Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America

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[edit] Categories

On the list of categories, would it be better if we were to alphabetize them as we go along? --Aaron Walden 19:15, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Great idea Aaron - be bold and rearrange them ;) I would only recommend to leave the project cat on top, as it will surely be our main working reference. Great work on the userbox, btw! Phædriel ♥ tell me - 20:55, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
We need to think about reorganizing and pruning the categories. I'm finding a lot of categories to add to the list. Most the categories have sub-categories, which have sub-sub-categories. I've found sixteen categories to add to the list tonight, and I'm still only reached the (now) 12th on the list. -- Dalbury(Talk) 03:59, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, no kidding. There's a lot of them. Wouldn't it work to just list the top categories, since the sub-categories are listed within each, anyway? --Aaron Walden 04:36, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunatley no because the category structure is not a strict tree, i.e. not all sub cats are under the same cat, some aren't even under the right cat or may be under something totally unrelated. Like until I edited it tonight, Category:indigenous peoples of Mexico wasn't a sub cat of Category:Indigenous peoples of North America. The cat system is too messy to trust it that way. It would be easier if it were better organized, but it isn't. Maybe we need a separate Wikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America/Working categories or something if the list gets giant.
Yes, Dalbury, you're right - the pile-on of categories is far greater than I expected. Imho, it's best to list subcats as well, since we wish a global overview of the location of all existing resources both for searching and (re)location purposes. However, now that the number of them that we've identified is making the list too large to be included at the project's main page, I suggest that we move it to a subpage. I also think that maybe we should split it a little more, following the same criteria that you've currently used, i.e. maybe a Culture subsection is in order - please, go ahead and follow your own ideas. You're doing a great job searching for cats and posting them here, guys - congrats! Phædriel ♥ tell me - 04:46, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
I went ahead and moved the cats to the subpage Wikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America/Working categories. Seemed like a logical thing to do. pschemp | talk 05:00, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
And I suppose another reason each must be listed is that future editors could come along and remove their sub-category status, rendering it an insufficient list. --Aaron Walden 06:30, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Some of the categories are very sparsely populated. Hopefully, new articles will help populate those categories, but we may want to consolidate some of them. -- Dalbury(Talk) 11:45, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
My suspicion is that they are sparsley populated due to nobody knowing article should go there rather than there are no articles to go there. I've been working in related category schemes (all the archaeology cats for examples) and have seen this to be the case usually. Let's hold off on merging until all the available data is collected. I'm making it my project to deal with the cats and their populations and classifications. pschemp | talk 07:48, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
There are some candidates for merging on other grounds: Category:Native Americans' rights activists and Category:Native American activists, and Category:Lakota mythology, Category:Lakota deities, Category:Lakota goddesses and Category:Lakota gods. -- Dalbury(Talk) 11:30, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scope

Can we include Indians of Mexico too? They have no category and most of their articles are stubs (except Aztec). Needs a lot of work. I have some books on Mexican Indians in Spanish, so if the language is a barrier, maybe you could send those projects my way?--Rockero420 21:49, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

As long as we have users with expertise in the subject, like you seem to do, Rockero, I think the idea is great. Please, feel free to add the proper template to each article's Talk Page in order to identify them. As the project has just begun, the first step is to identify all artciles under its scope, and list them at the project page as soon as we have categorized them. I'll remake the templates in order to include Indigenous peoples of Mexico asap. Thank you for your cooperation, and welcome! Phædriel ♥ tell me - 21:57, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] scope 2: prehistory?

hi.

question: how about including prehistory? (unless your meaning of "historic" includes prehistory as well). i note that the coverage of American archaeology is a rather weak point of Wikipedia.

peace – ishwar  (speak) 00:09, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, dear Ish - in fact, now that we're going through the categorizing stages (an absolute must imho, in order to identify as many related articles as possible), I've already tagged a few artciles that fall into that period of time. Please, go ahead and include any others you see fit. Cheers! Phædriel ♥ tell me - 00:45, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inuit/Eskimo

The Inuit and other Eskimo-Aleut speaking peoples should also be included. What do you think? Also, it might be useful to invite the numerous people who have contributed to aboriginal-related articles. Luigizanasi 00:35, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Definetely, Luigi - in fact, I just went into a categorizing spree and tagged as many articles related to that group as I could. Again, I encourage you to seek any others you deem appropriate and tag them at their Talk Pages as well with the {{NorthAmNative}} template. I also created an invitation template to let as many interested users as possible know of the existence of this project; you can add it at their Talk Pages with {{NANWP}}. Welcome aboard, and happy editing! Phædriel ♥ tell me - 00:45, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Then the Wikiproject notification template should change to include them explicitly. They do not consider themselves First Nations, and would be insulted by the term. I would like to suggest the wording "Native American, First Nations, Inuit and Alaska Native". I would do it, but I fear I will probably screw it up. Luigizanasi 07:51, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Good, point, Luigi - I'm on it! Phædriel ♥ tell me - 20:55, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Redlinked articles

There are a number of redlinked articles at List_of_U.S._military_history_events#American Indian conflicts, wars, battles, expeditions and campaigns - it may be advisable to change the section title as well. Please note Native Americans in the United States instead of Indigenous peoples of North America as well - not sure if you want to move that. Another set of redlinks is at List_of_Native_American_Tribal_Entities - and I am sure you have more than enough to do without me mentioning redlinks so I will stop now. KillerChihuahua?!? 17:23, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about the belated reply, KC - but please, don't shut up! On the contrary, your suggestions are most welcome. I had already noticed the many red links on the Indian Wars part of the list of US military events, since in fact it was my first interest in Wikipedia and my main one for some time. The difficulty to find information about several conflicts made me advance very slowly, but I managed to write a little about some of them, like Winnebago War and Peoria War. I find the subject fascinating (I actually joined the Wikiproject Military history to expand related articles), and I agree with you: at some point in the near future, thse topics should be included within the scope of this project. I recommend that we go a little slow at the beginning, since the task is already rather big and adding even more subjects may be daunting, but you're absolutely right - this can be (and hopefully will be) a very interesting area for future development. Cheers! Phædriel ♥ tell me - 23:36, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sitting Bull

I would love to help out this project. I think one of the articles that needs immediate attention is Sitting Bull. Just reading through it, the tone is wrong, it is not comprehensive, and needs major clean-up. It sounds like a 13-year old wrote it. I will help out when I get a chance, but I'm currently busy working on two other article. Gflores Talk 18:38, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lot's of Indigenous information out here - All jumbled around!

Maybe we can come to a consensus to consolidate as much Indigenous information onto one page as possible, since everyone is Indigenous to somewhere? My current count for disambiguation pages is at least 20 (I stopped trying to count them). Anyone have any ideas on how to do this efficiently? -- 24.11.91.3 07:16, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Some Examples:

See the talk pages on those articles. There was substantial discussion back in September 2005 about the jumble of stuff in Native American, Indigenous people of the Americas, etc. The consensus reached was that three separate articles were needed and stuff was moved to the appropriate articles: Native Americans in the United States for the strictly US-related material, Indigenous peoples of the Americas for an overview, and Native American name controversy for the material related to collective names. Luigizanasi 16:17, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reservations

I notice your list of articles has no category for reservations/reserves. We have a number of these articles (List of Native American reserves in Canada, List of Indian reservations in the United States will help find them.) I also noticed that while we have a list of U.S. federally recognized tribes and a list of U.S. state recognized tribes, I couldn't find a list of U.S. unrecognized tribes. I only know 3 or 4 which is hardly enough to justify starting a list but there should be a large number in Virginia, New England and California. Rmhermen 21:32, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

If you visit www.manataka.org there is a list of non-recognized tribes, of which some are state recognized, some are federally recognized but not independently recognized. The run the whole spectrum of true Native American groups seeking federal recognition/federal independent recognition to separatist groups taking advantage of Tribes. As for reservations, other than those whose reservations are listed right in the Federal Register along with their names, there is also the US Census Bureau's website at American Indian and Alaska Native page and follow the appropriate "maps" links. CJLippert 06:00, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
I have pulled in all the reservations listed by the the US Census Bureau. Though most of the list did not get a link, if you check List of Native American Tribal Entities, not only are all the federally recognized tribes listed (per Federal Register of November 2005), but you can see which tribes need entry and which tribes have their reservation listed, and of those whose reservations are listed, which reservations have an existing article and which don't. The list also needs to agree with List of Indian reservations in the United States but the list needs to have the entries given the proper names of the Reservation (compare the "Zia" entries of the two lists). Also, you should also be able to tell which peoples have an article and which don't. CJLippert 07:06, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalization of terms

Hi all - Currently the term "Indigenous" is capitalized the majority of the time when used on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America article. However, over at Indigenous peoples, it is capitalized the minority of times it is used. It would be quite helpful to establish a naming convention for use on Wikipedia regarding whether or not the ethnic group term "Indigenous" and its synonym "Aboriginal" should be capitalized all the time, none of the time, or perhaps some of the time and in which general cases. Aboriginal peoples in Canada#Capitalization may be helpful to a discussion. Kurieeto 23:14, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

This is a valid point, Kuri - I simply used the capitalization every time we mention the project's name more as a title than a naming convention for indigenous peoples themselves. My humble opinion is, that it should not be capitalized if we actually mean indigenous peoples, and only use the capitalization when mentioning the project's full name. Again, your input is more than welcome. Phædriel ♥ tell me - 23:17, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Arguments in favour of capitalization include that "Indigenous" should be capitalized like other ethnic terms, such as Arabic, Asian, or German. Also, the policy of the Government of Canada is that "Indigenous means 'native to the area.' In this sense, Aboriginal people are indeed indigenous to North America. As a proper name for a people, the term is capitalized to form 'Indigenous peoples.'" [1]. Just so I'm clear on your rationale, what are your arguments in favour of not capitalizing the term? Kurieeto 12:56, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
I think the most appropriate place for a discussion about the capitalization/non-capitalization of "indigenous peoples" would be Talk:Indigenous peoples, so I've begun a new discussion about the matter there. Kurieeto 13:36, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Just wanted to note that the ethnic term is 'Arab.' 'Arabic' refers to the language - but I don't want to edit someone else's writing.

Cheers, DevinMcGevin 07:25, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lists

Not sure were it would fit on the project page, these lists are fertile ground for finding red-links.

I couldn't find any list of Archeological cultures/complexes. (List of pre-Columbian civilizations is related but very incomplete and Cultural periods of Peru could be a format guide.) Rmhermen 15:36, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

These lists can certainly provide rich reference to artciles that we need to work on. Perhaps it would be a good idea to broaden our Categories sections to "Working lists and categories", and add them to the proper subpage. What do you think? Phædriel ♥ tell me - 23:15, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
List of Indigenous people of the Americas is mostly blue-links but not very comprehensive (although it covers a slightly larger group than the topic of this project, it is sectioned by modern nations.) Rmhermen 16:25, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Two projects

Here's a possible goal for the project: make sure Wikipedia has an article for each entry listed in the Encyclopedia of North American Indians, a good online resource, written by scholars. Like the Dictionary of Candian Biography project, a systematic approach could be adopted, making sure each Wikipedia article has an external link to the online source.

