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Archive 5←Archive 7Archive 8Archive 9Archive 10Archive 11→Archive 15

Origin of the name Eskimo

FYI, Origin of the name Eskimo has been nominated for deletion. 70.29.208.69 (talk) 06:41, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Image description help requested

Someone may be able to improve the descriptions of images in Commons:Category:Seafair Indian Days Pow Wow 2007 and Commons:Category:Seafair Indian Days Pow Wow 2009. I took some decent pictures, but I'm definitely in a realm here where I'm not expert, especially on the dancing and regalia. It would be particularly great if there is someone who can actually identify individuals; I gather that there were some pretty notable people participating, but outside of people who hold roles in organizations based in Seattle, I generally don't know names. - Jmabel | Talk 06:24, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Black Seminoles

I have nominated Black Seminoles for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. —Mattisse (Talk) 17:19, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

GA Reassessessment of Pauline Johnson

I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process. I have found a number of concerns which you can see at Talk:Pauline Johnson/GA1. I have placed the article on hold whilst these are fixed. Thanks. Jezhotwells (talk) 10:54, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

GA reassessment of Ghost Dance

I have conducted a reassessment of the above article as part of the GA Sweeps process. I have found some concerns with the article which you can see at Talk:Ghost Dance/GA1. I have placed the article on hold whilst these are fixed. You are being notified as the talk page has a banner for this project. Thanks, GaryColemanFan (talk) 23:54, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

New Aboriginal peoples in Canada page as of August 2009

Aboriginal peoples in Canada article has been re-done..as has its sub section First Nations (see Talk:Aboriginal peoples in Canada) Would like to thank all that helped... As normal more can be added,,,, as-well as a nice copy edit and WIKI standardization. Buzzzsherman (talk) 03:12, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Need 3rd opinion at Talk:Iroquois

I have run into a dispute with another editor at Talk:Iroquois in which no one else has yet weighed in, so I'm informally requesting a "3rd opinion" (or however many), because we are in an unfortunate stalemate. Should historians like professors Donald Grinde and Bruce Johansen be unmentioned regarding the correspondence of the Constitutional Framers they have compiled, showing their clear and documented fascination with the Native American alternative to feudalism? Another editor is using a plethora of arguments to make the case that this ought not to be mentioned at all, except in what seems like a dismissive way, that I feel is not at all neutral. His other removal of content detailing the historical period of Washington's campaign, also seemed to me like it was done on a flimsy pretext. I wonder if any impartial sets of eyes could help arbitrate some kind of compromise regarding what information is "allowed" in the article, and whose published views may or may not be described. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 14:40, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Well you got a hard one on your hands ..... i have commented on the page

Buzzzsherman (talk) 19:52, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I have similarly commented the page. Hires an editor (talk) 23:30, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

New article on Umik, Inuit missionary

Saw the redlink for this fellow in the article Siqqitiq (fascinating article on the custom of forcing Inuit converts to Christianity to deliberately break taboos), and went to dig up what I could. Found a couple GB references, but only with snippet view so could only establish a few very basic facts. If anyone else is intrigued by this guy and has access to more books, he sounds an interesting biography prospect. Also if anyone knows the spelling of his name in Inuit alphabet. MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:40, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Ended up expanding the above, also created new cats:

MatthewVanitas (talk) 03:32, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Uentshukumishiteu for deletion

An article that seems to fall into your area has been listed for deletion: Wentshukumishiteu; Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wentshukumishiteu. 05:42, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Letter by Andrew Jackson

The original letter handwritten by Andrew Jackson and sent by Major David Haley to Choctaw and Chicasaw leaders was recently discovered in a private family collection, and resold to an undisclosed buyer by Nathan and Jonas Raab of the Raab Collection. See http://www.raabcollection.com/ShowSection.aspx?ItemID=23 for an image of one page of the letter. I am not sure how this should be integrated with the Wikipedia article about the Indian Removal Act.--DThomsen8 (talk) 19:25, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

North-West Rebellion

In the spring of 2008, Tourism, Parks, Culture and Sport Minister Christine Tell proclaimed in Duck lake, that "the 125th commemoration, in 2010, of the 1885 Northwest Resistance is an excellent opportunity to tell the story of the prairie Métis and First Nations peoples' struggle with Government forces and how it has shaped Canada today."[1]

  1. ^ "Tourism agencies to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Northwest Resistance/Rebellion". Home/About Government/News Releases/June 2008. Government of Saskatchewan. June 7, 2008. Retrieved 2009-09-20.

SriMesh | talk 23:31, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Inter-Tribal Environmental Council

The Inter-Tribal Environmental Council keeps getting relisted in articles for deletion since there's no input either way. If anyone cares to, please add your two cents at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Inter-Tribal Environmental Council. Wikipedia could really use more contemporary info about Native Americans. -Uyvsdi (talk) 04:28, 30 September 2009 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Powhatan-Toney

Would appreciate more eyes on this. Concerns:

  1. Main contributor appears to have COI.
  2. Article is completely unsourced.
  3. Presence of "Echota Cherokee" on frauds list of the Cherokee Nation (Fraudulent Indian) Task Force, and here: "Non-recognized 'Cherokee tribes' flourish".

Before looking for sourcing, would like to know if it is salvageable, if anyone is willing to salvage it, or if it's too POV/Fraudulent to bother with and should be XFD. - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 00:13, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Fixed broken link for cherokeephoenix. Found http://echotacherokeetribe.homestead.com/History.html claiming they've had state recognition in Alabama since 1984. FYI. — Sizzle Flambé (☎/✍) 00:28, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
1) I don't think it's ever a good idea to apply "COI" to an article about a tribe or ethnicity... it's exactly like saying only non-French people should be allowed to write the article on France... 2) No sourcing definitely looks like a big problem, as many facts appear erroneous, eg. Oklahoma was NOT formed from part of Arkansas in 1907. 3) no comment. Another problem: 4) the title, should probably be Powhatan-Toney, with Powhatan Tribe becoming a redirect to Powhatan Confederacy which is much better known. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 02:24, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Agree with name change and redirect. Agree that ethnicity of contributors should have no relevance to what articles users can contribute to. COI concerns center around username of article creator: User:HarrisERToney and fact that much of article is a bio of "Harris Toney and his family". On User talk:HarrisERToney there are odd statements like, "It is not our intent to cause a conflict of interest, Wikipedia users can freely edit any content we post that official documents prove are incorrect" which I find odd for someone who has been notified that they should not share account access and has provided no sources for the article. - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 02:38, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
«Wikipedia users can freely edit any content we post that official documents prove are incorrect» — Nicely shifting the burden of proof to: "Prove I'm Wrong Before You Edit." — Sizzle Flambé (☎/✍) 03:07, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Article moved, redirect fixed, section header changed to reflect new article name. - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 02:50, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
If the article is correct, and it may well be, then "Harris Toney" is an individual who lived in 1820, so he couldn't feasibly be our poster... Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 03:01, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Descendant? Or just a borrowed name like your own cognomen? — Sizzle Flambé (☎/✍) 03:07, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Heh, no, I didn't think it was an autobio ;-) The autobio was Enas Ragland (also seen on Twitter), already deleted. I think it's got a big dose of the "do my family genealogy on WP" thing going on. I am googling, but so far everything is coming back to the WP article or social networking sites by the author's article's creator. I'm still looking, though.
This statement the same user added to the Triana, Alabama article is curious: ""The Toney-Powhatan Tribe sacred burial ground circa 1800, is located on property developed by the Powhatan-Toney family within the Redstone Arsenal boundary." Is it a tribe or a family? Is it "Toney-Powhatan" or "Powhatan-Toney"? Is it even notable? - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 03:32, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Googling < "Powhatan-Toney" Tribe > turns up about 40 hits, all look to be WP mirrors, other Wikis, or social networking. No news hits, no book hits. - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 03:47, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

So, in other words, it doesn't look like there are any reliable sources for this unless they're buried in college libraries or state archives. In Wikipedia terms, unless there are reliable sources and some kind of notability, the article should be deleted. (Taivo (talk) 17:29, 2 October 2009 (UTC))
I just finished looking through "Powhatan" in Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico by Frederick Hodge, and there were no mention of any relationship between the Powhatan and the Toney... and there are no "Toney" articles there either. I tried to see if there may be any spelling variations listed online and I ended up faced with many, many mirror sites... and did not find any spelling variations either. CJLippert (talk) 19:28, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Aboriginal peoples C/E Assistance requested please

The high importance article Aboriginal peoples in Canada needs some grammar and copy editing assistance as "the notable people section is very long relative to the other sections of the article". There was a pre-requisite that the lead section images are discussed in article, and the title lends itself to highlight some of the more notable Aboriginal peoples in Canada. Many notable Aboriginal peoples have been cropped from the list format when the section was converted to prose format. How can the section again be cropped without conversion back to list which is eliminated for GA success. Thank you.SriMesh | talk 22:37, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Tks to all for the help everyone ...together we all got it to GA level...great job!!

