Portal:Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The Indigenous peoples of the Americas Portal

Current distribution of Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are groups of people native to a specific region that inhabited the Americas before the arrival of European settlers in the 15th century and the ethnic groups who continue to identify themselves with those peoples.

The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are diverse; some Indigenous peoples were historically hunter-gatherers, while others traditionally practice agriculture and aquaculture. In some regions, Indigenous peoples created pre-contact monumental architecture, large-scale organized cities, city-states, chiefdoms, states, kingdoms, republics, confederacies, and empires. These societies had varying degrees of knowledge of engineering, architecture, mathematics, astronomy, writing, physics, medicine, planting and irrigation, geology, mining, metallurgy, sculpture, and goldsmithing. (Full article...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Selected article

Tak'alik Ab'aj is a pre-Columbian archaeological site in Guatemala. It was formerly known as Abaj Takalik; its ancient name may have been Kooja. It is one of several Mesoamerican sites with both Olmec and Maya features. The site flourished in the Preclassic and Classic periods, from the 9th century BC through to at least the 10th century AD, and was an important centre of commerce,trading with Kaminaljuyu and Chocolá. Investigations have revealed that it is one of the largest sites with sculptured monuments on the Pacific coastal plain.Olmec-style sculptures include a possible colossal head, petroglyphs and others. The site has one of the greatest concentrations of Olmec-style sculpture outside of the Gulf of Mexico.

Takalik Abaj is representative of the first blossoming of Maya culture that had occurred by about 400 BC. The site includes a Maya royal tomb and examples of Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions that are among the earliest from the Maya region. Excavation is continuing at the site; the monumental architecture and persistent tradition of sculpture in a variety of styles suggest the site was of some importance.

Finds from the site indicate contact with the distant metropolis of Teotihuacan in the Valley of Mexico and imply that Takalik Abaj was conquered by it or its allies.Takalik Abaj was linked to long-distance Maya trade routes that shifted over time but allowed the city to participate in a trade network that included the Guatemalan highlands and the Pacific coastal plain from Mexico to El Salvador.

More...

All selected articles

edit

Selected image

A family photo of an Inupiat mother, father, and son, photographed in Noatak, Alaska, by Edward S. Curtis circa 1929.