Speaking of the Canadian Biography project, there are a lot of "red links" to native names there, so that's another place where project members here could do some good work, starting new Wikipedia entries for as-yet overlooked biographies.

As always, when I say "somebody" ought to do something, I mean "somebody other than me." --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 03:17, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

hi. i think is ok.
however, i suggest also that the Handbook of North American Indians published (and still being published) by the Smithsonian Institution is an excellent source to guide what is missing here by simply taking note of the table of contents in each volume. It is more comprehensive than the website mentioned above. Some volumes are out-of-date by now, but still this is the single best reference in the English language on general North American info. peace – ishwar  (speak) 09:55, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
oh yes, i didnt mention before, but the reference i provided of Landar's (1973) "checklist" is something like Classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas except that it is bigger (at 188 pages) with synonymy cross-indexing (we know all the alternate historical names of peoples & languages can drive newcomers to Indian scholarship crazy). this may be useful to see what is missing – ishwar  (speak) 10:03, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Another online source people should keep in mind are the famous McKenney-Hall portraits. (Between 1821 and 1842, many American Indian leaders who came to sign treaties in Washington D.C. had their portraits painted, mostly by Charles Bird King.) These portraits were published as lithographs in the 19th century, and are all over the Internet, like here. Someone might want to make a list of these portraits, to make sure Wikipedia has them all and their corresponding articles. --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 05:03, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Flags of Indigenous Peoples

I feel that the article Flags of indigenous peoples should be addressed in this project, however, it is proposed for merger with Flags of non-sovereign nations (which proposal I am not in favor of). At present Flags of non-sovereign nations has flags of more indigenous nations of North America listed than does Flags of indigenous peoples. --Aaron Walden 09:43, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I am inclined to oppose that merge too. Thanks for bringing it to our attention, Aaron - I'd like to see Flags of indigenous peoples under our scope as well. On a side note, I'll have rough time logging in this week, but I'll try to asses and add as many articles to our lists as possible, and maybe create a new sublist or two as well. Hopefully, we'll have as many of the ancillary articles as our lists properly assessed soon, so we can get to work on the most important part of the project: expanding and improving them. Cheers, Phædriel ♥ tell me - 01:32, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I feel that alll flags of the nations should be represented, and not just the ones ALLOWED to be native the the government; by thinking that way you particpate in your own oppression; why do we need the white mans approval to tell me who is native or not; I for one do not live my life by the white mans say so, you shouldn't either. Do not take this as an insult, for telling the truth insults no one. If any one wants to talk about that this issue more, i will try to educate you kixuh@yahoo.com

            Kixuh-Medil Xwe

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 137.150.109.186 (talk • contribs).

I'm pretty sure the Flags of Indigenous Peoples article, as it stands, allows, and could reasonably be expected to include, flags of non-federally-recognized tribes and nations. Aaron Walden Image:Tsalagisigline.gif

I have created two new articles to accommodate for Indigenous American flags: Flags of Native Americans in the United States and Flags of Aboriginal peoples of Canada. Both are still stubs and very much under construction. Feel free to correct any incorrectness you can spot - feedback is welcomed! -- Himasaram 14:38, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I left a question on the U.S. flag page. Rmhermen 15:56, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
These two pages now lists all NA flags I have been able to find on en.wikipedia&commons so far. It shall be noted that a large share of the flags collected so far has a large drawback: They are probably non-free. The uploaders (mainly a certain Catalan Wikipedia user) have been sloppy with providing sources and has marked all flags as PD-self which I doubt is correct. I have started creating free SVG replacements -- see for example Image:Flag of Western Abenaki.svg -- but many flags have conciderably complex seals at the center of the design and it is expected to take some time. Help appreciated! -- Himasaram 01:19, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article classification tables

Well I STARTED out to add the BIA as a relevant article, but I can never remember the color codes for the article types!!! So I added a column to the article types table with the hex code values. In doing so I decided that it would make sense to resectionalise (adding Grading scheme) so I could edit just that section and not all of the other tables at the same time (they get a lot of edit traffic), and that maybe a sample table would be good, explaining the columns of the article tables. Maybe redundant as they are mostly self explanatory but maybe it will be of use. Comments welcomed if you didn't like what I did. ++Lar: t/c 15:59, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America

I created this ^^ messagebox template for those of us who use messageboxes to show project affiliations. It's bog standard, I just copied the {{WikiProject Bridges}} template, so it doesn't have the nifty image at left (that could be fixed I guess?)that the userbox does. Hopefully some will find it of use. ++Lar: t/c 21:31, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

It was a good idea. Thanks for contributing it. Aaron Walden Image:Tsalagisigline.gif

[edit] Nations, tribes and groups

How long do we want this list to be for now? I have several articles on tribes I could add, but they are all extinct tribes, and extinct and minor tribes would make for a long list. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)(Talk) 00:02, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

A very valid point, Dalbury. My own opinion is that only recognized tribes, or maybe only those with a somewhat higher degree of historical importance should be included at the list at the Project page; not that I wouldn't like to see every tribe that ever existed there, but simply because, as you say, it would be incredibly long. While we're at this, I may also ask your opinion about including subtribes which have an article about themselves, most notably the subgroups of the Apache (Mescalero, Jicarilla, Chiricahua, etc.) Should we also add them, or consider them already present by listing the main article only? Your input will be very appreciated. Phædriel ♥ tell me - 00:13, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Length by itself is not a major criterion. If it gets too long, portions can be moved into subpages, e.g., extinct tribes. However, I've seen instances where lists are so long that their meaning and content is largely lost. Walter Siegmund (talk) 00:32, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
In my case, it's also a matter of minor articles about minor tribes, for which solid information is quite sparse. I'll leave my group of minor articles about little-known, extinct tribes off the list for now. Some are still just stubs, and all of them can be expanded. I hope to work on them again, when I have the time. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)(Talk) 01:47, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm afraid I don't have much advice on how to handle sub-tribes. I suspect a case-by-case analysis will be required. As I understand it, what is a tribe and what is a sub-tribe or other division of a tribe is often an artificial construct, imposed by we white men to allow the BIA bureaucrats to think they had a handle on the "Indian problem". The extant tribes have now developed their own definitions of who they are, but I'm not sure that helps us in describing pre-Twentieth century tribes. I've only worked on articles on pre-Seminole tribes in southern Florida, and my research doesn't give me much confidence in the delineation of the "tribes" described in the literature. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)(Talk) 01:47, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
re Apache Tribe: there never was an Apache tribe. They were often enemies and not sub-tribes of common political social grouping. Apache is simply a convenient linguistic/cultural grouping. This is just a note and not an argument for listing them separately on the Project page.
suggestion: Why not have separate pages based on culture area? These wouldnt need to be shown on the main Project page. Perhaps this will prevent marginalization of less important groups (degree of importance is, of course, a bias of the history writer). Since this Project covers a very large and diverse continent, I think that we should expect incredibly long lists. I guess wouldnt want to be left out because I wasnt important. Question 2: what needs to be on the main page anyway?
- 22:16, 2006 February 20 User:ish ishwar
I have come to agree that it would be best to deal with the major groupings in the initial stage, as it would be overwhelming otherwise, and well-contructed articles will have links to the sub-groupings, anyway. However, the point regarding the Apache is well-noted. This might well compare to the Iriquoian tribes. They are historically separate tribes and should be treated as such. --Aaron Walden 19:50, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Somewhere else I've commented that the subgroupings in Canada would be immensely long in their own right; as individual villages/clans are independent nations in their own self-description; and in some cases the divisions do not correspond to language-cultural links/affinities; comments below adapted or concerning existing Wiki pages:

Kwakiutl vs Kwagyuilh vs Kwakwaka'wakw - all currently lumped under Kwakiutl, which is the usual name for the Kwak'wala-speaking peoples of northern Vancouver Island, Queen Charlotte Strait and the Johnstone Strait in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Kwakiutl peoples include:
  • Kwakwaka'wakw - (Queen Charlotte Strait)
  • Kwagyuilh - Northern Kwakiutl (Fort Rupert)
  • Laich-kwil-tach - aka Legwiltok, Yucultas or Euclataws, aka Southern Kwakiutl (Campbell River/Quadra Island). Just to confuse matters further, the Southern Kwakiutl are divided between the Weiwaikai and Weywakum
Kwakiutl is also erroneously used to describe Oweekyala speakers just north of the Kwak'wala speaking region; "Northern Kwakiutl" (in its historic context, not in reference to Fort Rupert) are Haisla, Oweekeeno and others in the central [[British Columbia Coast]. Kwakwaka'wakw literally means "speakers of Kwak'wala" and while this is the name of a political/regional organization the various constituent communities are self-governing; the Kwagyuilh and Laich-kwil-tach are historic kin and also ancient rivals of the other Kwak'wala speakers, but these two outer groups share no direct political affiliation as do the Kwakawka'wakw communities with each other. The Laich-kwil-tach situation is further complicated by their having absorbed the Island Comox (A Salishan group) within the Weywakum (the Laich-kwil-tach were invaders to the northern Georgia Strait about 200 years ago, migrating out of the Johnstone Strait area.Skookum1 05:44, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Gitksan-Wet'su-we'ten Confederacy: this political grouping predates the advent of the Colony of British Columbia and their political inheritance/legacy was central to the Delgamuukw vs the Queen legal case. The Confederacy bridges the Tsimshian-speaking Gitksan with the Carrier/Athapaskan-speaking Wet'su-we'ten; there is currently no separate Gitksan article (from the Tsimshian article, that is); not sure about the Carrier/Wet'su-we'ten.
  • the St'at'imcets speaking communities are now three separate political units, with the largest further divided between Upper and Lower St'at'imc; the latter is usually known as Lil'wat. Of the Upper St'at'imc each band (of six) is self-described as a nation, and the northernmost at Pavilion, Tskwaylaxw First Nation, is also a member of the Bonaparte grouping of the Shuswap Nation (Secwepemc). The smaller St'at'imcets-culture political units are the In-SHUCK-ch Nation (a breakaway of the Lower Lillooet) and the N'quatqua First Nation (also sp. Nequatque), originally a breakaway from the Upper St'at'imc into the In-SHUCK-ch Nation but since incorporated into its own entity. The Douglas (Xa'xtsa) Band of the In-SHUCK-ch are also members of the Sto:lo regional council (itself also composed of several subnations, and excluding the Chehalis First Nation which lies in between Douglas and the Sto:lo "mainstream" of the rest of the Fraser Valley).
  • the Nicola national grouping is an amalgam of the Nlaka'pamux-related Sce'emx and the Upper Similkameen (Syilx) branch of the Okanagan people; and at some time in the past absorbed the now-exting Stuwix people, also known as the Nicola Athapaskans, who migrated into the area from the north two or three hundred years ago.