'"Aboriginal peoples in Canada has been listed as one of the History good articles under the good article (GA) criteria" Buzzzsherman (talk) 05:56, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I'm currently writing on the opera Tornrak. In it some refers to "Qalluna's sickness" (Qallunaa Aaniarninganut in Inuktitut.) Does anyone know if this is perhps a reference to a deity or spirit or whether it might simply be an individual's name?

Also there are references to this bsing based on the true story of an Inuit girl taken to Victorian Britain. If anyone knows of sources for the real story that could be referenced in a footnote then that would be appreciated. Thanks--Peter cohen (talk) 15:53, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

First part of the quesiton has now been answered elsewhere.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:56, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

List of Native American artists

I've finally started purging obscure artists from the list. Back in April, I asked for help determining notability and for anyone willing to edit this list. Are there members of this wikiproject knowledgeable about Native art and willing to edit this article? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

BTW List of Native American artists is now limited to Native artists from tribes indigenous to the US. List of indigenous artists of the Americas encompasses Native artists from all the Americas. -Uyvsdi (talk) 23:38, 16 November 2009 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Ugh, I give up on this article. -Uyvsdi (talk) 18:01, 19 November 2009 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Portal

The Portal seems to be abandoned again. The newest News story dates from May. Portal:Indigenous peoples of North America needs some updating. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 02:45, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Redone articles

Ok we have updated/redone two articles that were very lacking..... Paleo-Indians and Haplogroup Q1a3a (Y-DNA).... We are looking for a copy edit by a third party. PS.... as per previous agreements here.... The word "Indigenous" will be use rather then "Native" when an article covers all of the Americas. Buzzzsherman (talk) 03:00, 27 November 2009 (UTC)


Add note pls also copy edit ...Portal:Aboriginal peoples in Canada

{{Portal|Aboriginal peoples in Canada|Aboriginal War Veterans monument (close).JPG}}

I have gone and updated "List of Alaska Native tribal entities" and "Federally recognized tribes" per 74 FR 40218 of 08/11/2009, but "Federally recognized tribes by state" have not been updated yet. Would anyone like to update this, please?

Also, we seem to have articles for most all of the tribes in the lower 48 but List of Alaska Native tribal entities is mostly "red links". Should we all chip in an create at least a stub article for these Alaska Native tribal entities?

Thanks. CJLippert (talk) 15:49, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I've updated Oregon in the list using the 2009 document, but I didn't cite it. Katr67 (talk) 20:11, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
It seems I didn't quite catch the slight listing differences between the 2008 and 2009 versions. Thanks! CJLippert (talk) 15:03, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Douglas Bluefeather

There are few articles like this one (Rita Coolidge is another, which I have brought up here before) in which folks want to make clear that the person in question claims Indian heritage but isn't an enrolled member of a tribe. I've been trying to keep any unsourced claims out of these articles but I'm at a bit of a loss because you can't prove a negative, and at the same time, I understand this is a touchy issue. Can someone take a look at the article's talk page and see if I'm on the right track as far as what I told another editor? I'm not real versed in WP:BLP, but it seems inappropriate to basically say that these people are lying about their heritage in their articles. Additional folks who keep these articles on their watchlist would be helpful too. Thanks! Katr67 (talk) 21:31, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

GeoGroupTemplate on Canadian FN gov categories

I just added the following to certain BC indigenous goverment categories; note that the results shown are not actually those of the governments but only of reserves under their administration; which is why I composed this lede: {{GeoGroupTemplate}} NB Coordinates shown are only those of Indian Reserves and do not reflect the extent of traditional territories or land claims, not other sites of indigenous significance in the region, which is the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada. Some reserves shown are not populated, others shared by multiple bands - only some represent or approximate the location of actual villages, historical or modern, others may be fishing or cultural or institutional sites. The region description has been tweaked on each one, of course, and these are:

Note that these categories are by ethnic grouping and include in all cases more than one tribal council; but with groupings which are either considerably larger, or where most articles don't have most government articles with their respective IR lists/coordinates (which are many), I've chosen not to add it for now; it may be useful in future; these include Nuu-chah-nulth and Kwakwaka'wakw governments categories; not all have separate government categories as yet either; I don't know how really useful thse maps are, but it was there to be done and if so a lede of explanation seemed required as to why the geogroup is there, as reserves represent the limits imposed by colonial allocation of the land, and not the actual territories of each nation; anyway I'll let them speak for themselves, and suggest the expansion of various articles by the addition of IR/coordinates list on the model found on Nazko First Nation or Scowlitz First Nation be applied to the many articles in the other categories (Dakelh, Gitxsan etc) needing doing; and in the case of the three caegories I've already applied it to, not all articles in each series have coordinates/IRs listed, either, so at present the GeoGroup's don't represent all IRs or each people; maybe at some point Category:Secwpemc Indian Reserves or Category:Indian Reserves of the Sto:lo peoples (a phrasing which might help include Sts'Ailes and Musequam (i.e. Fraser River peoples, but not those necessarily calling themselves Sto:lo...) as subcats of Category:First Nations reserves in British Columbia (which is a CfD I've put off for too long now, as it should be Category:Indian Reserves in British Columbia...which requires renaming, also Category:Indian Reserves in Canada or Category:Indian Reserves, whichever it is....i.e. breaking up the IR catgories, which ultimately will be very large numercially, by ethnic grouping or, maybe when viable, by tribal council. In many cases GeoGroup need only occur on the one page, especially where e.g. Chehalis First Nation or Nuxalk Nation....NB it won't work so well using Category:Sylix, whcih contains all Okanagan government pages, because it also contains other sites which may also ahve coordinates (e.g. mountains, lakes)..... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Skookum1 (talk • contribs) 04:46, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Living people

I finally had it with so many articles about Native subjects that only feature images from the 19th century or earlier, so I mined my personal photo library for appropriate photos of friends and relatives from different tribes to use in Wiki articles. Many are on Commons at Category:Native American people in the United States. I also created Category:Indigenous people of Canada and Category:Mestizo. I appreciate that Public Domain policy makes it easier to use images before 1923, but the dearth of images of 21st century Native peoples sends an inaccurate picture to the public and reinforces the view that Native peoples only existed the past and are unconnected to the contemporary world. So, I hope people can use these images and encourage anyone out there to donate a few of friends and family so we can all depict a wide range of contemporary Native peoples. Cheers, -Uyvsdi (talk) 21:19, 28 December 2009 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Help on new article 1990 Indian Arts And Crafts Act?

I ran across this term in the article Native American flute, and it's a really interesting concept. Reminds me of European Denominación de Origen and Protected Geographical Status laws, which require, for example, sparkling wine can only be labeled Champagne if it's from the Champagne region of France. I'll go and start a basic stub at 1990 Indian Arts And Crafts Act, but since I'm not familiar with the larger historical/legal issues I could really use some input from this Project. MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:29, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Check out: Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990. Cheers, -Uyvsdi (talk) 19:39, 3 January 2010 (UTC)Uyvsdi
My mistake, creating a redirect. Though on the bright side I brought in some categories to tie it into the global issues of authenticity, to hopefully net plus overall:
MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:49, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes, the pre-existing article can certainly use some improvement. -Uyvsdi (talk) 22:05, 3 January 2010 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Eastern Agricultural Complex

Without much knowledge and with some Google Scholar poking I have the impression this article needs an update (how this hypothesis is seen by contemporary research) and expansion (history of the hypothesis, archeological evidence, etc). See alse my question and answers at the Reference Desk.[1]

--Pjacobi (talk) 06:56, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Watch list

Please add this to your watch list -->Indigenous American genetic studies...Buzzzsherman (talk) 20:52, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:27, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

A well-meaning but out-of-the-loop editor crafted this template and began adding it to pages. The notable indigenous rights activists listed are: "Claude Lévi-Strauss · Stephen Corry · David Maybury-Lewis · Marcos · Benny Wenda · Ward Churchill · Roy Sesana · Davi Yanomami · Winona LaDuke · Russell Means." Many actual indigenous activists and activist groups – ones that have actually benefitted indigenous people's rights in tanglible ways – are left out, but it seems that there would be far too many to list on a template. I removed it from Wilma Mankiller's article, but left it on Winona LaDuke's article since she has worked with Ward Churchill in the past. Would anyone else care to examine the template and comment? -Uyvsdi (talk) 18:54, 7 February 2010 (UTC)Uyvsdi

I agree, I think many things are left out and this appears to be a global indigenous rights template and that in itself seems like it wouldn't be able to cover enough without being exceeding large. I don't agree with this template as it currently is and think it should be re-written or removed. oncamera(t) 19:05, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
If anyone could contribute to a discussion on Template talk:Indigenous rights footer, that would fantastic. -Uyvsdi (talk) 17:43, 8 February 2010 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Native American Journalists Association

User and administrator NawlinWiki deleted the Native American Journalists Association page. I note other (and some much smaller) minority journalist organizations are included in Wikipedia. NAJA is a seasoned membership organization. Can another wiki admin reinstate their page, and can we have an explanation of why it was deleted? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hochungra (talk • contribs) 18:30, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not an administrator but it you still have the material, you can post it on User:Hockhungra/Native American Journalists Association, and I'm sure I can gather enough source materials/references to establish the groups' notability. I saw that it was speedily deleted (not giving other editors time enough to improve the article), which is odd because far less significant groups have articles. -Uyvsdi (talk) 01:03, 12 February 2010 (UTC)Uyvsdi
what speedy deleted ..this is happening way to often ..i would like to see the copy that was deleted and see if all it needed was some refs..this guys should take the time to help articles not delete them!! No way it was for notability!! Buzzzsherman (talk) 04:09, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Native American Journalists Association

I researched and rewrote the entry. Six hours invested; if admin deletes, is there anyway they can retain the copy? Rewriting and reentering is time I had to spend away from news reporting. I do appreciate what you're doing here on this. Please see my sandbox entry under User:Hochungra (Not [[User:Hockhungra/Native American Journalists Association] name misspelled.) I found additional references that hopefully will warrant its inclusion. My sincere thanks. Hochungra (talk) 03:37, 15 February 2010 (UTC)Hochungra

Do you mind if i edit (fix the refs) on that page ???..Buzzzsherman (talk) 04:11, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Whose "Old World"?

