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 the peoples who are native to the Americas, or the Western Hemisphere. Their ancestors are among the pre-Columbian population of South or North America, including Central America and the Caribbean. Indigenous peoples live throughout the Americas. While often minorities in their countries, Indigenous peoples are the majority in Greenland and close to a majority in Bolivia and Guatemala.

There are at least 1,000 different Indigenous languages of the Americas. Some languages, including Quechua, Arawak, Aymara, Guaraní, Nahuatl, and some Mayan languages, have millions of speakers and are recognized as official by governments in Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay, and Greenland. (Full article...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Selected article

Community of igloos. (Illustration from Charles Francis Hall's Arctic Researches and Life Among the Esquimaux, 1865) — Community of igloos. (Illustration from Charles Francis Hall's *Arctic Researches and Life Among the Esquimaux*, 1865)

An igloo (Inuit language: iglu, Inuktitut syllabics ᐃᒡᓗ [iɣˈlu] (plural: igluit ᐃᒡᓗᐃᑦ [iɣluˈit]) or snowhouse is a type of shelter built of snow, originally built by the Inuit.

Although igloos are usually associated with all Inuit, they were predominantly constructed by people of Canada's Central Arctic and Greenland's Thule area. Other Inuit people tended to use snow to insulate their houses, which were constructed from whalebone and hides. Snow is used because the air pockets trapped in it make it an insulator. On the outside, temperatures may be as low as −45 °C (−49 °F), but on the inside the temperature may range from −7 °C (19 °F) to 16 °C (61 °F) when warmed by body heat alone.

More...

All selected articles

edit

Selected image

Pyramid of the Moon, Teotihuacán, México

image credit: Diego Delso

Full set of selected images

General images

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

Image 1The Rarámuri marathon in Urique (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 2A 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 3The major indigenous language families of much of present-day South America and Panama (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 4Indigenous people at a farm plantation in Minas Gerais in present-day Brazil, c. 1824 (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 5Owners of a roadside cafe near Cachi, Salta Province, Argentina (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 6The common bean is native to Mexico and Central America and later began to be cultivated in South America. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 7The West Indies (or Antilles) in relation to the continental Americas (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 8Guambía people relaxing in Colombia (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 9A Mapuche man and woman; the Mapuche make up about 85% of Indigenous population that live in Chile. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 10Shaman of the Cofán people from the Amazonian forest in present-day Ecuador (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 11The tomato (jitomate, in central Mexico) was later cultivated by the pre-Hispanic civilizations of Mexico. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 12A bison hunt depicted in a painting by George Catlin (1844) (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 13Indigenous peoples textile art in 1995 by Julia Pingushat, including Inuk, Arviat, Nunavut, Canada, wool, and embroidery floss (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 14The ancient mesoamerican engraving of maize now on display at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 15An Indigenous woman in traditional dress near Cochabamba, Bolivia (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 16Quechua women in festive dress on Taquile Island on Lake Titicaca, west of Peru (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 17Ceramic portrait of a Maya noblewoman, Jaina Island, Mexico, 600–800 CE (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 18Proportion of Native Americans in each county in 2020. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 19Embera girl in the Darién Province, 2006. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 20Proportion of Native Mexicans in each municipalities in 2020. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 21Members of an uncontacted tribe encountered in Acre in present-day Brazil in 2009 (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 22Evo Morales, an Aymara member and former President of Bolivia (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 23A Quechua woman and child in the Sacred Valley in Cuzco Region, Peru (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 24A 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 25Maya glyphs in stucco now on display at Museo de sitio in Palenque, Mexico (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 26A Huichol woman from Zacatecas, Mexico (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 27A schematic illustration of maternal (mtDNA) gene-flow in and out of Beringia, from 25,000 years ago to present
Image 28An Indigenous Terena man from present-day Brazil (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 29A Mapuche man in present-day Chile (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 30Indigenous Pipil women dancing in the traditional Procession of Palms in Panchimalco, El Salvador (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 31Principal component analysis showing the Native American cluster in other Eurasian populations. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 32A Choctaw artist in present-day Oklahoma (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 33A Warao family traveling in their canoe in Venezuela (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 34An Indigenous man playing a panpipe, antara, or siku (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 35Proportion of Native Argentines in each department in 2022. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 36A 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 37Areas of Indigenous peoples in South and Central America at the time of European colonization (in Spanish) (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 38A 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 39An elderly Maya woman (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 40A carnival with Tzeltal people in Tenejapa Municipality, Chiapas (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 41Proportion of Native Brazilians in each department in 2022. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 42Moche portrait vessel from Peru, 100 BCE–500 CE (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 43Areas of Indigenous peoples in North America at time of European colonization (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 44Language 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 45Modern Maya people in Sololá, Guatemala (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 46A Navajo man on horseback in present-day Monument Valley in Arizona (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 47Chimu culture feather pectoral, feathers, reed, copper, silver, hide, cordage, c. 1350–1450 (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 48A qpGraph on the formation of Ancient Paleo-Siberians and Native American populations. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 49An 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 50Tunumiit Inuit couple from Kulusuk, Greenland (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 51Wayuu women in the Guajira Peninsula, which encompasses parts of Colombia and Venezuela (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 52Amerindian and Inuit populations of the Americas as of year 2024 (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 Lutheran priest Henrik Lund wrote Greenland's nation anthem, Nunarput utoqqarsuanngoravit, in the indigenous Greenlandic language?
... that the artwork of full-blood Tsimshian photographer Benjamin Haldane has enjoyed a revival after his glass plate negatives were discovered in an Alaskan dump?
... that in traditional Plains hide painting, Native American women painted abstract, geometric designs while men painted representational, narrative images?

More…

Subcategories

Category puzzle

Select [►] to view subcategories

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Indigenous peoples of North America

Indigenous peoples of South America

Indigenous people of the Americas

Lists of Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Afro-Indigenous peoples of the Americas

America Indigenous peoples templates

Anti-Indigenous racism in the Americas

Battles involving Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Non-fiction books about Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Children's books about Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Indigenous culture of the Americas

Extinct Indigenous peoples of the Americas

History of Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Indigenous feminism in the Americas

Indigenous peoples of the Americas and the environment

Indigenous peoples of the Americas portal

Massacres by Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Indigenous rights organizations in the Americas

Indigenous languages of the Americas

Indigenous politics in the Americas

Wars involving Indigenous peoples of the Americas

WikiProject Indigenous peoples of the Americas

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

Machu Picchu

image credit: Martin St-Amant

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.