And that's just for starters, of the ones I'm familiar with the multiple-cultures/organizations of; don't know enough about the Shuswap, Nootka and Central Coast to comment but the situation is similar; the Nuu-chah-nulth organization excludes other Aht speakers, notably the Ditidaht (Nitinat); all are culturally linked also to the Makah.Skookum1 07:35, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

The above is amazing, Skookum. For publication, it might help to have flow-charts or maps depicting the places and connections between various groups, with symbols indicating different directions of movement and relatedness (migrations, intermarriages, trade routes, winter vs summer homes) and linked to the worded description. A Sto:lo-Coast Salish Historical Atlas (Carlson, McHalsie, and Blomfield, 2001) has some maps with a few interaction indicators, although it's more basic than what you just highlighted. Also, recordings of the proper pronunciation of names could do a lot for helping the non-Salish-languages-speaking public use the correct names and designations. (I can only say "Tsawwassen" without tripping because I've heard it so often.)
Best of luck with your project. DevinMcGevin 09:40, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I have some basemaps of the area, and also some anthro maps; one distinction that has to be made is between language/dialect territories and government/tribal claims; these are two separate issues/themes. Historically, also, groups such as the Pentlatch and Island Comox are linguistically extinct; the Pentlatch are also biologically extinct (the Island Comox are now part of the Kwak'wala speaking Southern Kwakiutl). My point about the maps is that boundaries shouldn't be drawn using linguistic maps as guidelines; and ideally I suppose the national claims of the various tribes should be shown over anything else, which would also have to include the always-overlapping claims of neighbouring peoples; precise boundaries in a "western" sense do not exist except in rare circumstances; or because of water/mountains....and even then it's not that clearcut. I'm not a skilled mapmaker; if there's anyone here that is I can throw up some basemaps and some sources and such.Skookum1 19:36, 22 April 2006 (UTC)PS "Skookum1" I'm in the habit of pronouncing "skookum one", like a space station or radio callsign; see Skookum
Once I'm home in May I'd be interested in working on maps/legends with you. That's assuming I survive finals, of course. DevinMcGevin 09:03, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
We made some pottery here in Monmouth and I wanted to get your input on this info for the wikipedia

Sleepy Eye, the Indian, was known by various names since there was no written language. His name, written in English, was shown variously as Ish Tak Ha Ba, Ishtaba, Ishtahumba, Eshtahenba, Esh ta hum leah He was reported to be tall, looked like an Indian, but had either one or two drooping eyelids, depending upon the account you read. He was actually taken to Washington, D. C. to meet President James Monroe. Monroe made him an Indian chief Later, as chief, Sleepy Eye gave away most of the remaining Indian lands of Minnesota. Sleepy Eye lived in Minnesota near, oddly enough, what is now known as Sleepy Eye Lake. Chief Sleepy Eye died in 1860His remains are now underneath the Sleepy Eye Monument, located in Sleepy Eye, Minn., probably not far from the site of the old Sleepy Eye flour mill [[MinPin 01:32, 20 June 2006 (UTC)]]

[edit] Native Americans in the United States

Just thought I would bring this up here: Native Americans in the United States failed its first FAC nomination, largely due to issues of referencing and POV. Most of the issues have been worked on, but as one of the larger articles that is included under this Wikiproject, I think that this article deserves a bit more work. I have nominated this article at the United States Collaboration of the Week- please vote or comment. AndyZ 22:56, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ward Churchill

I'm not part of this project, and I'm not qualified to make a decision on this (and don't have any stake in making one either). The Ward Churchill article has the {{NorthAmNative}} tag on the talk page. However, Churchill's North American native ancestry appears to be a false claim by Churchill. So I was wondering if the Churchill article should really be part of this project? – Doug Bell talk•contrib 18:43, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Even if he weren't of Native American ancestry, his scholarly contributions to the field of Native American studies would merit his inclusion in the project, which is comprehensive of all topics and individuals relating American Indians.--Rockero420 19:20, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Strongly agree with Rockero420. See Talk:Ward Churchill for more on this. Basically, I think Doug Bell isn't particularly interested in NA issues, but just wants to snipe at Churchill. Obviously, whatever his ancestry, Churchill wrote lots of books and articles that touch on NA issues. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:57, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm not terribly interested in the motivations, whether it was just to "snipe at Churchill" or whatever, however, not only his contributions to the field of Native American studies put him within the scope of this project, so does the controversy regarding his alleged tribal membership, in my opinion. --Aaron Walden 20:56, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I already stated that I wasn't particularly interested/knowledgable in NA issues and I wasn't "sniping at Churchill". I was merely raising an issue without any prejudice as to how to handle it. Lulu, you don't have to always disparage my comments. It's actually better to assume good faith, as I try to do with you. – Doug Bell talk•contrib 21:07, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jeffrey Vernon Merkey a Native American peoples project subject?

User:Waya sahoni has recently started to add the {{NorthAmNative}} tag to the talk page of the Jeffrey Vernon Merkey article (a biography of an infamous net personality and Cherokee). However, various editors feel that the tag is inappropriate for that article. I, for example, feel that the tag lends undue weight to the Cherokee background of Mr. Merkey, and understand this project to be about Native American culture, not it's individual members. Moreover, editors of the article believe that User:Waya sahoni is in fact Jeff Merkey himself, and is as such biased as to the importance of the tag. Whatever the reasons, User:Waya sahoni insists on re-adding the tag whenever an editor removes it from the page, and I find myself in conflict with his edits.

To resolve this conflict peaceably, I have created a [[Talk:Jeffrey Vernon Merkey#{{NorthAmNative}} tag appropriate?|straw poll]] on the subject. I would really appreciate to get some input from editors working on this project as well, as you would be better judges of the appropriateness of the tag. I am looking for feedback on wether the Jeffrey Vernon Merkey article should be considered part of the Native American Peoples project or not. Thanks! --MJ(☎|@|C) 18:13, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

MJ, I have said before I am not Jeff. Please stop violating WP:NPA. To the project, MJ is an SCOX message board member and POV pusher in that article. The RFC concluded and the POV materials are being removed to the article can at least achieve a B-Class status. Waya sahoni 08:10, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
Hi MJ: I'll go vote in the straw poll too. Basically, I believe that the Native American tag belongs on Merkey's talk page. I would not doubt that he has created additional sockpuppet accounts, as we have seen before. But that's an unrelated issue: Mr. Merkey is indeed a tribal member, and has even been active in tribal politics. He may be notable primarily for other things, but that is equally true of many Native Americans who would be appropriately identified as Indian within their page. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 18:53, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

The straw poll outcome is that the tag is retained as it turns out to be a valid tag to place on biography articles. --MJ(☎|@|C) 07:27, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

And MJ and his buddies from SCOX have been vandalizing our tags in that article. Waya sahoni 08:10, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
What exactly is your fixation with "SCOX"? Would you please explain exactly what this "SCOX" is?
Could it be that you, as Jeff Merkey, was banned from Yahoo! message boards generally after your relentless attacks, your homophobic insults, and your threats of litigation against any and all who had the nerve to expose or contradict your nonsense?
Please describe exactly what experience have you had with Y! SCOX that leads you to speak of it in such derogatory and pejorative terms, implying that somewhere, somehow, there is some deep, dark conspiracy happening at this mystical "SCOX" and that its target is you, you you... -- talks_to_birds 10:19, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question about jumping in.

I have been a passive user of Wikipedia for a few years now, but havent ever really jumped into a project yet. I fell into this discussion page researching the Dawes Act, and would love to get involved. Growing up in the american midwest (Oklahoma) and being a successful debator (on the subject of native peoples) in high school and college, i have a somewhat extensive library of secondary research on philosophical and (less so) hystorical issues relating to natives. In the hopes of contributing informative, useful, and in compliance with Wikipedia's NPOV, I was wondering if I should just back up and pick an unassigned subject, or get with a specific person to find out what needs to be done in what order. cheers. micheal. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cecilgol (talk • contribs) 14:57, 7 March 2006.

Hi Michael, and welcome to Wikipedia! It's a Wiki, just jump in. Pick a topic that needs more references, or one that's empty, or one that strikes your fancy, and start editing. Source your work by providing cites if you possibly can, to reduce controversy. But... No need to check with other people about what to do. Hope that helps. PS: don't forget to sign your posts with ~~~~ so we know who you are... ++Lar: t/c 20:47, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
For instance, you could start at the Dawes Act article which needs work. Any number of tribes and reservations have no article at all - it's easy to get a short article going. Good luck. Rmhermen 22:22, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Yes, welcome to the project. --Aaron Walden Image:Tsalagisigline.gif 12:20, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A Month's Worth of Progress

It appears to me that we have just completed the first month of this project. I wanted to say thanks to everyone who's jumped in and brought things so far, and thanks to Phædriel for getting it rolling and lending structure. Not only has the project already come a long way in organizing things, but a lot of work has been done on the articles themselves as a result of the attention in this project. Keep up the good work. --Aaron Walden Image:Tsalagisigline.gif 13:48, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Assessment

It may be too late to bring this up, but might I suggest we not assess our own articles? Every editor feels like they do a fantastic job on their own articles, or else they wouldn't write them. It just seems like other people might make fairer evaluations than the writer him- or her-self.--Rockero 18:29, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I've done the initial assessment on my articles as I add them to the list, as a rough indicator of the status of the article, but I have also asked that others do the real assessment. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 22:54, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
As long as we're on the subject, it needs to be pointed out that the Featured Article assessment is reserved for those articles which have been nominated and named as official Wikipedia Featured Articles. --Aaron Walden Image:Tsalagisigline.gif 00:18, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
Concur. I was terribly confused to see so many articles with the FA status, while I can only find one on the list of featured articles. Perhaps this could be rectified? --KSevcik 14:12, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
All of these non-featured "featured" articles were assesed by Waya sahoni. I have remove such rankings of his before. Perhaps someone should discuss it with him. One of those he listed this way is currrently blanked as a possible copyright violation. Rmhermen 16:44, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
I agree this is very problematic. Authors should not review their own work. Also, our criteria for coloring an article green in the table is clearly set out as: "Reserved exclusively for articles that have received "Featured article" status, and meet the current criteria for featured articles." Several of the ones we are calling Featured Articles have never ever been Featured Article Candidates, much less approved as Featured Articles. Listing them as FA's is seriously harmful to the reputation of this project. Johntex\talk 20:33, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
I have removed the erroneous FA's and left a message for Waya sahoni explaining my actions. That still leaves us with the the need to create a good process to ensure writers are not reviewing their own work. Johntex\talk 21:00, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Hello, I have taken out some of your article rankings at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Indigenous_peoples_of_North_America. The criteria state that "green" and FA are used for articles that have actually passed the Featured Article process. It is not for articles we think should pass, or that may pass some day. There is only one FA in the project: Mandan. I took out all the others. Also, please note that there is discussion ongoing on the talk page about whether we should review articles where we are the main contributor. We look forward to your thoughts. Johntex\talk 20:58, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Hi John, thanks for the kind message regarding this issue. I would suggest you update the main page which describes the ranking process as it specifically instructs editors to evaluate any article and tag them. This would certainly help clear up such issues. My well meaning by obviously mistaken actions were based upon these instructions. Something to consider. Waya sahoni 00:24, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Waya sahoni, just to clarify - I don't think you were wrong to review articles you worked on, because at this time, our project does not say that is bad. I am proposing that we should adopt some sort of limitation on self-review for the future. Clearly, you can't be faulted for going against something that is still under discussion! I only object to the FA tagging because I think our criteria on that is spelled out currently. Best, Johntex\talk 16:28, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
I assessed a few of mine if they were just stubs. --Aaron Walden Image:Tsalagisigline.gif 00:46, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, I cannot see anyone objecting to the assessment of articles to stub status by the authors. :-) Waya sahoni


[edit] Personal attacks

Unfortunately, User:Waya sahoni has reverted my assessments of some articles he has been principle author on. In doing so, he both dramatically overrates the articles (he had formerly claimed them all as Featured Articles, in plain disagreement with the fact of FA approval). Moreover, his edits replaced the article assessments with plain-old personal attacks on me (because of some odd grudges about me trying to clean up some articles he's edited in). If editors in this project could keep an eye on such WP:PA reversions, it would be appreciated.