Am I the only one who cringes and says, "POV" when I see this: Old World? This is what I put on Talk:Old World:

Where was the decision made that one part of the world is "old" and another is "new"? This seems really POV and Eurocentric to me. Yes, I know Africa and Asia are included. It's still POV. There is nothing "new" about the Americas to those who are Indigenous here. - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 19:03, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Nope, you are not the only one who cringes. Duff (talk) 07:35, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Lamanite

Could someone else please look this over? I can't stomach it, but I plopped a NorthAmNative template at the top of the talk page, as it unquestionably pertains to our work. I don't have the expertise from either perspective to dissect it in the way that it deserves. I didn't find anything on it searching the archives here. Brace yourself. I will also be curious to see whether the positions of the project templates change. prior usourced comment/question from Duff (talk) 21:45, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't put that template on there, as it is a religious belief article, not a historical or cultural one. - IanCheesman (talk) 08:45, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
Agreed, it's a religious issue, not an indigenous peoples one. I removed the template. (Taivo (talk) 13:44, 24 February 2010 (UTC))
OK, I like 'ignore it' myself. Is there a good robust prior discussion or wikipolicy on similarly pointed tangly topics? I stumbled across that looking for info on Lohim Shoshone (Juniper people?) and Lemhi (Shoshone? who became Mormons?). Do those 2 people-names also fall under the heading of religious ideas, or are/were there actually such peoples? Are they the same idea/people or two different ideas/peoples? Duff (talk) 21:56, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

joining

I'd like to participate in this group, but I don't find any information as to how to do so. Is that a problem with the project page that needs corrected? Smallchief 08:35, 16 March 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smallchief (talk • contribs) 08:33, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi Smallchief and other new editors. Go here WP:IPNAPART and add your sig , then go here WP:IPNATEMPand grab a template for your userpage if you like. Welcome! Duff (talk) 05:24, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Choctaw Nation of Florida

An article entitled The Choctaw Nation of Florida was recently created and the author has been busy inserting mentions of a historic Choctaw tribe in several articles on Florida history, usually by exchanging or amending factual mentions of the Calusa with unsourced (or sourced with inapplicable citations) references to the Choctaw.

The are two issues here: 1) I've never seen mention of the Choctaw culture in pre-European contact peninsular Florida and 2) the present-day "Choctaw Nation of Florida" (website) does not seem to be recognized by any Native American group or organization.

I thought I'd bring this issue to the appropriate wikiproject to see if anybody here had some insight. Thanks... Zeng8r (talk) 19:25, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

interwiki translations etc

I just happened across various French articles concerning FNs/NAs in the PacNW, e.g. http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salish_(homonymie) and made various corrections, including fixing the usual confusion of language=people (NOT) and some geographical errors. Given the propagation of articles in this WP into other-language wikis, I'm a bit concerned about inaccuracies and misrepresentations made "out there", and wonder if we can't come up with a strategy for enlisting aid from people in other-language wikis to fix/coordinate needed expansions/corrections....my own French (or Spanish or German or other languages I "have some of") isn't good enough to fix most of this, or to discuss needed changes. Are there any other members of this WP who have strong second-language (or first-language?) command to engage some of these issues?Skookum1 (talk) 15:12, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Mummy Cave

Mummy Cave has passed GA review - I've added it to this wikiproject, but think it best to leave the very complex talkpage template parameters to someone who knows the fields. Acroterion (talk) 02:17, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

{{NorthAmNative|class=GA|importance=Mid}} <--- what i did fell free to reevaluate importance level...I have also link the article up to some main Articles See also section like Paleo-Indians, Archaeology of the Americas and Template:Pre-Columbian North America....Thank you for the good work!!...Moxy (talk) 03:13, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

"Plateau Indians" and "Great Basin tribes" articles

Please see Talk:Plateau_Indians#Appears_to_be_high_school_essay. There appear to be more and more of such articles kicking around; some can be merged, others should just be deleted; please have a look.Skookum1 (talk) 15:44, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Great Basin tribes is fairly similar. Seems that each major cultural area should have an article. I turned to Pritzker for info and references and began rewriting the article. -Uyvsdi (talk) 18:13, 31 March 2010 (UTC)Uyvsdi
As per my suggested name change at Talk:Plateau Indians, Great Basin tribes might better be Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin, perhaps?Skookum1 (talk) 23:32, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
I like that better. What of (listed in its Great Basin tribes#See Also) Eastern Woodlands tribes and Southeastern tribes? Perhaps Indigenous peoples of the Eastern Woodlands and Indigenous peoples of the Southeast? That last seems ambiguous. Should ...of North America be in those somewhere too? Duff (talk) 09:10, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
We are not required to invent new PC terms for every usage. Without evidence (references) that "Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin" is a term in use, we should use one that is like: Great Basin tribes. Rmhermen (talk) 19:45, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:NANWP

Template:NANWP has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Avicennasis @ 08:03, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Do we want to use this? It's not in use at all. User:Phaedriel, the original wikiproject creator of our project, also created this warm invitation to prospective members of the project. I say keep & use. What say ye? ( say it at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page). Duff (talk) 09:15, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I hadn't seen it before this announcement. If consensus is to keep & use, should we add it to the templates tab here at Wikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America/Templates perhaps under user page section? Duff (talk) 09:55, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Missing article

I noticed that WP does not have an article on War paint. Is it known by some other name? I'm sure this is a topic people would be interested in learning more about. It is mentioned in several other articles. Wolfview (talk) 10:39, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

War chief is also missing. Am I correct in thinking this was a real thing, not just made up by the movies? Wolfview (talk) 05:06, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

To Do List

There is a request asking about creating a section on the 'Religious and Spiritual Beliefs'. I don't believe you will get much help on this [or better to say any valid help from a genuine resource]. I don't know any Native Americans that's willing to speak of these things to outsiders. Sorry... Ramapoughnative (talk) 19:35, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I believe its more of a request to make an article that links all this -->Category:Native American religion and Category:Native American mythology to something like the Inuit mythology article thats links all this Category:Inuit mythology....and yes there is more then enough to start this article.....I was thinking of doing it but i am just not knowledgeable enough in the subject to do - so in a proper manner!!Please if you can help :) Moxy (talk) 20:25, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

rename of Slave beads

Please join in the discussion on the talkpage. --Chris (クリス • フィッチュ) (talk) 17:10, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Request input on Indigenous Peoples

The article in general is okay (if a little cringe-inducing in places) but there is a threadbare section on "Indigenous viewpoints" which I thought perhaps some of the people from this project might want to help improve? Bonfire elefantti (talk) 10:28, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Edit to check

Could someone check these edits that changed uncited figures at Canadian Indian residential school system? Note if the change is correct, the rest of the first sentence needs to be corrected, and if not, Peter Bryce needs to be corrected. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 03:17, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Re: Grammy Award for Best Native American Music Album

WikiProject members, I am currently working on the list Grammy Award for Best Native American Music Album with the hope of nominating it for FL status in the near future (I have yet to complete the Nominations and References columns, and I still hope to expand the lead a bit more). I have structured the list to be similar to other Grammy-related I have successfully nominated for FL status. My reason for writing this is to invite WikiProject members to create articles for some of the award-winning albums or artists listed, as much of the material is currently unlinked. I think the list would have a much better chance of reaching FL status if more of the material is linked. So, if interested, feel free start articles for the albums, which should meet notability requirements given they have received a Grammy award. Thanks! --Another Believer (Talk) 21:42, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Importance parameter?

