk) 04:00, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Also, events in Russian America might fall under this rubric, I'd have to remember which incidents, the first Battle of Sitka might qualify (a massacre of Russians by Tlingit I think), also various repressions against the Koniag (Kodiak) and Aleuts.....Skookum1 (talk) 04:10, 23 May 2013 (UTC)


 * My head just exploded, but yes, the Russian America stuff WOULD count. Probably the Metis stuff too. BTW, I think the legal term is Alaska Native.  We have a US/Canada split with preference for "aboriginal" and "indigenous."   Montanabw (talk) 21:02, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
 * "indigenous" is apparently preferable from the FN-side, nor sure about NA preferences; OMR and others came up with that; because "aboriginal" has a legal/constitutional context in Canada it tends to get wiki-used when in that context, and "indigenous" in specific FN usages...I'd tend to not use it for the Metis, whose roots are also European. "Alaska Native" I guess is the legal term; that used to be, I thought "Category:Native Alaskans" but I see no sign of that in the edit history at Category:Alaska Native people, which is one of those confusing "FOO people" constructions that to me are awkward and confusing; that cat should be, under that construction, and like others, Category:Alaska Native peoples with an 's'; I see the Tlingit and Tsimshian and Haida titles are now "Tlingit people", "Tsimshian people" and "Haida people", I gather all changed by speedy.......this flies in the face of the old conventions we came up with a few years ago, where it was decided that "FOO people" would not be the standard; the indigenous-editor point of view was that it's redundant in many cases, though that's been dissed in the CfDs/RMs related to all this; but it was also because "FOO people" has that dual meaning....especially in category usage; upon looking at the catname Category:Alaska Native people *I* would expect it to be "people who are Native Alaskan"....there is not one people, there are peoples.  And yes, not only the Russian America stuff and Metis stuff but also New Spain, as that originally extended to the 141st meridian i.e. Mt St Elias/Cook Inlet was the northward limit of Spanish claims until the Florida Treaty (Adams-Onis Treaty in USian); Pfly observed there were conflicts on the BC/WA coast with indigenous peoples, notably at Cape Flattery, I think.  BTW about the Metis these two pages are an excellent read, and have other works cited....wish I knew who that author was, he should do a book - http://www.dickshovel.com/two.html and http://www.dickshovel.com/two2.html.  Skookum1 (talk) 02:10, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * As mentioned above, could we please focus on agreed-upon scope FIRST, and then choose names later? It will get way to muddled otherwise. Let's start by deciding how we will categorize the massacres - there seems to be rough consensus around by-century categories, and now the question is, will we subdivide North America further, and if so, on what grounds. Can we please focus on that, and then once we've agreed on what grounds, then we can have a big discussion on what to name the categories? --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 05:26, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the tangent about "FOO people", the main point there about Alaska Natives is why "Native American" is not acceptable, even when concerning the United States.Skookum1 (talk) 07:02, 24 May 2013 (UTC)


 * When I tried the rename of the "Chief" infobox, we had conflict because my all-encompassing proposal was "Indigenous." As that word has no special legal meaning AND encompasses the whole landmass, I thought it useful, just as it is the WikiProject name here.  As for the Metis, it was their Indian-ness, not their white-ness that got them into such hot water; and a lot of Native people have had some white or African-American blood admixture, FWIW.  As for Obiwan's concern, where ARE we now with scope, anyway?  Is the current discussion a question of chronological time versus grouping by conflict, or...?   Montanabw (talk) 16:50, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Long story about the Metis, it's not just their Indian-ness, but their French-ness as well; and the dynamism and independent spirit that they had developed in their isolation; Riel was "subdued" as much for promoting a francophone state, whether as a province or independent, as much as for being "half-breed". Re "Chief" that gets used in BC a lot for some individuals when it's not what the native terms/roles were.....more of a social class, and not an autocratic or chairman-of-the-board role as often portrayed; there is no solution, only in individual ethno and personal articles can it be addressed.....e.g. the Coast Salish si:yem (shayAM) is more of a noble class, rather than any kind of chieftaincy; same with chiefly classes/castes among the Kwakwaka'wakw and Nuu-chah-nulth and UpCoast peoples; that is a discussion for another day at Talk:Chief, wherever that would be, or on individual articles' talkpages of course....Skookum1 (talk) 17:04, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * My gut is, let's give it a shot to just categorize by century, in Canada, US, Mexico. (using current borders, whenever the incident happened). This is neutral, and geographically based. Then, for all massacres in which indians were involved, we just add as an additional top-level category (so many massacre articles would be in two places). Then we purge the tree of all soldier-on-soldier battles - and to boot we avoid naming issues, mostly.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:55, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

makes sense; some other subcats of the super-parent may present themselves; e.g. Massacres by Aztecs .... e.g. of the Tlaxcalans for one case; Mexican revolutionary and also modern Drug War massacres, or the Tlatelolco massacre mostly fall under the state-vs-indigenous classification.Skookum1 (talk) 17:04, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Ok, I'm going to start doing this unless there are further comments. Division by North America, by century, with an additional (non-diffusing) category to capture all incidents involving indigenous peoples - --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:01, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

individual articles re this topic
Further to this see my comment at Talk:Battle_of_Woody_Point, which is one of those written in "massacre language". And with a title that's quite foreign to me, unless it's standard in US history of the Pacific Northwest; this is re the Tonquin article. If there's a list/discussion somewhere, it should be on it; the Fort Defiance article was similarly biased though it's been gone over since for NPOV.Skookum1 (talk) 18:09, 16 July 2013 (UTC)