I didn't alter any grading of the article. I just replaced the credits removed by the non-Author of the content attempting to take credit for my work. Waya sahoni 08:07, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Actually, you did increase the grade of articles you are principle author on. But that's not the point, really. See this talk page please: clear consensus is that evaluations should be written by someone other than the main author of the articles evaluated. The appropriate evaluator of Joe Byrd (Cherokee Chief) is anyone other than you! Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 08:20, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Lulu, I give up. Your edit summaries are inaccurate, and you know nothing about the subject matter. The best course is to ignore you since you stop editing when the golden goose stops laying eggs for you. Then you just sit idle. I think I'll sit idle around you until you latch onto someone else to follow around the site and glom onto articles they are working on. Your editing style is too disruptive for me to deal with. You are like a bull in a china shop. I am certain we will have some terse and bare articles with you "helping" by tagging everything for deletion, copyvio, bogus tags for one upmanship and control, CoNtRoL, CONTROL CCOONNTTRROOLL.... Oh, where did Waya go? Then the articles get abadonned when you get bored and your subject moves on. Waya sahoni 08:35, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
This is classic. Nobody but Waya can edit articles started by Waya?! Everyone is out to get waya? If he can't have everything exactly his way, he's going to take his ball and go home? What part of 'your articles may be mercilessly edited' didn't you understand? Vigilant 00:18, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Notice, FWIW, that the above note was first posted by the Provo Utah IP address 67.166.115.135, which has been used by Jeff Merkey, and blocked as such, then quickly changed to contain the Waya sahoni signature. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 08:50, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Gadugi has never used this address based on CheckUser. Don't be fooled by the bogus tag placed there by the SCOX stalkers and meat puppets. Check the edit summary. Also input the address to CheckUser, it's never been used by Gadugi. Lulu, Link to CheckUser please? Waya sahoni 09:07, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm... I suppose you're not familiar with WP adminstravia; I only am more-or-less by accident. Only a limited subset of administrators have access to the CheckUser, and a special request must be made to them to use it when there are issues of sockpuppets and block evasions. So your claim to know what CheckUser returns is plainly false... unless you may have certain other ways of knowing what IP addresses Jeff Merkey uses (but haven't kept a very accurate track over time, it appears). It might be time to dig up an admin with CheckUser privileges though.
Here's a thought: given your insistence, against the preponderance of evidence, that you are "not Jeff Merkey", maybe you could say what your name is. And try to come up with one who actually graduated from SMU law school (as you've alleged, giving a graduation year), and who has a doctorate in something else (also suggesting a school and a year). And someone who is Cherokee and lives in Texas. If all those things are actually true of you providing such details should flow right off the top of your head... on the other hand, if there is a certain prevarication involved, I think you'll have difficulty finding a name that meets all the claims (especially one who wouldn't vehemently disclaim being you). I'm not 1/10th the sleuth of many of the editors on WP; but I'm sure a number of them would be happy to check the existence of a name meeting all these alleged biographical events. Good luck with that :-). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 09:38, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Requests for Checkuser shows no such link between my IP and Jeff. Stop making personal attacks. Thanks. Waya sahoni 16:53, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, I have myself made minor edits to Jeff Merkey, United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, and Joe Byrd (Cherokee Chief) which I annotated. I will certainly defer to the article evaluation of any other editor who has not edited it, if you feel my comments are not balanced or accurate. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 04:22, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

This editor is involved in an ARBCOM and has been defacing and disrupting project articles I work on. He is not knowledgable of the subject. He has been acussed of stalking merely to revert another editors work. He needs to post his allegations on the WP:RFAR page and not here. Waya sahoni 06:27, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Just for background, the so-called RfAr is at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration#Waya sahoni and WP:RS vs. SCOX and Linux Community Editors. It's just a silly abusre of WP adminstrative procedures that isn't going to go anywhere. Editors here who'd like to opine are welcome to.
But also, the annotations Waya sahoni keeps inserting personal attacks into are:
  • Joe Byrd (Cherokee Chief), which is primarily written by Waya sahoni;
  • Jeff Merkey whom most WP editors involved believe to be the same person as Waya sahoni (Waya sahoni denies it, though they share an email address, IP address, business, writing style, and Waya sahoni describes himself as a "blood relative" of Merkey).
  • FALSE and WP:NPA. Stop junking up our project page. I'm certain the ARBCOM would like to hear all about it. Post this stuff there -> WP:RFAR. Thanks. Waya sahoni 07:58, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
In neither case should Waya sahoni be writing the annotations and making the evaluation. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 07:16, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't think this is productive or appropriate. This is the talk page for the Wikiproject. This hostile tone does not help. Perhaps all three of you (Lulu, Waya, and the suddenly involved Vigilant) can avoid the articles you disagree on for a few days and expand coverage of some of the articles that need it. An awful lot of Indigenous Issues are still uncovered in Wikipedia. TriNotch 01:54, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Do y'all need a hug?

Enlarge

--Aaron Walden Image:Tsalagisigline.gif 13:24, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{NorthAm-native-stub}} Image

Hello fellow Wikipedians. Over at Template talk:NorthAm-native-stub, Harmil has raised a concern about whether our existing image for the stub notice, looks good at the size we are using for the stub notice. I share this concern. Therefore, I am proposing a new image for the stub notice. Please join in the discussion if you like. Thanks, Johntex\talk 20:10, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

What if we swapped it with the Sitting Bull image in the Project box? Then both images could still be in use, and it would be easier to see. --Aaron Walden Image:Tsalagisigline.gif 20:32, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
Hi Aaron, I put your suggestion on the Template talk:NorthAm-native-stub page, and I also posted a sample there of what that would look like. Johntex\talk 21:11, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
I vote for sitting bull too and its good, but has anyone tried Chief Joseph yet? If Aaron wants Sitting Bull, ni-go-di-s-ge-s-di (That's just the way it is). Waya sahoni 03:09, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
  • OK, I swapped the two images. Sitting Bull is now on the stub, and the Edward Curtis picture is now on the article notice. Please let me know how this works for everyone. Thanks, Johntex\talk 01:30, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
I substituted an optimized version of the Curtis pic at Template:NorthAmNative. Just a bit of gamma correction, color saturation reduction, brightness/contrast tweaking, then an optimized scaling. It was way too orange in the existing version, IMO, rather than sepia. I tried the 150px that it had been sized at; after looking, I thought 125px is actually plenty for that template. I'm deferring to Johtex' judgement on which images to use where, but I figure I can make the chosen images look better with a slight bit of graphic manipulation. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 01:50, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks Lulu - I think the two images look much better this way because the Sitting Bull image is so distinctive even at small size. It seemed like there were no objections to this swap idea, so I went for it. We can always go back (or go to a third option) if we want to later. I like your modifications also, thanks for taking the time to improve the images. Johntex\talk 02:57, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
I liked the Chief Joseph idea, but the reason I thought it better to try and retain this image is that if we switched it out for Chief Joseph all of our template images would be men, and I liked the idea of keeping this picture, because about half of all the indigenous people of North America were and are female, and this helps reflect the wholeness of the societies we are discussing. Aaron Walden Image:Tsalagisigline.gif

[edit] A Call to all Native Americans on Wikipedia

Our brother, User:Waya sahoni has had his userpage blocked and his talkpage protected from being edited. I realize there have been some disputes, but is all of this really necessary? We should stand beside our brother. --Bookofsecrets 05:05, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

How hilarious... after his block he "revoked all rights" to the copyvio images he had recently uploaded, and that he had strenously defended as being in the public domain when their permissions were questioned. I definitely encourage everyone to take a look at User talk:Waya sahoni for an amusing read. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 06:08, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
Also, this off site project of his is in violation of the GFDL agreement becuase they have taken content from Wikipedia without proper attribution, and by attempting to relicense it under soemthing other than the GFDL. This is a serious offense. Johntex\talk 20:41, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
Waya sahoni shows too much anger to be allowed to return so soon. I believe we will see him here with a new username sooner or later, anyway. I do hope that next time he shows more restraint. Wadoli Itse 14:13, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
This is an inappropriate username. "Wa-do-li" translates as "penis" (search on wa-do-li with google) and "it-se" means "new". No Cherokee would pronouce or combine these words in this manner. This username is inappropriate and offensive to any Cherokee Speaker. The way these words is Combined is also wrong. It word have been spoken Wa-do-li It-se a-gi-ha (I have this). signed Cherokee Speaker. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.186.225.152 (talk • contribs).
Google results
Cherokee, Cherokee Ancestry, Cherokee Language, Native American ...
... pecan so-hi--a-ni-nv-hi-da. pen ga-ne-he--gv-di-di-go-wi-lo-di. pencil
di-go-we-lo-di. penis wa'-do-li. penis wa'-do. people a-ni-yo-ne-ga. people a-ni- ...
drstandley.com/nativeamerican_ppp.shtml - 51k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.186.225.152 (talk • contribs).
My user name is not Cherokee. However, in case it really offends the Cherokee people, or any other nation of planet Earth, I have already offered (on my Talk page) to change it. I cannot do that myself, though. (I understand that a help from an administrator is needed). Before that, I would like to hear a second opinion, but not by another socket puppet of Gadugi. Wadoli Itse 10:03, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
From Cherokee language:
I want a turkey..... gv na a wa do li
From Indian town names:
"It-se-yi" or "New Green Place"
I see no obscenities. --MJ(☎|@|C) 15:10, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
There is only one page that google returns that has both the offensive word and the phrase wa do li on the same page (the other hit is a parked link page linking to the first). All other uses of wa do li are referring to the I want a turkey phrase, and I also saw wa do as meaning thank you and v-wa-do-li as store house or provision house. I am certainly no expert on the language, but I find little evidence to support the rather strong allegation. Unfortunately, the accuser has a long history of unsubstantiated allegations making me take this one with a big grain of salt. --MJ(☎|@|C) 15:22, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I see a legitimate reason why "this user" could be mistaken. According to this Cherokee dictionary the word he means is "wa'-do". Wadoli Itse 15:45, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
The Wa'-do indicates a glottal stop (') -- two words, and is pronounced different than wa-do (which is one word and not two). I have been speaking Cherokee for about 39 years, so I think I am familiar with the language. Adding the verb stem modifiers doesn't change the words this person selected. -yi means "the place of". It-se-yi simply means "New Place of" not "New green place". The word wadoli is considered exceptionally vulgar (as most profane words in Cherokee) and also is used in phrases which imply mast__bation. These non Cherokee who look up words online and try to use them is comical. The account uses an inappropriate name that translates as "New Penis".—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.186.225.152 (talk • contribs).
While this Cherokee word list shows that "wa-do" (no apostrophe) means "thank you". I have no aposthophe in my user name. I do hope this end this matter.Wadoli Itse 15:56, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
And Wadoli means what I said it does.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.186.225.152 (talk • contribs).
Stop being silly. You admitted yourself that "wa-" and "wa'-" are different sounds in Cherokee. I have the first one in my name. Do you see obscenities everywhere you look? Wadoli Itse 16:06, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I would like to suggest that this entire thread be refactored to someone's talk page or somewhere other than this project page. It just doesn't seem appropriate for a project of this importance and seriousness to see threads disputing the meaning of some sylables in a userid. I would humbly ask that you all either stop, or take it somewhere else. (there are places on WP to raise the issue of inappropriate usernames) ++Lar: t/c 17:28, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest finishing the subject. This user does not hide he's the blocked Waya sahoni (talk • contribs). He was aware of myself and my username since 01:32, 17 March 2006 when Vryl (talk • contribs) asked him if I am him. My name did not seem obscene to him at the time. It took him over three days until 04:43, 20 March 2006 to get shocked. What happened in between? He got blocked. I wrote a comment saying that he should not be unblocked, yet (see above). And now my name is utterly obscene. Therefore, I am sure he is not acting in good faith. Wadoli Itse 17:35, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