Does the project template currently have an importance parameter? Thanks, Aristophanes68 (talk) 18:05, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

No, just class parameter. -Uyvsdi (talk) 18:33, 7 August 2010 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Literary award missing info

I've created a page for the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas award, but I don't have any information about 2008. If anyone knows where to find it, please let me know. Thanks! Aristophanes68 (talk) 06:57, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Regalia

Someone who knows more than I may be able to say more about the regalia in this rather interesting image from 1909 (on Commons). Adding appropriate categories for that would be great, too. - Jmabel | Talk 04:57, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

See Chilkat weaving. Look like ermine tails (?) on the back of the frontlet mask. Possibly sea lion whiskers attached to the top of the frontlet? -Uyvsdi (talk) 16:21, 8 August 2010 (UTC)Uyvsdi
Thanks! - Jmabel | Talk 02:16, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Carvings

Another interesting image from the 1909 trove I'm going through. If anyone can add more description, please do. It would be nice to know what exactly is represented on each spirit board. - Jmabel | Talk 02:16, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

AFD for Massacre at Ywahoo Falls

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Massacre at Ywahoo Falls. East of Borschov 06:22, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Inexplicable (and major) changes in article Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas

This is a copy of what I put on the articles talk page

This set of edits is confusing. 1. Population decline - there may be non-European factors, but the article should state them if it's going to say they existed.

2. If you click on 'warfare' you get an Easter egg, you go to our article on the Second Seminole War. As our guidelines say, " Per the Wikipedia:Principle of least astonishment, make sure that the reader knows what to expect when clicking on a link", and I don't think they'd expect that.

3. 'Successful' has been changed with no explanation to 'unsuccessful' in the sentence " Europeans proved consistently unsuccessful in achieving domination in warfare" and if you click on the word 'unsuccessful' you go to Esopus Wars, 2 localised 17th century conflicts won by the Dutch.

4. The reason given for the unsuccessfulness of the Europeans is funnily enough a reason given for the success of the Europeans, 'staying power' (some text dealing with European success was deleted also).

5. The statement that one reason for the European success was that "The European approach to war, which was less ritualistic and more focused on achieving decisive victory" was changed to "The European approach to war, which was less ritualistic and more focused on achieving decisive victory, was made equally ineffective by the lack of knowledge of the surrounding terrain. Note that clicking on 'terrain' takes you to labyrinth. (Try clicking on the link at 'decisive victory', why in the world does it link to an article on walking in military formations?)

The Easter eggs need an explanation, but so does the major change to the article. Dougweller (talk) 13:26, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Oneida Indian Nation

Is anyone here well versed on Oneida politics? There are several clearly POV IP edits about their land claim litigation and land acquisition, but I am not familiar with situation enough to clean up the article. Maybe someone here knows what's going on and can help? -Uyvsdi (talk) 15:59, 27 August 2010 (UTC)Uyvsdi

I went thru it - most of it was OK, dealing with the court case(s). I corrected a BLP on the congress-critter, that was a clear POV. GregJackP Boomer! 02:14, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Joseph "Nanmankoi" Newman - Can you help?

The article on Joseph "Nanmankoi" Newman was tagged as an unreferenced BLP in December 2008. I have tried, and failed, to find any reliable references to support the text (which is in any case a bit of a mess). I'm posting here in the hope that someone with knowledge of the field will be able to decide whether this subject meets Wikipedia's notability guidelines (N.B. a speedy was declined in December 2008) and, if so, provide at least one relible source for the text.--Plad2 (talk) 21:04, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Even his article doesn't make him sound notable... it mentions that he plans to write a book sometime in the future. I'm surprised the speedy deletion was declined. -Uyvsdi (talk) 00:36, 8 September 2010 (UTC)Uyvsdi
Nom'd for AfD. GregJackP Boomer! 02:02, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Featured Article Candidate

Menominee Tribe v. United States is a Featured Article candidate. Any interested editors may participate, and can review the Featured article criteria prior to reviewing the article. GregJackP Boomer! 01:47, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Indigenous peoples of California

I created the beginnings of this article, but it's obviously a colossal undertaking, and if anyone would care to help flesh it out with historical and cultural information, that would be fantastic! -Uyvsdi (talk) 22:12, 10 September 2010 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Indigenous peoples of North America articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Indigenous peoples of North America articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 23:10, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Red Earth, White Lies

I see that Red Earth, White Lies has been categorized as "pseudo-science." I assume I should remove that as a POV violation, but I'm not sure how that applies to categories, especially in a case like this. Advice, please? Aristophanes68 (talk) 07:41, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

How is it not pseudoscience? Young earth ideas, survival of dinosaurs not just into historical time but into the 19th century, etc. Dougweller (talk) 08:57, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
There is now a link on the talk page to an article published by the National Center for Science Education that criticizes the book as pseudoscience (without I think using the term). The reviewer, H. David Brumble, makes a comparison of Deloria's claims with those of a hypothetical Pentecostal Christian scholar who uses indigenous oral tradition to support biblical young-earth views. — ℜob C. alias ᴀʟᴀʀoʙ 21:26, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

captivity category

This and its subcategory seems more than a bit jejune:

Category:American_captivity_narrative

Any thoughts?Skookum1 (talk) 16:09, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Capitivity narratives were a popular US literary genre from the late 17th century through the 19th century, so it seems legitimate to me. Different tribes taking non-Native captives was definitely a historical phenomenon. -Uyvsdi (talk) 17:55, 2 October 2010 (UTC)Uyvsdi
Agreed. Because the category is "American captivity narrative," not "American Indian captivity narrative," I ser that it also includes the spurious but wildly popular tales of American women captured and enslaved by Barbary (North African Muslim) pirates. Anyway "captivity narrative" is a recognized literary genre, and many books of criticism have been published. Some Indian captivity stories (written by Anglo-Americans captured by Indians, then adopted into as members of a tribe) are important sources of historical information about changing Indian societies.
So I don’t see anything jejune or otherwise inappropriate about the category. — ℜob C. alias ᴀʟᴀʀoʙ 21:37, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

\Can someone please help this editor?

Apukjij (talk · contribs) is adding unsourced and apparently pov material to various articles, in at least one case making basic changes to the meaning of the article. For the user's sake and to help the articles, can someone please take a look at his/her edits and counsel the editor? Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 09:27, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Steven L. Thorsen Native American Painter - can you help?

The article on artist Steven L. Thorsen was tagged as an unreferenced biography of a living person in November 2008 (which is the current focus of the BLP Rescue Project). I have tried, and failed, to find any reliable third-party references to support the text in this article, so I am posting here in the hope that someone with better knowledge of the area might take an interest and provide at least one reliable source.--Plad2 (talk) 20:44, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

It seems like a promo piece for a fairly unknown artist; am amazed it survived all this time. -Uyvsdi (talk) 21:53, 23 October 2010 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Invitation to help with WikiProject United States

Hello, WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America/Archive 9! We are looking for editors to join WikiProject United States, an outreach effort which aims to support development of United States related articles in Wikipedia. We thought you might be interested, and hope that you will join us. Thanks!!!

--Kumioko (talk) 03:20, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Plains Indians move debate

Please see my lengthy comment at the end of Talk:Plains_Indians#Requested_move.Skookum1 (talk) 04:44, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Request Assistance Rob Capriccioso marked for deletion

My aim is to provide better coverage of Native American journalism. It took hours of research to re-write Native American Journalists Association after it was marked for deletion, and deleted. I am in the process of adding notable Category: Native American journalists (see also Category: Native American writers); I see the page I created for one of Indian Country's most noted Native American journalist Rob Capriccioso is now marked for deletion by User:Awiseman. Capriccioso is as notable as most Native American writers listed in that category on Wikipedia. I request the expertise of the WikiProject Indigenous Peoples of North America in arguing for and/or establishing notability for Capriccioso page. I don't have enough experience yet as a WikiPedia editor. Signed: User:Hochungra —Preceding undated comment added 18:44, 17 November 2010 (UTC).

An editor is interested in turning this article back into a stub, any opinions would be appreciated here: [2] or here:[3], thanks...Modernist (talk) 16:25, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I responded at AN/I here Atneyak (talk) 17:58, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Notability of people

I'm coming across a bunch of people who don't seem to be notable. I'm going to make a list of them Here over the next few days and I hope people will review. Hopefully we can weed out whatever isn't needed before taking the controversial ones to deletion review. Atneyak (talk) 20:00, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Please limit discussion on Talk:Navajo people to the subject of that article. If someone has a pre-existing article and you feel that they are not notable, discuss that on their own article's talk page. -Uyvsdi (talk) 23:09, 28 November 2010 (UTC)Uyvsdi
Okay, but maybe I should post them here for visibility of the project? (:
This page is better than the Talk:Navajo people page. -Uyvsdi (talk) 23:42, 28 November 2010 (UTC)Uyvsdi
Well the idea was to get more people involved. Atneyak (talk) 00:29, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Do we have English Wikipedia equivalents of the following stuff on the Navajo Wikipedia?

WhisperToMe (talk) 18:56, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

If the maps and other images are placed up on Wikimedia Commons, ALL Wikipedia projects, including English, will have access to them. Consider transferring the images to there; Navajo Wikipedia will have full access to all Commons items without needing any special coding. CJLippert (talk) 15:33, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

An editor, first anonymously, then through registered accounts, keeping re-adding the same links to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (and previously Wounded Knee Massacre).

