Review: [Indigenous; Native; Indian; Nation; People]
Words can be offensive... or preferred.
Ask what a person would prefer. Simple.
Question:
Are some terms interchangeable, or do they have specific meanings?
Answer:
To some extent, the answer to both these questions is, yes.
Current terms once had specific meanings (and still do in some contexts), but they are now used more or less interchangeably in common speech.
“Sovereignty” is not found in the etymological history of the word “tribe”
By contrast, the concept of “Sovereignty” is naturally embedded in the word “nation.”
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During the 20th century the United States government proposed use of the term "Native American" to recognize the primacy of indigenous peoples' tenure in the nation.
American treaty commissioners steadfastly originally refused to use the term “nations” in reference to Native Americans, and were careful to never deviate from the phrase “Indian tribes".
No treaty commissioner desired Native Americans to be dignified with the more politically powerful term “nations.”
Other naming conventions have been proposed and used, but none need to be accepted by all indigenous groups in the United States, where typically, each name has a particular audience and political or cultural connotation, and regional usage varies.
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The United Nations International Labor Organization Convention now uses inclusive terminology of “indigenous and tribal peoples” and ascribes the same set of rights to both groups.
“Indigenous and tribal peoples” is a common denominator for more than 370 million people, found in more than 70 countries worldwide.
Indigenous and tribal peoples have their own cultures, languages, customs and institutions, which distinguish them from other parts of the societies in which they find themselves.
U.N. I.L.O. Convention article No. 169 provides objective and subjective criteria for identifying the peoples concerned, summarized as:
Subjective criteria
Indigenous peoples: Self-identification as belonging to an indigenous people
Tribal peoples: Self-identification as belonging to a tribal people
Objective criteria:
Indigenous: Descent from populations, who inhabited the country or geographical region at the time of conquest, colonization or establishment of present state boundaries. They retain some or all of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions, irrespective of their legal status.
Tribal: Social, cultural and economic conditions distinguish from other sections of the national community. Their status is regulated wholly or partially by their own customs or traditions or by special laws or regulations.
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Sample of current national words used for indigenous and tribal peoples worldwide:
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In Canada, Status Indian remains a legal designation because of the Indian Act.
Although many indigenous peoples, particularly those of Canada, have adopted the word nation in order to emphasize their sovereign political status, others continue to use the words tribe and band.
The term First Nations is preferred for peoples covered by the Canadian Indian Act, and Indigenous peoples preferred for Native peoples generally.
This is also preferred when referring to Inuit and Métis, who do not fall under the "First Nations" category.
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Band and tribe continue to be integral parts of the legal vocabulary in the United States and Canada, where many Native American entities include one or the other term in their legal name.
Both tribe and band are old words.
Ancient Romans called a cohesive ethnopolitical unit a tribus (see tribe).
Variants of band in languages as different as Old Norse and Middle French, used to describe groups of people that were bound or bonded together (several other meanings of the word, such as “a decorative stripe” and “a close-fitting piece of attire,” denote some of the ways in which such groups expressed their membership, as by collectively wearing garments displaying a colorful stripe or by wearing an armband).
Christopher Columbus referred to resident peoples encountered in North America as "Indians" reflecting a purported belief he had reached the Indian Ocean; for centuries the native people of the Americas were collectively called "Indians" in various European languages.
Early scholars discerned a relationship between economics and sociopolitical organization thusly:
- hunting-and-gathering cultures and forager-farmers generally organized themselves into bands and tribes,
- full-time agriculturists tended to organize themselves into chiefdoms or states.
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In the United States of America, the term "Native Americans" refers to indigenous peoples as now defined by the United States Census* as "American Indians", and additionally, to Alaska Natives of all ethnicities.
*The United States Census does not include Native Hawaiians, Samoans, or Chamorros, instead being included in the Census grouping of "Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander".
While a better solution is still desired, an entity’s name may stand alone or be combined with a term such as nation, tribe, people, or band;
the Seminole,
the Seminole nation,
the Seminole tribe,
and the Seminole people
All are used more or less interchangeably, while the Seminole tribes refers to independent polities or legally recognized entities that share Seminole heritage, and Seminole bands indicates the household-based co-resident groups of the pre-reservation era.
References to specific political entities use the group’s legal name, as in the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and the Seminole Tribe of Florida.
Where two or more traditional cultures were clearly related and cooperative yet maintained their political independence, aggregate groups are referred to as nations, tribes, or peoples, and subsidiary units may be denoted as bands:
the Sioux nation,
the Sioux tribes,
or the Sioux peoples;
the Lakota, Nakota, and Dakota bands;
the Lakota tribes, peoples, or bands (meaning those tribes, peoples, or bands who spoke Lakota);
and the Sicangu band of Lakota.
References to specific political entities use the group’s legal name, as in the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and the Seminole Tribe of Florida.
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The Tulalip Tribes is a federally-recognized Indian tribe located on the Tulalip Reservation in the mid-Puget Sound Snohomish County area.
The Tulalip Reservation is where the U.S. government set up a reservation for Coast Salish Tribes of Puget Sound, initially reserved for the use and benefit of allied Native American tribes and bands signatory to the Treaty of Point Elliott of January 22, 1855, and to provide a permanent home for the Duwamish, Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skagit, Sauk-Suiattle, Samish and Stillaguamish Tribes and allied bands living in the region.
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++References++
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IPeoples/Pages/UNIPPartnership.aspx
United Nations International Labor Organization
https://www.ilo.org/global/lang--en/index.htm
Elizabeth Prine Pauls; "The Difference Between a Tribe and a Band", Encyclopædia Britannica. March 06, 2008 https://www.britannica.com/topic/Difference-Between-a-Tribe-and-a-Band-1673365 ACCESS DATE November 05, 2020
https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/on-the-words-tribe-and-nation-NUTfP-tyU0uqza8cle2BSg
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