That's as may be, and I'm not saying it is not worth following up on this. Just not here. Too far out of scope for this project. IMHO. Hence my suggestion that the right place be found and this conversation moved there. Again IMHO. ++Lar: t/c 18:02, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mississauga

The map showing most of Southern Ontario as being Iroquoian is simply inaccurate. The Ojibway speaking Mississauga moved down into Southern Ontario, pushing the Iroquois ahead of them. It was with the Mississauga that the British made all their British North American treaties. In fact, after the American Revolution, the British had to buy reservation land from the Mississauga near Ganonoque and near Brantford for their Iroquois-speaking allies who were forced out of the new United States.

Bruce

I believe that the map under discussion is Image:Langs N.Amer.png. The situation with maps like these is that they are not of a specific point in time but a kind of pre-contact composite, but I am surprised to see the extent shown for Iroquois but I don't know the full extent of 16th century range of the tribes. As far as I understand most of the Ojibway expansion was due to post-contact pressures for furs to supply to the French. Rmhermen 02:33, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
That is not quite my understanding. Expansion from the Atlantic coast to the centres around La Pointe, Duluth, Nipigon, Sault Ste. Marie, Manitoulin Island, Québec and Restigouche were all pre-contact. Expansion into the northern Great Plains, Illinois River Valley and Ohio River Valley were post-contact. Of the three post-contact expansions, only the northern Great Plains ever took hold. The descendants of the Illinois River Valley expansion are now in Kansas (Prairie Band of Potawatomi) while the descendants of the Ohio River Vally expansion are now in Oklahoma (Citizien Potawatomi, Ottawa, and those Ojibwe who are now part of either the Cherokee Nation or Absentee Shawnee). The pressures until about 1800's were the French and then British demand for furs. Pressures between 1800 and 1900 were more of geopolitical climate of the United States and Great Britain/Canada than anything else. Ish ishwar and I have begun discussing this, but we are both very busy (I will not be able to give my full attention until late June, 2006). Maybe an easy fix to the map is to draw isotemp bars to quantify which part of the map represents documented contact before 1500's, before 1600's, before 1700's, before 1800's and before 1900's, providing people with not only a visual aid of who was where but also when. CJLippert 08:19, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
It remains true that the entire map is not of a specific point in time and at some pre-contact time the range of Iroquoian may have been this large. For greatest detail a set of maps with location by time frame would be good but much of the pre-contact and early post-contact information is unfortunately vague. Rmhermen 18:45, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wasson

Just to mention, I've added some copy to the article on Wasson - as far as I can see, this isn't currently included in the project assessments. --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 13:51, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Joining Up

Hi. I've been working on Native American articles for quite sometime now, and I figured I may as well join the wikiproject. How exactly do I do so? Asarelah 01:33, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Add your name in the Participants section on the project page, and join in. It's very loosely structured. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 01:50, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NA-n-bio-stub?

I've proposed a new stub type, for people notable as Native Americans (as opposed to, notable Native Americans). There's a few dozen of these in {{US-bio-stub}} that are otherwise effectively not re-sortable. (Or alternatively, a split by location and historical period, which would also affect many of the same articles.) Comments and suggestions encouraged. Alai 14:29, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mormon edits at Indigenous peoples of the Americas article

One user has repeatedly inserted Mormon beliefs/myths about the origin of Indigenous peoples in the Indigenous peoples of the Americas article, which has been reverted a number of times. A dispute is taking place in Talk:Indigenous peoples of the Americas. It would be nice if other project participants would weigh in. Luigizanasi 06:01, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

It looks as if there are Mormon edits at Ani-kutani, too. I can understand that it would be appropriate, in an encyclopedia, to deal with Mormon beliefs, but it seems like it would be more appropriate to deal with Mormon mythology within an article on Latter-day Saints than in an article on Cherokee mythology. --Aaron Walden Image:Tsalagisigline.gif 08:01, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Daybreak Star

About a year and a half ago I tried to get some people at Daybreak Star Cultural Center in Seattle interested in contributing to Wikipedia. They were somewhat intrigued, but at the time there was no WikiProject for me to suggest they become part of other than WP:CSB. Someone might want to follow up with them again: great institution, enormous knowledge about Northwest Natives (and, to some extent, other Native Americans, because many from other regions live around here), quite a few computer-savvy people among them. Similarly, coming at this from a different angle, there is an organization of Native American employees at Microsoft. Either might be a pool in which there would be people with a lot of relevant knowledge potentially interested in getting involved with this project. Anyone interested in following up on this? -- Jmabel | Talk 04:54, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Indigenous Mexican names

hey, I have seen names of indigenous mexican people, yet none seem to have actual indigenous surnames. From what I have read I don't seem to know of pre-columbian aztec populations having surnames just tribal affiliations(Zapotec, Nahuatl, etc.) would anyone have any info in relation to this?? I know that many of the indigenous, on conversion to christianity, were given spanish surnames thus making them,by names, indistinguishable from the iberian(criollo and spanish-born)inhabitants. Would anybody also know if these mexicans have clan groupings of some sort?Domsta333 13:19, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Baptism was the major way that the indigenous people of Mexico were "Hispanicized", although intermarriage played a large role. In some groups, such as the Yaqui and Huichol, a strong ethnic identity remains. Among others, tribal and clan- ties have been replaced by or infused into the Mexican social structure, such as among the Aztec and the Chichimec. Does this answer your question?--Rockero 15:24, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wanted list

  • Hello,
I'm not sure if this is needed but I've begun a modest list od missing articles concerning Native American related articles, in the case a "Wanted Articles" section becomes needed. Also, for those interested a WikiProject regarding the American Southwest has been proposed in case anyone would be interested. MadMax 17:48, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
An "articles wanted" list seems like a good thing to me. --Aaron Walden Image:Tsalagisigline.gif 19:08, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] American Indian conflicts, wars, battles, expeditions and campaigns

Yer wish is my command; see the "Historical" section on the project page overleaf; and note that the list above as you've put is only a portion of the many more on the original page, all of which need putting into the table I created; which also btw could use another column for "related articles", e.g. connected bios, or as a war/battle hierarchy/category structure as with the way I've created/adjusted the new governments /bands table. But I'm getting tired of the copy-pasting, so here's your assignment: using a template from one of the existing cells of the table, get into inserting the other hundred-odd items into the table; it's laborious but ultimately useful. And it was your idea, though you didn't realize it. Not that it's your fault I've spent the last day working on all these big tables; but somebody had to get 'em started; at some point the tables should be made subpages, I think, of the project page, because ultimately they're going to be huge, especially the governments one and the communities/pueblos/reservations ones; and probably also the bios/personalitiesSkookum1 01:06, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I've made Cherokee Uprising a redirect to the Anglo-Cherokee War of 1762, since I believe that is what the phrase "Cherokee Uprising" most commonly refers to. Outside of Wikipedia, I don't believe I've seen "Cherokee Uprising" applied to the (very limited) Cherokee armed resistance of the 1830s during the Trail of Tears period. Of course, a disambiguation notice for "Cherokee Uprising" could be placed at Anglo-Cherokee War if this usage is legitimate. --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 14:18, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fort Ancients

On the Fort Ancient culture page, it states "The Fort Ancient culture was once thought to be an expansion of the Mississippian cultures, but is now accepted as an independently developed culture that was descended from the Hopewell culture (100 BC-AD 500)".

How widely is this accepted? Lisa Mill's DNA analysis, for example (http://www.friendsofpast.org/earliest-americans/030807OhioDNA.html), indicates that the Hopewell do not show a close relationship to the Fort Ancients.

Doppelbock 20:32, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

User:TriNotch might have the best idea about this. That link shows how modern DNA research is changing many fields. Rmhermen 00:35, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Good question; slightly complicated answer. Both the Hopewell and Fort Ancient "cultures" are constructs imposed by archaeologists; neither corresponds directly to genetic or ethnic boundaries. So, there is actually no archaeological reason to believe that an individual Hopewell population necessarily should be related to an individual Fort Ancient population. So, this link is really addressing a different question. Interesting, though. In terms of accepted thought, there is still a debate over whether Fort Ancient is a local development (i.e. descended from the Hopewell, through Late Woodland intermediaries) or whether it is an intrusive group. Probably SOME of the people of the Fort Ancient culture were descended from SOME of the people of the Hopewell culture. But most archaeologists agree that they are NOT Mississippians. Different levels of social complexity and differing subsistence practices, as well as a general lack of Mississippian-style iconography and monumentality, pretty clearly argue for a cultural difference. So; Independent from Mississippian Culture? Yes. Descended from Hopewell? Maybe. TriNotch 00:54, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New color/status for articles needing "division"

See my notes and changes on the main article page here; a lot of what I'm coming across are things where there's a "tribe" article, but no separate language one; or vice-versa; so some kind of colour between "stub" and "needs to be started" I think we should have, and maybe a stub to be inserted on tribe pages needing division?Skookum1 22:17, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] British Columbia languages/nations added to list today

It's pretty thorough as far as languages go, although all the dialects that might have articles aren't linked into the listing yet; and the nations thing I'm going to have to rethink/rejig when I get to that section; should the Tribal Council entries go in the Nations list at the top, or in the communities things in the bottom? Top, I guess. I think also a column in the table indicating whether redirects from alt spellings or alt names are "complete", e.g. with Nlaka'pamux there should be redirect from Thompson people/language, Knife people/language, Couteau people/language, with St'at'imc it should be from Lillooet, Lil'wat, Stl'atl'imx and Stlatliumh. Ad nauseam in some cases, esp. when IPA variants are counted in.Skookum1 08:37, 7 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Conflicting categories?