I have removed two links before since they seem self-promotional to me (both are by an Aaron Huey). Plenty of photographers and videographers roll onto to Pine Ridge to capture the "plight of reservation," so these links are hardly unique. There's nothing particularly wrong with them except it appears to be someone using wikipedia to promote their own projects. I posted about this on Talk:Pine Ridge Indian Reservation but no responses. What do any other editors think? -Uyvsdi (talk) 19:08, 10 January 2011 (UTC)Uyvsdi

I think they are nice, but I wonder if there is a way to have these link come from Wikimedia Commons instead of from Wikipedia, as structurally, they seem to fit there more than here. CJLippert (talk) 19:50, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
To be in the Commons, that photographer would have to surrender his copyright, which doesn't seem likely....there's this kind of thing regularly, or was, on Oka Crisis and Gustafson Lake Standoff or whatever the latter is called now; both pages have been inert for a while, but lots of such external links showed up there for sometime; the ones that would be "valid" would be those made by participants in the crisis, or which give good clips from the televised aspects of them (not the case with Gustafson Lake as the media cooperated with the RCMP by not going anywhere near the place and only reporting what the RCMP were saying).Skookum1 (talk) 19:58, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

"Klowa"

"File:Klowa Children at Play, National Museum, Washington, D.C., by Ingersoll, T. W. (Truman Ward), 1862-1922.jpg"

In this photo: would you agree that "Klowa" (which appears exactly that way in the image itself) is almost certainly a typo for "Kiowa"? - Jmabel | Talk 06:40, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Cool image. -Uyvsdi (talk) 06:56, 13 January 2011 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Request to review disagreement in Aaliyah

Hello, I'm here asking for at least one uninvolved editor of this WikiProject to read and comment on this discussion regarding the article Aaliyah. In a nutshell, Aaliyah was an African American singer with some Native American descent from her grandmother. She's categorized in Category:American people of Native American descent, and another user insists on categorizing her under Category:Native American singers. I've brought up several points in the discussion, but the user won't budge. Obviously, neither will I. I would assume this project would have better knowledge regarding this issue, so I would appreciate any help to help resolve the matter and hopefully settle this dispute by forming a consensus. Thank you. — ξxplicit 08:26, 19 January 2011 (UTC)


History of the Yosemite area - Featured article review

I have nominated History of the Yosemite area for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here.

WP:GLAM/SI Ambassador

Hello, WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America/Archive 9! We would like to invite your WikiProject to help with the Smithsonian Institution collaboration, an outreach effort which aims to support collaboration such as Wiki-Academies, article writing, and other activities to engage the Smithsonian Institution in Wikipedia. Because of the Scope of your project, your project has been nominated to be part of our WikiProject Embassy, a place for WikiProjects to help Editors participating in the Smithsonian Collaboration improve articles, find materials, and create partnerships for the future. We hope that you will nominate an Ambassador for our participants to contact. Thanks!!!

Changes at Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas

AfD

Please see: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wasi'chu Jaque Hammer (talk) 15:13, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Coeur d'Alene War, Spokane War, or Palouse War?

The article now titled Coeur d'Alene War was originally titled Spokane-Coeur d'Alene-Paloos War which is a "SYNTH" title; please see name discussion at Talk:Coeur_d'Alene_War#Moved_reversed. We're trying to come up with the "most correct" name for this war, which goes by all three of those names. Input from someone from one of those three nations or familiar with the history of the region would be greatly appreciated.Skookum1 (talk) 18:37, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Your expertise is needed

Blackfoot is a disambiguation page with many incoming links - visible here. Your help in correcting the incoming links would be greatly appreciated. Dab solver is a very helpful tool for this, and the Disambiguation wikiproject is available for help and discussion. Many thanks, DuncanHill (talk) 00:56, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

CfRs on "Native American" Pacific Northwest categories

Please see Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2011_February_2#Category:History_of_Native_Americans_in_the_Pacific_Northwest. Other categories named "Native American" should be subject either to the same CfR or a follow-up one; this one emerged due to my noticing "Native American" on a template covering the peoples of this region, which is not an acceptable usage in Canada, when Canadian First Peoples are included.Skookum1 (talk) 08:20, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

NativeMOS proposal

This is a much belated update, sort of, but this would seem to be the proper thread here to raise the idea of working up a NativeMOS, which would serve like CANMOS and other national MOSes to establish style guidelines for issues such as these, partly to pre-empt dictate from MOS-at-large, where people are not so sensitive to various cultural issues and in-use norms and preferences of the peoples themselves. A recent experience there with non-native placenames using, officially, hyphens vs dashes (when hyphens are official and common norm, but dashes had been imposed by MOS dwellers who fought, tooth and nail, to prevent the return of those articles/categories to their properly hyphenated versions, in spite of them being Canadian usages on Canadian articles; CANMOS, y'see, trumps anything global-MOS might want in the way of global standardization, as with other "national MOSes". The hyphen thing even plays into native articles, or titles anyway - though there is yet no article on the Gitxsan-Wet'su-wet'en Confederacy (though there are redirects for it....maybe...or could be to Office of the Hereditary Chiefs of the Gitxsan and Wet'su-wet'en, a modern self-constituted body, or, definitely, to Office of the Hereditary Chiefs of the Gitxsan and Office of the Hereditary Chiefs of the Wet'su-wet'en, the two component groups of the ancient alliance of these two peoples, MOS-ites will want to dictate that should not be a hyphen between Gitxsan and Wet'su-wet'en, but a dash - and even want to deconstruct the lexemes of Wet'su-wet'en, to decide, from afar, whether that should also be a dash. Another nativeMOS issue, related to the above people/tribe/nation issue, is the use of special characters in article titles; do we use the English norms, or do we use the adaptations of Roman script now "official" for each language, which often include complex diacriticals, which are a real pain in the a** for category usage; look at where Skwxwu7mesh redirects, and its category, or the category characters on St'at'imc. The use of diacriticals is often politically sensitive within peoples, e.g. Sto:lo, which is the usual English adaptation, despite that lengthening colon (which makes it pronounced, properly "Stow-lo" as in "bough", historically written "Staulo") it's now an accepted usage in BC English....but the category uses the diacriticals of one of the two tribal councils, and neither tribal council includes all of the formerly-called Fraser River Salish...lately there has been some renaming of native articles mostly standardizing to the "people" format, but not always, and a new convention has emerged of late to use the common English name for language-pages, e.g. Lillooet language instead of St'at'imcets and the like, adding another layer to the more-or-less existing but not-fully-applied/developed triptych established a while back with the native-language term/ethnonym used for ethnographic/historical pages, and government pages and reserve/reservation pages generally separate again. Even there there's differences; e.g. between the Ktunaxa-Kinbasket Tribal Council, a Canadian-side body which includes the Kootenai/ktunaxa band of the Confederated Tribes of the Salish and Kootenai, I think it is (?).....Anyway, here I'm only touching on the broader subject, which is that a commonly-developed NativeMOS seems to be in order, to prevent people not familiar with the issues and substance from imposing uninformed consensus, and also to "enshrine" some of the workign conventions that have evolved in this WikiProject over the last few years.....Skookum1 (talk) 08:41, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia criteria for listing as Recognized/Unrecognized groups?

Currently in Wikipedia, we have 3 Native American-related Recognized/Unrecognized listings:

The Federally recognized tribes listing is pretty clear cut. The question falls with the other two listings, which are dicier. When State recognized tribes listing was first went through scrutiny, the state-recognized tribes listing came from the early "State-Tribal Relations: Indian Tribe States" page by National Council of State Legislatures, which since NCSL have changed their contents, while here at Wikipedia, we tried to document the entities on the page if there was some sort of state-level recognition from either the governor's office or the legislature, and not just being listed in some state document or state website. For the List of unrecognized tribes in the United States, regardless of genuine Native American entities that lost recognition or fraudulent groups only claiming to be Native American entities, they were jumbled together, basically as a default "other" category. Here are the questions for all of us:

  1. Do we agree with the State recognized tribes criteria of state-level recognition from either the governor's office or the legislature? Or if a state have a Native American office of some sort that recognizes groups other than the federally recognized tribes, should these other groups also be listed here?
  2. Over the past year, question on what to do with List of unrecognized tribes in the United States have come up repeatedly. Do we want to split this listing up somehow to make it not as jumbled? And if so, how? One suggestion was to split the listing as: List of unrecognized tribes in the United States seeking official recognition, List of unrecognized tribes in the United States affiliated with a recognized tribal entities and List of entities claiming as unrecognized tribes in the United States. Will this work or some other division work better, and what criteria shall we use to have these groups listed.