image credit: public domain

Full set of selected images

General images

The following are images from various Indigenous peoples of the Americas-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Members of an uncontacted tribe encountered in Acre in present-day Brazil in 2009 (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 2The tomato (jitomate, in central Mexico) was later cultivated by the pre-Hispanic civilizations of Mexico. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 3A schematic illustration of maternal (mtDNA) gene-flow in and out of Beringia, from 25,000 years ago to present
Image 4The major indigenous language families of much of present-day South America and Panama (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 5Principal component analysis showing the Native American cluster in other Eurasian populations. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 6A Quechua woman and child in the Sacred Valley in Cuzco Region, Peru (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 7A qpGraph on the formation of Ancient Paleo-Siberians and Native American populations. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 8The West Indies in relation to the continental Americas (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 9"The Maiden", one of the discovered Llullaillaco mummies, a preserved Inca human sacrifice from around the year 1500. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 10A Navajo boy in the desert in present-day Monument Valley in Arizona with the "Three Sisters" rock formation in the background in 2007 (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 11A Mapuche man and woman; the Mapuche make up about 85% of Indigenous population that live in Chile. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 12Areas of Indigenous peoples in North America at time of European colonization (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 13The Rarámuri marathon in Urique (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 14The Kogi, descendants of the Tairona, are a culturally intact, largely pre-Columbian era society. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 15An Indigenous man playing a panpipe, antara, or siku (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 16Shaman of the Cofán people from the Amazonian forest in present-day Ecuador (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 17Tunumiit Inuit couple from Kulusuk, Greenland (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 18Guambía people relaxing in Colombia (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 19The bean is native to Mexico and Central America and later began to be cultivated in South America. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 20Indigenous people at a farm plantation in Minas Gerais in present-day Brazil, c. 1824 (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 21A representation of the domesticated plant species cultivated by Indigenous peoples have influenced the crops that were produced globally. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 22The ancient mesoamerican engraving of maize now on display at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 23Owners of a roadside cafe near Cachi, Salta Province, Argentina (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 24A map showing the origin of the first wave of humans into the Americas, including the Ancestral Northern Eurasian, which represent a distinct Paleolithic Siberian population, and the Northeast Asians, which are an East Asian-related group. The admixture happened somewhere in Northeast Siberia. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 25A Mayan woman (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 26A Navajo man on horseback in present-day Monument Valley in Arizona (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 27A carnival with Tzeltal people in Tenejapa Municipality, Chiapas (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 28A bison hunt depicted in a painting by George Catlin (1844) (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 29Maya women from present-day Guatemala (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 30A Choctaw artist in present-day Oklahoma (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 31An illustration in Florentine Codex, compiled between 1540 and 1585, depicting the Nahua peoples suffering from smallpox during the conquest-era in central Mexico (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 32Indigenous peoples textile art in 1995 by Julia Pingushat, including Inuk, Arviat, Nunavut, Canada, wool, and embroidery floss (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 33A Mapuche man in present-day Chile (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 34A map of Canada showing the percent of self-reported indigenous identity (First Nations, Inuit, Métis) by census division, according to the 2021 Canadian census (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 35Wayuu women in the Guajira Peninsula, which comprises parts of Colombia and Venezuela (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 36Quechua women in festive dress on Taquile Island on Lake Titicaca, west of Peru (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 37Evo Morales, an Aymara member and former President of Bolivia (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 38Chimu culture feather pectoral, feathers, reed, copper, silver, hide, cordage, c. 1350–1450 (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 39Indigenous Pipil women dancing in the traditional Procession of Palms in Panchimalco, El Salvador (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 40Language families of Indigenous peoples in North America shown across present-day Canada, Greenland, the United States, and northern Mexico (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 41A Huichol woman from Zacatecas, Mexico (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 42Maya glyphs in stucco now on display at Museo de sitio in Palenque, Mexico (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 43An Indigenous Terena man from present-day Brazil (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 44A Warao family traveling in their canoe in Venezuela (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 45An Indigenous woman in traditional dress near Cochabamba, Bolivia (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)

Selected biography

Mitchell Red Cloud, Jr. (2 July 1924 – 5 November 1950) was a Marine in the United States Marine Corps during World War II, and later a soldier in the United States Army during the Korean War. Corporal Red Cloud posthumously received the Medal of Honor for his actions near Chonghyon, North Pyongan Province, North Korea on 5 November 1950.

Red Cloud, a Ho-Chunk Native American, enlisted in the US Army shortly before the beginning of the Korean War. Serving with the 24th Infantry Division, he was among the troops who fought the first battles of the war, being pushed back with the 19th Infantry Regiment during the Battle of Taejon and the Battle of Pusan Perimeter. He was then a part of the Eighth United States Army advance into North Korea. On the night of 5 November 1950, Red Cloud was manning a forward observation post when he spotted an imminent surprise attack by Chinese forces. Red Cloud singlehandedly held off the Chinese forces despite being shot eight times, at one point ordering his men to tie him to a tree because he was too weak to stand by himself. His company found him the next morning, surrounded by dead Chinese troops. He was credited with alerting his company to the ambush and saving them from being overrun. For these actions, he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

More...

All selected biographies

Did you know…

... that the Cascajal Block, a serpentinite slab from the Olmec civilization, was dated to the which early first millennium BCE and may represent the earliest writing system in the Americas?
... that Jim Thorpe (Sac and Fox) won the 1912 Olympic gold medals for the pentathlon and decathlon?
...that underwater panthers were creatures appearing in the mythology of a number of Native American traditions, which combined the features of mountain lions or lynx with those of snakes, and were believed to inhabit the deepest parts of lakes and rivers?

More…

Subcategories

Category puzzle

Select [►] to view subcategories

Related portals

Things you can do

Join a WikiProject:
Suggest featured articles and pictures.
Help maintain the Indigenous peoples of the Americas portal.

Selected panorama

Chichen Itza

image credit: Daniel Schwen

Topics

Recognized content

This is a list of recognized content, updated weekly by JL-Bot (talk · contribs) (typically on Saturdays). There is no need to edit the list yourself. If an article is missing from the list, make sure it is tagged (e.g. {{WikiProject Indigenous peoples of the Americas}}) or categorized correctly and wait for the next update. See WP:RECOG for configuration options.