Been working my way through groups, governments, languages, communities etc concerning my home turf (BC); there's various categories that are a bit of a trouble distinguishing which should go where; currently with many people-content articles combined with language-content articles, this is even a bit harder. The immediate ones of concern are [[Category:First Nations governments in British Columbia]], [[Category:First Nations reserves in British Columbia]] and [[Category:First Nations in British Columbia]]. I'm wondering if anyone's compiled a list of categories relevant to the Indigenous peoples wikiproject and what guidelines there are for figuring out which goes where, and which categories might be redundant or are in need of combination ([[Category:Aboriginal communities in Canada]] comes to mind re the three BC cats already mentioned.Skookum1 21:04, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Famous Last Words re table-building

I keep on saying I'm going to take a break from compiling the project's big tables; thought I was gonna haul off after California, which I thought I'd finished, only to find more yet; and there's heaps on the Atlantic Seaboard (see the Native American tribes category listing); most of them are stubs, or combinations of language and people articles (I'll come up with a new color-key for that); but I've been meaning to write actual articles lately and have been chewing up too much time working on the people/language tables; lots of new pointers to work that needs doing there for any other editors out there, and I'm no ethnologist to write THOSE articles nor would I have a clue where to look for sources etc, or to judge content politically/culturally (being paleface and all). Gonna take a breather from this particular batch of work and write up some missing BC articles, e.g Xa:ytem Rock (9000BP) and some other archaeological sites, as well as the Fraser Canyon War which connects to the Yakima, Cayuse and Palouse Wars directly, and which also need to be added to Indian Wars; but "I'll be back" at the table-building task sometime soon.Skookum1 17:30, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Query: Melungeons to be included?

I know this is maybe controversial; but if Lumbee, another mixed "tribe", and Michif and Bungie are included in the project, shouldn't Melungeon be as well, despite the iffiness of their history/lineage? Doesn't need a "stub" marking (nearly a featured article) but wondering about listing them in the "people" group table.Skookum1 17:36, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I would say no. Note that the Lumbee and Michif are acknowledged as of Native ancestry. The Melungeons are not and don't even all claim it. Altogether too murky. Rmhermen 20:06, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
While genetics seems to indicate that Melungeons may not be native peoples, it seems like the questions that have been around regarding their ethnic identity make it still a related topic, in a sense. --Aaron Walden Image:Tsalagisigline.gif 15:18, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chicacha

François-Marie Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes mentions he was killed during a French war against this tribe. I believe that this is the same as the Chickasaw. Can anyone confirm this? Rmhermen 02:22, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

The "Chicacha" are the Chickasaw. They have been recorded as "Cicaça" as well. There is an interesting article regarding the interactions between the Chickasaw (Chicacha) and Quapah (Akansa) at University of Indiana. CJLippert 13:42, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I have made it a redirect. Rmhermen 16:48, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suggest NorthAm-poli-stub as well as NorthAm-bio-stub

I saw someone else's proposal for a NorthAm-bio stub. As you've probably noticed, this last week I've been trying to delineate the differences between ethno/people/tribe articles, language articles, and political organization/government articles; there's stubs for the first two, and as things proceed we're going to need a stub for the poli/gov ones, as they're not the same thing as the ethno/tribe things, even though in some cases they describe the same community; but a government is not a people, etc. In some cases around here (BC) there'll be a band council/First Nation page, a tribe/people/history page, and a language page; and often as well a Communities in BC category page for the same community, e.g. Hartley Bay, British Columbia or Anahim Lake, British Columbia, which are entirely native communities (well, except for a few non-natives in Alexis) that have native governments, a cultural/historical/tribal identity, as well as a specific language (or two). So one community, theoretically, might have four articles; but often enough the language articles cover at least several communities, possibly more than one regional government (as well as numerous sub-groups within that government), and will also overlap with non-native-topic geographic/locational articles. Likewise, regional government boundaries/definitions may include two or three languages and/or cultural groups.Skookum1 06:29, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Adding items?

Hi, I haven't participated in a WikiProject before. If there are some related articles that I think should be included in the project, how do I add them? Thanks. -- TheMightyQuill 17:39, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

If you aren't familiar with editing content in tables, maybe you could put your suggestions here and ask some else to add them. Rmhermen 21:32, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Legends, Myths, Beliefs

Shouldn't we have a table of all the legend/myth articles that are scattered around Wikipedia? I just found Thunderbird, Thunderbird and Whale and Forbidden Plateau (actually I wrote Forbidden Plateau a while ago). I added our usual stubs to them, but it struck me that they deserve their own table, possibly a category, possibly their own stub.Skookum1 22:31, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Thunderbird (mythology) is already in Category:Native American mythology with a number of other topics. Rmhermen 21:34, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Someone might want to add that a 19th century 14-metre Carrier totem pole now greets visitors at the brand-new Quai Branly Museum in Paris. It was a gift from Kurt and Arlette Seligmann in 1939 and was recently restored. It's the most visible item in the new museum.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.199.62.118 (talk • contribs).

There are a ton of native american mythology topics waiting to be addressed at the Hotlist of Mythology, part of the missing encyclopedia articles project. This group's expertise would be a big help with those! Bookgrrl 00:48, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Name of Native American mythology cat

That category has kind of an awkward name, doesn't it? Especially since the thunderbird legend, at least in the thunderbird and whale story, is clearly from the BC Coast (and the Alaska Panhandle/Puget Sound). At least the title should be "North American Native mythology" or "Native North American mythology", doncha think?Skookum1 22:03, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't find it awkward. I think you are running into the Native American name controversy definition issue. In the usage I am familiar with Native American means the same thing that Indian does, that is, any native of the Americas except Eskimo/Inuits. Rmhermen 00:04, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

But you're not Canadian, nor a member of a Canadian First Nation. OK, you might be Canadian (haven't looked at your user page) but you're extremely rare if you're not uncomfortable with that term. Canadians are more sensitive about it than Mexicans, BUT it's still a big issue. The category needs renaming, or a redirect to something like [[Category:North American Native mythology]].Skookum1 01:06, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, I understand that you don't like it. I understand that others don't like Indian or native. I do see that some Canadians do use it: for instance, [2] discussing "Northwest Native American art". There will probably never be a universally acceptable terminology, hence the controversy page I pointed you to. Rmhermen 15:24, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
I know the Spirit Gallery, and am in awe of some of the huge (yet tasteful) masks on the wall there, pricey, pricey, pricey, too. But their primary web market is visiting Americans, or American collectors, and I don't think you'd see "Native American Art" on their street-sign, or on any of the other 200-plus shops in Vancouver selling native art (the phrase "Native Art" is typically used, as at Hill's just up Water Street, another well-known native-goods store, but less high-tone than Spirit Gallery. Point is that when Canadians market to the United States, they use American language (even stooping to spell "colour" and "centre" the American way). The store website (and potentially sign) is a rare exception, and again it should be stressed that within Canadian English usage, "Native American" is a misnomer, and First Nations people themselves like it less than non-First Nations people already do.Skookum1 07:44, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Latino template

Please help with the Latino template. --JuanMuslim 1m 18:29, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ethnography, Language, and Government(s)

As in the ongoing breakdown of the tables obverse, there is evolving a needed delineation between different kinds of IpNA articles ("IpNa" - kind of a neologistic acronym but useful shorthand, huh?), as many are simultaneously ethnography and language and government/agency/reserve articles, and also community articles; there's at least three categories of article there, possibly four (depending on how "community" - components of larger government groupings, or places that are native in population/character if not actually reserves or specific governments). Reason for this is, say, with Lushootseed there's twenty different tribes that speak it; one article cannot describe them all (see Lushootseed for my change of "See Also" to "Peoples who Speak Lushootseed" or whatever I called that section); the same thing should be done for situations like Carrier and Secwepemc, where there are different "national" groupings and independent bands within the language-area; and other instances where ethnography does not necessarily coincide with language/linguistics; even when it does, language articles should be primarily linguistic with culture, customs and artwork on a separate page, and that also separate from governments and communities; in some case such as Haida and others, there will no doubt be (or already are) art articles, even music articles connected.

So what I'm getting at is it's too big a task for any one person and I'm trying to enlist others for feedback and participation in this end of it; breaking up articles when needed; e.g .Squamish First Nation, which by name should be about the polity and its sub-bands/communities, has a Squamish language section in it; and while the culture/ethnography could go in Squamish First Nation, there's enough detail material just on the communities, chiefs, councils for one article (the "government") article, and more for the culture/ethnography. Also, the Burrards (Tseil-waututh, home of the late Chief Dan George, speak the Squamish language, but are not Squamish. Or rather, they're Squamish ethnically, but not politically, and geographically they don't live on a Squamish Reserve (theirs is the Burrard Reserve, east of Second Narrows, if you know where that is).

Qualifier (my own); came across something somewhere recently, I think not on Wiki, that the Burrards/Tsleil-wau-tuth are Halqemeylem speakers like the Kwayquitlam and Musqueam; I thought they were a breakaway Squamish group but I'll check on this and revise whatever pages are affected by any such change. It's all pretty tangled, partly because the family trees, especially the chieftaincies, are all intertangled, as are their land claims/traditional territories.Skookum1 16:56, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

And so on. It's probably simpler in the States; and in a way even more complicated there because you get governments/agencies/reserveations that are multi-ethnic/multi-linguistic; so the breakdown is necessary.

Just trying to bring everything to some kind of consistency; to evolve a standard of some kind.Skookum1 07:58, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Also needed; disambig or top-page italics comments on articles like Tsawwassen, Puyallup, Nisqually etc. which include the usual notice that goes "This article is about the city of XX. For the XXX people, see [[XXXXXX]]. For the XXX language, see [[XXXXXX]]" "

FWIW, what I have done for the Yukon First Nations is to have separate articles for the people (ethnography), the language, and for each individual First Nation government. So, for example, we have Kaska, Kaska language, Liard First Nation and Ross River Dena Council. You might find the discussions on categorisation my talk page and Kurieeto's talk page of some interest. At the time, we reorganized all articles relating to First Nations along those lines, and Kurieeto created a bunch of templates. Luigizanasi 06:43, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some more articles

I'm categorising Catholic Encyclopedia articles not yet in Wikipedia, and there are a few articles that relate to Native American groups here:

Wikipedia:Catholic Encyclopedia cat FirstNations

To find the Catholic Encyclopedia article click on "CE" next to the name.