Guidance appreciated. CJLippert (talk) 15:37, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this up — especially in light of the ongoing discussion of Southern Cherokee Nation of Kentucky, which is being exasperated by one highly POV editor. It's far beyond the scope of Wikipedia to determine fraudulence or legitimacy of unrecognized groups, although we can furnish secondary, reliable sources related to legitimacy.
Regarding #1, the NCSL's list states their their information comes from the NCAI, so you might use the NCAI's list as the main source for who is listed on the state recognized tribe list. NCAI has the legal knowledge to make such determinations.
Responding to #2, keep the List of unrecognized tribes in the United States as one unit. I'm against listing entities within federally tribes because almost every federally recognized tribe is an amalgamation of smaller historical tribes, especially in the case of California rancherias. The only exceptions would be groups within federally recognized tribes that have actively sought independent federal recognition, such as the Yuchi and Natchez Nation. The individual ethnic groups and bands that comprise today's federally recognized tribes should all be listed in cultural regions in the US in the Classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas.
Another question is that of state-recognized or unrecognized tribes having their own standalone articles. Most of these are created by people within the group, and many are attempts to confer historical legitimacy to the group, which is problematic. I believe the articles should stand if they stick to the topic of that particular group, and their notability is established by the criteria for any other organization, as found in Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies). -Uyvsdi (talk) 20:10, 31 January 2011 (UTC)Uyvsdi
Um, I wonder if an Admin should step in and block the two users currently in the edit war over the SCNK, as they have violated the WP:3RR, not by a bit but by leaps and bounds. And yes, I agree about the problem of article creation in attempts to confer historical legitimacy to the group. Even this can be dicey, as some do have well documented histories and with whatever fate in our history, they ended up in the sidelines, while others are just grasping at straws trying put on a digital face. The important part on this issues, I believe you are absolutely correct, is that they stick to the topic of that particular group, and their notability is established by the criteria for any other organization, as found in Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies). CJLippert (talk) 21:49, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Please see my two new sections on terminology on Talk:State recognized tribes.Skookum1 (talk) 08:52, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Someone please check and update List of Alaska Native tribal entities

I have gone an updated the Federally Recognized Tribes per 75 FR 60810 and 75 FR 66124. Would somebody go though 75 FR 60810 and update the List of Alaska Native tribal entities, please? Thanks. CJLippert (talk) 16:30, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Why not crosspost on the WP:WikiProject Alaska page? -Uyvsdi (talk) 18:46, 3 February 2011 (UTC)Uyvsdi
Good idea. Just did. Thanks! CJLippert (talk) 21:59, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Naming conventions

Naming of articles about collective indigenous groups or individual tribes keeps coming up over and over, and I was wondering if any conventions could be agreed upon? It seems with ethnic groups, simply the name of the group is used (Atakapa, Akokisa, etc.) if it's clear that the ethnic group is what's being referred to. The terms "people" or "tribe" both work when the term is more commonplace (Spokane people, Tachi tribe, etc.). Both seem greatly preferably to "(tribe)" in parentheses - I would love to change all of these articles (Siletz (tribe), Umatilla (tribe), etc.), if a convention could be agreed upon. The use of a lower case "nation" in articles about an ethnic group is potentially confusing (i.e. Seneca nation).

In articles about discrete political entities, the legal name or a truncated version seems to work best (Viejas Group of Capitan Grande Band of Mission Indians, Sac and Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas and Nebraska). Awhile back one editor wanted to rename articles based on autonyms, but this usually only occurs when the article is about a band within a tribe (Cahinnio, Hainai, Kucadikadi, etc.).

Any term that is actually, genuinely offensive should be changed (most of these have, Pit River tribe -> Achomawi, Digger -> Paiute, Papago -> Tohono O'odham).

Would be curious to hear other's thoughts on establishing general naming guidelines. -Uyvsdi (talk) 18:58, 26 December 2010 (UTC)Uyvsdi

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." - Emerson
Agree that offensive names should be changed, but the circumstances of each entity are unique, so "tribe" may be appropriate for some and not others. 71.176.203.172 (talk) 19:36, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
If the choice is between a foolish consistency and a foolish inconsistency, we're better off with the consistency. But I doubt that what Uyvsdi is suggesting should be considered a foolish consistency. We've ended up with some foolish inconsistencies because editors haven't had a naming guideline to help them over the years. For example, when one article on an Iroquois people is called Mohawk people, and another is called Seneca nation, without even a redirect from Seneca people, that's a foolish inconsistency. A general naming guideline could help reduce the foolish inconsistencies without trying to impose a foolish consistency. Sure, article names can and should be addressed on a case-by-case basis, but general guidelines are precisely the sort of things that Wikiprojects ought to provide.
In a naming guideline, we should note that tribe can be a problematic word among scholars and is to be used with care. For example, historian Jack Campisi has written: "Few if any tribes existed in North America at the time of European contact; they were created and subsequently evolved in response to Euro-American political requirements." Historian Nancy Shoemaker argues that Euro-Americans initially called Native groups "nations", but subsequently began to favor the word tribe "as a way to exclude non-Europeans from the world of nations". So there's some historical baggage that comes with calling people "tribes" if they themselves don't call themselves a tribe.
In a nutshell, I like Uyvsdi's suggestions for a naming guideline. If I wrote the guideline, I'd advise editors to avoid "Foo tribe", "Foo (tribe)", "Foo (people)", "Foo nation", etc. in favor of "Foo" or "Foo people", unless editors on the talk page of that article agreed that the reliable sources indicate that a different name is called for. Articles about legal entities, such as Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, would still of course use the official name. —Kevin Myers 00:30, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
If the name of the group is rare enough that is doesn't need disambiguation, just having the name alone seems fine, i.e. Atakapa, Akokisa, et al. Tribe could imply ethnic group or governmental organization - if an article is already named "Foo tribe", that seems fine, but "Foo people" is a good fallback for any future articles about Native ethnic groups. The term "nation" implies a political group not an ethnic group, so I just proposed renaming Seneca nation to Seneca people. For organized governments, I'd just use whatever name their official name is, be it Tribe/Nation/Colony/etc. - that seems preferable than editors second-guessing what they think the tribe should be called. Sometimes only the reservation has an article and not the tribe - hopefully articles will be developed for each tribe. In some instances an ethnic group only has only recognized tribe (Caddo, Kiowa, Quapaw, Peoria, etc.), so it seems that the simplest/commonest term is used. That said, I'm going to move the remaining "Foo (tribe)" and "Foos" articles to "Foo people." Cheers, -Uyvsdi (talk) 23:27, 3 January 2011 (UTC)Uyvsdi
Re the Seneca, and re our conversastion on your talkpage, note that Seneca people should be the culture/history/traditional government, while Seneca Nation of Indians is their government title. Mohawk politicality is particularly difficult to sort out because of different pan-Mohawk concepts like teh Haudenosaunee vs the Mohawk Nation, I think it's called, which is the pan-band organization/government/council recognized/dealing with the US and the Crown (as the term, and the context is, in Canada). The evolved-over-time wiki convention was that the people articles would be titled as the peoples saw fit, elsewhere I've mentioned Skwxwu7mesh and other BC peoples, but there's also Palus (vs the usual anglicization Palouse, which is the "most common usage" of the region by that name, named after them; or were they named after it? But it's what they prefer; Ktunaxa is the ethno article for a number of bands/Tribes (and when we're talking about governments, at least here, let's use capital-T to refer to the organizations. Some do use that in their titles, even in Canada, e.g. Tlowitsis Tribe, a band government, while the Tlowitsis by that name are teh historical people, though SFAIK that's not split off but the situation is explaiend on Kwakwaka'wakw somewhat; e.g. also Kiwakah people vs Kwiakah First Nation. The idea is to have separate band/government and ethno articles, teh same way languages are their own articles and have their own categories; and re someone's comment below, it's not a given that ethoncultural unity meant political unity; anything but, especially in the Northwest Coast and Plateau areas. Tlingit warred on Tlingit, Nuu-chah-nulth on Nuu-chah-nulth, Kwakwaka'wakw on Kwakwaka'wakw; there were shifting alliances, but these were often trans-"tribal" i.e. with other ethnolinguistic groups, usually allied by clan/marriage or common interests/enemies. In many cases, once-mutually-hostile peoples were herded into the same band government and reserve, with often unhappy results; there's been a growth in clan pages lately, which is a good thing - part of the traditional "government" and regional diplomacy/relations...cf Chief Shakes and Ganhada for more on clan history/wars/relations. The Indian Act/BIA-name vs. traditional/preferred name is a sensitive thing; if we want more aboriginal contributors, making sure their views/preferences are respected here is a necessity; and as elswhere, becasue of the poilticization of the lexicon in areas with lots of native politics, it's an important thing to heed; in BC English "Dakelh" is now standard over "Carrier people", "Tsilhot'in" is now standard over "Chilcotin people", and you just don't see "Lillooet people" or "Rivers Inlet people" anymore, you see St'at'imc and Wuikinuxv, or at least Owikeno (an easier transliteration). Gitxsan is now prefered to Gitskan and you just don't see "Interior Tsimshian" any more (that's the Gitxsan and the Nisga'a....the Gitxsan have a political unity with teh Wet'su-wet'en, who are a type of Carrier; it's an "ancient" confederacy like the Iroquois, by the way; see Delgamuukw. Taht's all for now, just please bear in mind the different categorization issues, and the partly-explained sensitivities and as to why the native names are prerferred on the ethno articles, and why the ethno articles need to be distinct from teh band/Tribe/First Nation/Confederated Tribes etc articles. Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Agency and Kalapuya for example, need to be separate articles (as the CTGRA includes a lot more than just them; most post-Conquest Reservations in the US are multi-people/small-t tribal.Skookum1 (talk) 09:34, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Note bene: Occasionally over the years, I've heard editors imply that the "official" or "BIA name" is not the actual name of the tribe. Tribes choose their own names and can (and do) change them when they want. So these names are chosen by the community not the various federal governments. -Uyvsdi (talk) 23:38, 3 January 2011 (UTC)Uyvsdi
Ah! Consistency! I've been trying for a while to sort out the names of the people who lived in Florida at the time of first European contact (see List of Indian tribes in Florida). We haves names of groups consisting of many different tribes with different cultures speaking a common language, names of tribes, names of chiefdoms, and names of single towns. We know a fair amount about a few groups, and nothing beyond a name about others. We can say in some cases with varying degrees of certainty that one entity was a part of or subject to another entity. One term, whether it be 'people' or 'tribe' or 'nation' or 'chiefdom' or 'town', will not fit all cases. -- Donald Albury 02:41, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
No one here has said that one term will fit all cases, of course, so we're good on that front, although I imagine "people" (when needed) will almost always work. A problem with that Florida list is that the article title suggests that the Native people can be grouped as "tribes", although, as you say, this does not fit in all cases (and may not actually fit in any early case; see the Campisi quote above). I forget which historian it was who said that what Europeans called "tribes" are often better understood as "addresses", i.e. what Europeans called the Apalachicola "tribe" was really just the people who lived along the Apalachicola. —Kevin Myers 03:26, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
I don't know about that particular river, but surely most of the major "tribes" as we know them did have much more of a cohesiveness that was linguistic, cultural and even legal - I've read that the Iroquois were not the only people with their own unique set of laws, but that the others had as well. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 03:36, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Personalty i think only MAIN articles should incorporate the word "People" in the title. The fact that some Peoples (Nations) have more than one tribe living over multiple reservations, we should have only main Peoples article for overall classification. The Mohawk people is a good example of this as it does link to the individual communities. We have to be careful here in renaming - as many of the communities of Indigenous North Americas self identify themselves by a tribe or a nation or thier peoples etc. Moxy (talk) 04:33, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

The main articles are typically about ethnic groups (i.e. Cahuilla people), while the articles about specific groups organized under one government typically use their own chosen official name or a slightly truncated version (i.e. Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, Augustine Band of Cahuilla Indians, Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, etc.). -Uyvsdi (talk) 06:23, 4 January 2011 (UTC)Uyvsdi

"Apalachicola" is definitely a problem name. The Spanish used that name for people living along the lower part of what we now call the Apalachicola River. The name may be related to that of the Apalachee who lived just to the east of the Apalachicola. I've seen sources that say that those Apalachicola probably spoke a Muskogean language, as did the Apalachee, but they were not part of the Apalachee. Some of those Apalachicola may have been relocated to villages along the Savannah River when the Indians in Florida were wiped out at the beginning of the 18th century. In the early 19th century there were villages (probably "Creek" people) along the Apalachicola River that are often lumped in with the "Seminoles", but were mostly persuaded to go west before the Second Seminole War started in earnest. Apalachee and Calusa are fairly clear-cut cases, people speaking a common language organized as a chiefdom. Timucua, on the other hand, is a language with 10 or 12 dialects, with archaeologists assigning between one and three "tribes" to each dialect, and with some of the "tribes" consisting of a single chiefdom at first European contact, while other "tribes" consisted of more than one chiefdom, with political alliances including sub-chiefdoms across multiple "tribes". Moreover, the Timucua can also be divided into East and West groups, practicing quite different material cultures. So, when reliable sources call certain entities "tribes", and the members of those entities left no known survivors who can offer an opinion, what do we call them? -- Donald Albury 15:01, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
We must follow the reliable sources, although making sure that we're using the best available ones. Many Wikipedia articles on Native Americans rely on outdated sources, since they're easy to find on the web, or works for popular audiences that are often based on outdated sources. Use of the word "tribe" to describe groups of villages is not a huge issue, just a potentially misleading one that modern, scholarly sources sometimes pause to examine. —Kevin Myers 04:25, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
I understand. But the reliable sources using "tribe" that I'm alluding to are books published in the last 20 years or so by archaeologists currently working in Florida and associated with the University of Florida and the Florida Museum of Natural History. I'm just trying to work out how best to handle the naming issue without moving a bunch of titles around, only to have to move them again later. -- Donald Albury 04:43, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
As Uyvsdi said above, any article currently named "Foo tribe" doesn't necessarily need to be renamed, so you may not have any naming issues to deal with. Really we just want to be consistent and use "Foo" or "Foo tribe" or "Foo people" instead of "Foo (people)" and "Foo (tribe)". The somewhat obscure and academic debate about the word "tribe" is just a side note I brought up. If your sources use the word, you're good. —Kevin Myers 04:58, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
I guess I need to review all the articles I've worked on. Many of them have been moved at some point, but not necessarily with any consistency. -- Donald Albury 11:48, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
I already changed all the Foo (tribe) and Foo (Native American) articles I could find, so I'm done with renaming - except that I posted on Seneca nation about the possibility of renaming that (since many editors work on that article). -Uyvsdi (talk) 19:20, 6 January 2011 (UTC)Uyvsdi
(outdent)I commented on this back in 2004 on Talk:Classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas: "I(t) would be good if we could chose one style to disambiguate with. So far I have noticed:
  • name tribe
  • name Tribe
  • name (tribe)
  • name (people)
  • name (Native American)
  • name (Native Americans)
  • name First Nation (even one for a U.S. tribe!)
  • name Nation"

I don't know if the situation has improved since then. But there may be more than a few still at non-standard forms. Rmhermen (talk) 18:59, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Foo name (tribe), Foo (people), and Foo (Native American/s) have all been switched over to either Foo tribe, Foo people, or the official name of the tribe or group. The issue of using autonyms has come up several times in recent months, but since this is the English-language Wikipedia, the most commonly used name in English is chosen, unless the autonym is the most common name. Neutral Nation is an odd one, but I don't know what the ideal name would be for them. -Uyvsdi (talk) 19:24, 11 February 2011 (UTC)Uyvsdi
I think what is going on is that many of the articles are mixing up the following elements: ethnography of the indigenous people, indigenous government units, indigenous land-base set-aside, indigenous community units.
So, for the US, I would propose:
  • name people >> for ethnological article as it may go beyond any boundaries
  • name per FR >> for the tribal government
  • name Indian Reservation >> for the land-base of the government
  • name per FR Indian Reservations >> for the total land-base of the government if more than one exists
  • name, XX >> for the community that may be located on the IR. (variations may be name Indian Community, XX, name Pueblo, XX)
Canada would be similar:
  • name people >> for ethnological article as it may go beyond any boundaries
  • name per INAC >> for the tribal government
  • name ## Indian Reserve >> for the specific land-base of the government
  • name per INAC Indian Reserves >> for the total land-base of the government if more than one exists
  • name Settlement, XX >> for the community that may be located on the IR.
(XX being the State or Province, and ## being the number designation of the Reserve). Instead of blanketly rename Nation/Tribe/people/Native American/(tribe)/(people)/(Native American)/First Nation, etc., we should look at the articles themselves to see which of the four it really is addressing. If ethnographic, then it should go to name people. If of the government, then name per FR/INAC, etc. But also a good thing to keep in mind is that two or three of these four elements may be one in the same (especially the governmental unit, reservation/reserve and the community, depending on the size), so those cases must be kept cognizant as well. CJLippert (talk) 22:50, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
Many articles just have the name of the group (Chemehuevi, Cocopah, etc.) - that seems fine if there's no pressing reason to tack "people" or "tribe" onto the title. "Name tribe" is common and if that works for the article, there's no reason to change it (I've noticed in the recent flurry of renaming, some names have been reverting back to "Name tribe" from "Name people"). In instances where a group only has one recognized tribe, I prefer to keep the ethnic group and tribe united in one article - Quapaw, Osage Nation, Peoria tribe. When the group has several different tribes, than an overarching ethnic group article and separate articles for each recognized tribe makes sense. -Uyvsdi (talk) 20:34, 12 February 2011 (UTC)Uyvsdi
As I've noted elsewhere, certain constructions are redundant as the "people" morpheme is included in the name....however Englihs convention often still includes it - "St'at'imc people", for example (-mc = "people)- St'at'imc just gets used to supplant "Lillooet" in "Lillooet people", though really tha'ts what it means all by itself; quite often, in the way English is adapting in BC, it doesn't - "Nlaka'pamux" is used as a stand-alone, often enough (-mux = "people"). Kwakwaka'wakw includes teh sense "speakers of" and is used either with or without the qualifier "people". "He's Skwxwu7mesh" or "He's Squamish" implicitly includes the sense of "a Skwxwu7mesh" or "from the Skwxwu7mesh people", but again "-mesh" = "people". Gitxsan is another example ("people of the Skeena (River)") - "Git" means "people" and so on....Skookum1 (talk) 21:05, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Newest proposed hierarchy

OK, then how about this?:

  • Indigenous Peoples of the Americas
    • Indigenous Peoples of North America
      • North American Arctic (including small portions of Siberia)
      • North American Subarctic
      • Cree-Anishinaabe (spanning Subarctic, East and Plains, but on the northern tier)
      • Anishinaabe (spanning Subarctic, East and Plains but on the southern tier)
      • North American East (includes Great Lakes, Northeast and Southeast)
      • North American Plains
      • Dene (as a larger group [better name may be needed], spanning the Subarctic, Plains and West Coast)
      • North American West Coast (includes Northwest Coast, Northwest Plateau and California)
      • North American Southwest (includes the Great Basin, Southwest and Mesoamerica)
    • Indigenous Peoples of South America
      • South American Western highlands (includes Central America)
      • South American Southern grasslands
      • South American Central and Eastern forest
      • South American Northern woodland
      • South American Northern plains
      • Caribbean

...consisting of 6 regional subprojects of IPNA with 3 2 multi-regional subprojects, and 6 regional subprojects of IPSA... for a grand total of 1 macroproject, 2 projects and 15 14 subprojects. And yes, I agree that Hawaiians are already covered by WP:POLYNESIA. CJLippert (talk) 19:33, 8 February 2011 (UTC) Minor adjustment by combining Cree and Anishinaabe. CJLippert (talk) 19:57, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

I guess I'm not understand the pressing need to generate subgroups, since the pre-existing Wikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America/Anishinaabe is not extraordinarily active, so separate groups for Dene and Cree seem excessive (they would just fall into several of the geographical regions, which is the situation for many tribes). You could either chose linguistics or ecological/geographic regions but mixing them seems odd (Anishinaabe would just an anomaly, but it's justified by the large population numbers and adding Cree makes sense). Despite close cultural connections, the Caribbean is not South America, perhaps Central America, South America, and the Caribbean should be listed as "Latin America"? Or have a 3rd Central America/Caribbean section? (Atlantic Central America is hardly NA SW culturally, ecologically, geographically, and they have the population numbers that greatly exceed those of US+Canada). If people demand subdivisions now, I would propose for the following for South America to try to reflect terms that are used in SA:
  • Altiplano
  • Amazon Basin
  • Andes
  • Atacama Desert
  • Brazilian Highlands
  • Gran Chaco
  • Guianas
  • Llanos
  • Pampas
  • Pantanal
  • Southern Cone.
Moxy's suggestion to use linguistic categories makes more sense but it seems the categories of language families in SA is in flux and many are "proposed" language families that haven't gained widespread acceptance. -Uyvsdi (talk) 20:10, 8 February 2011 (UTC)Uyvsdi
  • Support More or less, so long as we don't have to get into the "term must be cited" thing as on articles/categories (that RM on Talk:Plains Indians was a PITA (pain in the ass); NW Coast and NW Plateau really can't be separated and as noted there's some overlap with the Dene/Athapaskan group, just as there would be because of the Dineh and other SW peoples, and the Ktunaxa and Shoshone overlap with the Plateau etc. IMO re "Dene" that is the only appropriate name, same as Anishinaabe is the chosen term of that (group of) people(s). About the "North American West Coast", well, not really a good term because of the Plateau...."Transmontane West" is a term that occurred to me but then would include the Great Basin and much of the SW....California is a very different culture area than the Northwest, despite some connections; the Plateau and NW Coast peoples are intrinsically interlinked in many ways, they have to be part of the same group; California I'm not so sure about. Where do the Koniag and Aleuts etc fit into this? Sub-arctic? And post-edit conflict, I agree with Uysvidi there's no pressing need to create these subgroups/workgroups, though some of them like Great Plains and Pacific Northwest are begging to be created due to the volume of existing articles; what about /Algonkian by the way? Isn't that better than "Northeast"?Skookum1 (talk) 20:14, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
Yes Skookum1 right as a project we should address this...We all agreed long ago that articles that spam multiply Countries should use the term "Indigenous" as all agree that this is the universal term.Moxy (talk) 20:18, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
Well, if everyone here would support it I'd like to re-RM Plains Indians to Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains, which was mobbed by people claiming the USian usage of the current title was the most common, which certainly in pop culture it is, and also saying that it was (allegedly) primarily an American group that only barely touched on Canadian Plains peoples, which is poppycock and also imposes modern national boundaries on people who aren't so divided (as a glance at the Blackfoot Confederacy and various Siouxan pages will show; the map on that page, and on others, only barely shows this region as coming north of the 49th Parallel....it goes quite a bit farther north, and the reality of all populations in CAnada of any kind is that about 90% of us live within 100 miles or so of the border...it was a very aggravating RM and the precedents established by other article-titles and category-titles were totally ignored and amateurishly debunked....Skookum1 (talk) 22:46, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
I proposed that name change but it was not agreed upon. WikiProjects do not own articles. -Uyvsdi (talk) 23:09, 8 February 2011 (UTC)Uyvsdi

I suggest massively backtracking before we suggest categories. Check out Category:Indigenous_peoples_of_North_America to see that there is certainly room for improvement. One reason why I proposed Indigenous peoples of the Americas is to have an umbrella group to cover everyone in question. Any categorization plan you choose, there will be groups that cross the categories.

Dividing into North American and South America seems inadequate, so three groups would be best: North America, Central America/Caribbean, and South America (the second two don't necessarily need their own WikiProjects). From there, you can choose linguistic divisions or geographical/ecological divisions. Nation-state divisions are already in place in Wikipedia categories, but these are inadequate because they do not correspond to any real span of indigenous ethnic groups (hence much of the political problems we indigenous people face today). No one exactly agrees either what the specific ecological divisions are (Plateau, Intermontane West), so that will have to be negotiated.

Another consideration is chronological... where do precontact peoples fit in? I would propose using ecological regions as a guideline because we don't always know what language family ancient peoples belonged to. This will not be perfect either, because people migrate (e.g. according to their oral history, Cheyenne people originated in Nova Scotia) but these could be based primarily on where they have been in the last five centuries (or if they are extinct as a group now, e.g. Las Vegas Culture, where they primarily existed). -Uyvsdi (talk) 20:35, 8 February 2011 (UTC)Uyvsdi

The Cherokee, of course, being prominent in the culture of Los Angeles and Nashville, also (and the Choctaw on Bourbon Street....). Seriously though, the migration/movement of peoples who will say "we've been here since time immemorial" and point to 10,000 year old remains "those are our ancestors" presupposes that nobody moved anywhere; clearly the Dineh were not always where they are now, and the Tshilhqot'in displaced (or, er, possibly wiped out) some earlier group of Interior Salish in the BC Central Interior, as I understand it from an explanation about why the Nuxalk/Bella Coola are not Coast Salish, not linguistically anyway (though by modern identity they are, though not really part of the Coast Salish culture-area as they are of the Wakashan-type Central Coast peoples). The Lekwiltok/Southern Kwakiutl of Campbell River/Cape Mudge moved to where they are, displacing and absorbing the Salishan Comox, within relatively recent memory etc....I'd say we have to deal with "things as they are now"...and weren't the Sioux primarily east of the Mississippi before the wars with the Piasa etc....and then there's Cahokia.....rolling back the clock is only going to confuse things and cause even more tangle than we're already faced withSkookum1 (talk) 20:48, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
A WP:IPA will cover everyone - so innumerable ancient cultures must be accounted for. I said 500 years because obviously the 19th century was rife with forced relocations. Odawa people are still Odawa and Great Lakes people even if they were forced into Indian Territory. Mayan people are still Mayan even if 35K+ live in the San Francisco Bay area. -Uyvsdi (talk) 21:36, 8 February 2011 (UTC)Uyvsdi
Before drilling down to the more local level, so far, it seems we have agreement on the following:
1) To create the macroproject and its two projects:
  • Indigenous Peoples of the Americas [need to create]
    • Indigenous Peoples of North America [exists] (to include Indigenous peoples in Canada, United States, Mexico, Greenland and small portions of Russia, and areas of Mesoamerica and Central America where the peoples/cultures have more in common with peoples in North America)
    • Indigenous Peoples of South America [need to create] (to include Indigenous peoples located throughout South America, Caribbean and areas of Central America where the peoples/cultures have more in common with peoples in South America)
2) To set up Categories reflecting these three upper-level organization so that as articles are identified, they can be classified appropriately, and in the process identify specific holes in coverage.
CJLippert (talk) 15:56, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
Could we start with just the one proposed project (Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Indigenous peoples of the Americas) and if a need/interest arises, then create others? And yes, definitely set up a categorization system. Cheers, -Uyvsdi (talk) 19:51, 10 February 2011 (UTC)Uyvsi
Simple is best, I support Uysvidi in the creation of WP:IPA....other than the continental WPs, the smaller regions, also, should just be workprojects like the Anishinaabe one is at the moment. I'm more concerned, myself, with establishing and building up NativeMOS or, if you'd prefer, call it IndigenousMOS, so that issues of style related to these articles aren't made by mobs of authors only familiar with the popular literature or otherwise uninformed about cultural sensitivities and academic realities...(see on my talkpage a note from Themightyquill about the St'at'imc category and what would happen to it at present if it were to go through a CfD).Skookum1 (talk) 00:32, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
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