JASpencer 21:31, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

They're also obsolete and inaccurate; and while useful for some details should not be considered authoritative and should be considered from the Church's jaundiced perspectives on native belief and culture; IIRC they also named "Coast Salish" as a tribe, which it's not (a language group, yes, a culture area/affinity, yes, but not a tribe); whatever it was, must have been you perhaps, that expanded a recent article using the CE as a guide; it needed major revision afterwards. Caveat emptor with the CE, please.Skookum1 03:28, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Issue with Native American tribes category

I've just gone through the various BC First Nations (haven't bothered with the rest of Canada yet) removing the "Native American tribes" cat, which was all over the place. There are, um, no "Native Americans" in Canada, as discussed elsewhere; for a bit I was wondering if this project's stub-tags were inserting this cat, as it was on articles I don't recall it being on, and where it just didn't belong since the article wasn't a "tribe" anyway; there's a discussion bouncing back between User talk:Luigizanasi and User talk:Kurieeto about Canadian category problems; which don't need complicating by thet use of "Native American" to span the continent, as if it carried the same meaning in Canadian English as it does in US English. It doesn't.Skookum1 17:46, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] { { NorthAm-native-stub } }

It seems someone has added a news article regarding the pollution experienced by the Aamijiwanaang (Sarnia) Anishinaabeg right into the {{NorthAm-native-stub}} template, and inserting this news article in every instance of this stub marker. I'm not sure how to acess the template to change it, so would someone who is a bit more computer savvy do this? Also, this article, once dislodged from the stub template, probably should be moved to either WikiSource or find the originating article and provide a link to it from the Ojibwe page. Miigwech (Thanks) in advance. CJLippert 14:05, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

That was fast! WikiAdministrator Ezeu reverted the template and extracted the article inserted by Lenni lenape as a separate page. CJLippert 14:28, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Barnstar_and_award_proposals/New_Proposals#Indigenous_American_Star

Someone should go and comment on this award. --evrik 16:38, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mesoamerica

Hi all, this to advise of a recently-developed WikiProject which would have some relationship to this one, namely WikiProject Mesoamerica. This project has as its scope the improvement in content and coverage of articles, categories etc relating to the Mesoamerican region and (in particular) its historical cultures and civilizations and their achievements. Since WP Indigenous peoples of Nth Am extends its coverage to indigenous peoples in Mexico, there'd be some degree of topical overlap and some number of articles in common. The two projects would most likely however have some differences in focus and emphasis on these intersecting articles. Cross-collaboration and participation is invited, anyone interested in the cultures and history of this particular region is welcome to look around the WP:MESO project's pages and contribute (Note that there's also a topical sub-project, WikiProject Aztec, in operation as well, looking at Aztec-specific material.) Regards, --cjllw | TALK 08:52, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trouble in Mi’kmaq-land

I'd be grateful if experts here would look in on the dispute at Mi'kmaq_hieroglyphic_writing and its talk page. Evertype 16:37, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] BC & Pacific Northwest History Forum

Please see RE BC & Pacific Northwest History Forum re: Talk:List of United States military history events#Border Commission troops in the Pacific Northwest. If you think maybe I should also move some or copy some of my other stuff from NW history and BC history pages and various Indigenous peoples project article/talk pages let me know; I never mean to blog, but I'm voluble and to me everything's interconnected; never meaning to dominate a page so have made this area to post my historical rambles on. Thoughts?Skookum1 03:49, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment on my posting of this: if anyone has any questions or wants to debate any issues relating to Oregon Country/Columbia District/Pacific Northwest history/historical geography, colonialist or aboriginal/indigenous, please feel free to drop by the forum and start a thread/topic, or just butt in at yer leisure.Skookum1 05:50, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page needs help

I couldn't figure out the new system on the main pages so I will put this here for now. This page, List of English words of Native American origin, could use a lot of expansion. It currently appears unrealistically biased. Surely other languages contributed as well - or should Algonquian be split up to better show the number of different languages in that section? Rmhermen 15:59, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, there already is a page called List of English words of Algonquian origin with even more words. Having the short listing on the List of English words of Native American origin seems duplicative. In English, there is going to be bias towards the Algonquian languages because of several factors: 1) the majority of the indigenous people the English first encountered were nearly all members of an Algonquian community and 2) many Algonquian tribes were key partners in the continent's interior commerce and trade. Because of these two major factors, not only are flora, fauna, common items and toponyms end up being adopted into the English language from the Algonquian languages, but even the peoples of the interor (Sioux, Winnebago, Flatheads, Chipweyan, etc.) were known by the Algonquian names (or translations there of) rather than by the peoples' own name. Since many Algonquian languages are similar, it might be helpful if a word is known to come from a specific Algonquian language, then to group and attribute them, but if not, keep it in the general section with examples among as many Algonquian languages as possible. CJLippert 16:31, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Didn't know about that page. I have suggested that they be merged. Rmhermen 16:46, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
I began the merge of the page. All of the "Algonquin" section of List of English words of Native American origin is in the List of English words of Algonquian origin, but the list of well-known places found in the second is not found in the first. I think I'm leaving it off there and let others massage them the rest of the way until it looks good enough to merger the two and eliminate/redirect the List of English words of Algonquian origin page. In addition, I have put in a suggestion for List of English words of Nahuatl origin be merged into the List of English words of Native American origin as well. CJLippert 00:09, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Missing topics list

  • I'm not sure is this would be useful to the project, however I've recently completed a missing topics list based on Bruce Grant's The Concise Encyclopedia of the American Indian if anyone would like to check it out. MadMax 11:51, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Nice list. This inspired me to make a significant change to Bury the Hatchet, which was listed as primarily a musical album, rather than a colloquialism derived from Iroquoian practices. TriNotch 19:35, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm also working on more in-depth topic lists based on Jerry Keenan's Encyclopedia of American Indian Wars and The Encyclopedia of Native American Biography by Bruce Johansen and David Grinde, Jr. MadMax 06:58, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV tag placed on Yakima War

Happened to stop by there this morning while researching something else, and winced at a couple of phrsaings. Could a Native American or NA-sensitive person have a look at this page and see what tweaks might get rid of the US-military bias built into it? I suspect the same might be the case for Cayuse War, Spokane-Coeur d'Alene-Paloos War and Rogue River Wars. Skookum1 18:11, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kamiakin redirects to Kamiakin High School

I don't know US-side native history so well, even in the PacNW; if there's anyone here who knows Kamiakin's story, would you mind writing a stub at least and revising the redirect thing to the High School? I put a note on Talk:Kamiakin High School that you'd think one of their students/teachers would write a bio of the guy (war chief of the Yakama, if I recall, during the Yakima War) since it's their schools namesake, but.....Skookum1 18:30, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Kamiakin no longer redirects to Kamiakin High School, but instead to Chief Kamiakin. A stub article created. Some links provided. CJLippert 19:41, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Duwamish/Dkhw'Duw'Absh

Hello all, would love some input at Talk:Duwamish_(tribe)#Dkhw.27Duw.27Absh as to whether "Duwamish" or "Dkhw'Duw'Absh" should be used throughout the article. My and User:Jmabel's position is that the Native form of the name should be used once, at the beginning, and that thereafter we should use "Duwamish," since this is the English Wikipedia, that is the tribe's name, and that is how they refer to themselves in English (we checked out their web site). User:GoDot thinks otherwise. Your input would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much! --Lukobe 19:13, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikiversity

Just wondering if anyone wanted to work on developing some native American studies materials for Wikiversity. --Aaron Walden Image:Tsalagisigline.gif 19:37, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lumbee

I filed an RfC for the Lumbee article. There is an ongoing dispute about their origins, which weakens the integrity of the article. The debate is over whether they descend from an authentic tribe, or if their origins are more recent and they have no real tribal history. Because the Lumbee claim to be the largest tribe east of the Mississippi River, we really need to resolve this.--Cúchullain t/c 20:11, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's the purpose of Wikipedia to decide whether the Lumbee are or aren't a tribe. Are the Seminoles a tribe? Of course they are, even though their origins lay within various tribes and ethnicities. Are the Lumbee? That's been debated for a very long time. --Aaron Walden Image:Tsalagisigline.gif 08:00, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Aaron Walden because same can be said about the Cherokees, or on a larger scope of Nationhood (even beyond the concept of "What is a 'Tribe'?"), the citizens of Canada, the United States and every Nation on the American continents. When a Nation have rich history of movement of peoples, what joins the peoples as a Nation don't fit into a nice definition or a common definition, but rather how the group identifies themselves. And, the Lumbee is of no exception. CJLippert 15:15, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

The Lumbee article is largely biased and misleading. There is no mention in the Lumbee article of the fact that the majority (95%) of the surnames/ families comprising the "Lumbee" tribe can be traced to the Tuscarora Reservation of the 1700's in Bertie Co. NC. There is a multitude of documentation avaialable indicating that these people are in fact Tuscarora. A number of experts, including acclaimed author Dr. Peter Wood agree. The "Lumbee" name was recently created and has no historic basis. There is rarely mention or discussion of the "Lumbee" tribe's Tuscarora roots.-- David Webb

I don't think we need to decide whether they are a tribe either, but we do need to sort out who says what, or the article will never be improved.--Cúchullain t/c 18:18, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Míkmaq orthography

I'm requesting discussion about moving from Mi'kmaq to Míkmaq for articles relating to this topic. Please see Talk:Mi'kmaq language and discuss there. Thanks! Evertype 19:21, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Native American wars

I've made a proposal here for some reorganization of this category and its sub-categories; any comments or suggestions would be very appreciated! Kirill Lokshin 22:24, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sovereignty

I am not at all adverse to the notion of tribal sovereignty, just trying to understand it. If true components of sovereignty include a defined group of people, a territory, and authority to govern people within that territory then I cannot see how tribes can claim to be sovereign. The defined group may be O.K. but given native americans concept of land and property, how would you define their territroy? Many tribes were nomadic and there were many conflicts over territories. There were no legal boundaries in the non-indian sense. Tribes were relocated, what happened to their territory then. If they were displaced, does their sovereignty attach to their old territory or does it go with them, if so, what is their new territory. If they were placed on reservations, is that their new territory. Did tribes ever really have authority to govern. Tribal representative that signed treaties were denominated "Cheifs" by the white man. They were not elected, or even recognized by all members of the tribes as leaders. There was no "popular sovereignty" no democracy, no devine right, Where does this notion of sovereignty come from. Many claim it has been there from time immemorial. But it seem to be legitimate only to the extent that superior powers, i.e. the federal government allows it. To that extent it is a contradiction, both because sovereignty cannot be "given" to a people, and because by definition a sovereign is not subject to a higher authority. Is the tribal notion of sovereignty a different creature than philosophical notions of sovereignty? Is the world changing its definition of sovereignty to a watered down verstion that really means something quite different? Once again, I am not challenging or antagonistic toward this issue, but would like some discussion on what it really means.Nelyag 17:06, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Sovereignty obviously means different things to different people. Certainly some groups may only be asking for independent control over their own reservation, whereas others insist that their historic territory was never legally ceded, and should therefor be under their control. Again, there is no single "native american concept of land" but even if one nation's concept of land ownership conflicts with another doesn't give one the right to simply usurp that land and claim it as their own. Some nations had/have more strictly determined governing systems than others, some more democratic, others hereditary. Either way, those demanding sovereignty don't usually believe that land was fairly ceded by whatever governing body was in place. How do you mean sovereignty cannot be given? -- TheMightyQuill 09:27, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NA media repository at Commons

Wikimedia Commons has a large repository of media (largely photos) related to this project, most of which you can find at commons:Category:Native Americans. I have spent the last few days to clean up and categorize the images and have created numerous new sub-categories for peoples/tribes with more than two or so images.

Since it is unnecessary to clutter articles with too many illustrations, I suggest we create articles in Commons to act as 'appendices' for Wikipedia articles. --Himasaram 04:16, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Survey of Anishinaabe-related articles

In the past week, we have had a flurry of activity in surveying what all is out there that are somehow associated with the Anishinaabe peoples. Leo1410 has been taking a wonderful lead. The assessment can be found at User:Leo1410/Anishinaabe. Please take a look. If you could suggest a better arrangement of topics, know of something somehow associated with the Algonquin, Mississaugas, Nipissing, Ojibwa, Ottawa, Potawatomi, Saulteaux, Oji-Cree or just Anishinaabe in general and don't see a link or an article that ought to be there, please feel free to add. After the inventory, we will begin the assessing of the articles. CJLippert 02:36, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Portal needs new features!

I just made Portal:Indigenous peoples of North America the "Portal of the Month" at Portal:Browse. I hope it's featured sections get updated for October before someone removes it! :-) Rfrisbietalk 11:59, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I picked some items from the archives to get rid of the red links. Of course, feel free to replace them when you get the time. Rfrisbietalk 14:26, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Redesign of the Project

I would like to propose a new way to organize this project. Instead of refering to us as Native Canadians and/or Native Americans (or other native european colonial citizens) I think it would be better to organize all relavent articles directed to the specific Native Nation in question. A good example would be Midewi'win Society coming under the Anishinaabek Nation -> Spiritual beliefs. Also i think it would be extremely beneficial to include our histories (oral, written) rather then taking the histories (written) of non-native cultures POV about us. This would go a long way to dispelling the myths, lies and misrepresentations about us. User:RedMan11(<-- sig added by Leo1410 10/5/06)

We've made a start with User:Leo1410/Anishinaabe. Please take a look and edit what doesn't look right. I'd agree that right now a lot of these articles are lacking a Native voice.

(Leo1410 12:38, 3 October 2006 (UTC))

One problem is the current categorisation of indigenous peoples by Country & State/Province. Not only is it politically NPOV, it's also hard to justify since so many indigenous lands, like those of Kanienkehaka/Mohawk, exist across national and state/provincial lines.
Luigizanasi has suggested the following system. Regional classification is far from perfect, but it's likely to be more accurate than the straight lines of provinces & states, and it avoids the NPOV issues raised by RedMan11.

Category:Indigenous peoples of the Americas

  • Category:Indigenous peoples of North America (maybe?)
    • Category:Indigenous peoples of the North American Arctic
    • Category:Indigenous peoples of the North American Subarctic
    • Category:Indigenous peoples of California
    • Category:Indigenous peoples of the North American Eastern Woodlands
    • Category:Indigenous peoples of the North American Great Basin
    • Category:Indigenous peoples of the North American Plateau
    • Category:Indigenous peoples of the North American Northwest Coast
    • Category:Indigenous peoples of the North American Plains
    • Category:Indigenous peoples of the North American Southeast
    • Category:Indigenous peoples of the North American Southwest
Then the Category:Gwich'in & Category:Dene categories would belong to Category:Indigenous peoples of the North American Subarctic rather than the provincial/territorial categories. Of course, we could narrow these categories further if they get too full.
On the other hand, it would also make sense that people should be able to find out what indigenous nations do exist within the borders of their individual province or state. I know it's rather important here in British Columbia where treaties have not been signed, and are being negotiated partly with the provincial government.
What do you think? - TheMightyQuill 18:40, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
This would be extremely difficult. Consider all the tribes pushed into Oklahoma -are they Woodlands tribes or Plains? Are the Blackfeet Woodlands were they originated or Plains the culture they had after European culture. You are already proposing to classify the Navaho of the desert Southwest as Subarctic! (they are Dene, too.) Rmhermen 20:01, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
I like the current system because it can be applied to both where the tribe lived historically and where they live today. Where would you put the Tuscagora? The Eastern Woodlands? Maybe now and originally, but they lived in North Carolina for a long time too, and therefore the Southeast. If we incorporate the new system we should probably keep the old one too. The Navajo, Tuscagora, and other of the more complicated examples could appear in several different categories. I'm betting a lot of the people would resent being categorized by the location their ancestors lived, rather than where their living nation lives now.--Cúchullain t/c 22:23, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your input guys. These are all very valid faults with the proposed system that I hadn't thought of, but the original problems still remain. Can anyone thing of a different solution? I don't really like the idea of grouping people by language family as anthropologies have tended to do (in the past?) either. By the way, if Navajo Diné is really the same as Dene, the Dene and Na-Dené languages articles should really be expanded to include that. -- TheMightyQuill 23:34, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, why couldn't we group the peoples by how they group themselves? As for the Anishinaabeg, this group would be Ojibwe, Saulteaux, Mississaugas, Ottawa, Potawatomi, Algonquin and Nipissing. The next grouping as far as the Anishinaabeg are concerned are the "brothers"-- Cree-group, eastern Abnaki. Next are the "father/uncle"-- western Abnaki. Next, "grandfather": Lenape. Finally, the "our people"-- Sauk, Cheyenne, Blackfoot, etc. However, for this type of grouping, you need to know how all the peoples group themselves and then fit the pieces together like a puzzle. As for the "Dene", the answer is "yes". One are the northern Athapaskan group of peoples and the other are southern group of Athapaskan peoples. (And yes, Athapaska would be an indicator of my bias towards the Algonquian name for that group of peoples.) CJLippert 00:03, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

As the sort of proponent of the categorization above, I would like to put in my two cents worth. First, I would like to point out that I am not particularly hung up about that specific categorization, it was a suggestion that I though might work. I would be happy with whatever works as long as we don't entirely depend only on the current categorization based on modern day non-native political boundaries that do not respect First Nation cultural groups. Not that there is anything wrong with putting the article of a particular nation in a categories related to where they currently live now. I think it would be OK, for example, to put the Gwich'in article in Category:First Nations in the Yukon, Category:First Nations in the Northwest Territories, and Category:Alaska Native tribes. What I have a problem with is putting the Category:Gwich’in as a sub-category of those three. It's wrong on two counts: most articles in Category:Gwich’in do not belong in all three, and it is not NPOV as TheMightyQuill points out. But we do need a real "parent" for Category:Gwich’in (or Category:Anishinaabe which needs to be created) and all other peoples/tribes categories, many of which still need to be created. The question is what is the parent to all these categories? Currently they are the existing political boundaries. I think we can agree that we need to change that. So how do we do this? One alternative is to include all indicidual nation/tribe categories in Category:Indigenous peoples of North America, or do we attempt a regional categorization along the lines suggested above which reflect the cultural groupings as described in Classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas, or do we do it by language groups? Note that Indigenous languages are categorized along those cultural groups, see Category:Indigenous languages of the Americas. On to some points. There is nothing wrong with categorizing one group among two different categories. So the Blackfoot could be in both the plains and woodland category, while the Tuscaroras could be in the three areas they lived. On the Dene, the Dene Nation is a self-defined grouping of First Nations in the Northwest Territories in Canada, as a perusal of the article should show. They do not include other neighbouring groups in the Yukon and British Columbia who also speak Athapaskan languages, nor the Gwich'in who also live in the NWT. So we shouldn't include other peoples who use a word similar to "Dene" to refer to themselves or to people. On the peoples deported/relocated/resettled/ethnic cleansed/forced to migrate to Oklahoma, I have no easy answer. So our task is to create categories for each nation/tribe where they do not exist and to decide what the parent category/categories should be. Luigizanasi 06:14, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I think we should keep the state and province categories since many sources, laws, orginizations, councils, etc. are based on states and provinces. Plus, proximity leads to knowledge. For instance, most of my contibutions have been on Anishinaabe articles, but for me in Wisconsin I know more about say the Menominee than I do about the Anishinaabe groups in Quebec or Saskatchewan. However, we should also add more meaningful categories. I'm actually inclined to think of them more as daughter wikiprojects. I see problems with the woodland, plains, etc. categorization for the reasons described above. I also don't like linguistic categories for topics other than languages--Who doesn't cringe when they see a reference to "Algonquian Culture." Instead we should look for meaningful relationships between tribes based on perceived kinship and shared history. For example, I wouldn't see a problem with seeing the Assiniboine (Sioux) put into a project with the Cree (Algonquian) and Chippewayan (Dene). I can think of four potential groupings off the top of my head:
  • Iroquois
  • Anishinaabe
  • Sioux
  • Five Civilized Tribes

Of course it would be somewhat arbitrary, and some tribes would still fit into multiple groups, but I think it would break up the massive scope of this project and get editors working on things they know. For instance, User:CJLippert, User:Vizjim, and myself have created the beginnings of such a project at User:Leo1410/Anishinaabe, and I think similar things could be done for other logical groupings. My two cents. (Leo1410 13:47, 5 October 2006 (UTC))

  • My interest is primarily in English-language literature by Indigenous peoples of the Americas. I would be happy to research and contribute a literature section if anyone were to set up an equivalent of Leo1410's Anishinaabe pages - just drop me a line! Vizjim 19:41, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Archive

Hey, admin dudes! Time to archive? Vizjim 19:47, 5 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] References

Hi all, those of us working on Ohlone have made a review of references we are using. Could I suggest a list of references and authorities? To make special note, we decide against A. L. Kroeber (Handbook of the Indians of California, 1925) on several topics. One in particular, population, he seemed to be outright lazy. Quoting his last paragraph on Population, "Perhaps an average of 1,000 head per dialect group.." .. "... their respective absolute numbers at any given period remain quite conjectural." This in difference to Bancroft's earlier numbers. To be fair thought, in the preface he quite readily admints to NOT having researched this area, and was dependant on the work of others. To that, his bibliography is sloppy, no reference per chapter, nor sections - just one large listing for a book of over a thousand pages. Also his work was so early it could not take advantage of later estimates, like The Population of the California Indians 1769-1970, Cook, 1976. Submitted respectfully. --meatclerk 20:26, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Names of articles about peoples and categorization

Hi, I'm attempting to sort out the articles about Oregon tribes. I started Category:Native American tribes in Oregon and attempted to move all the tribes or tribal entities currently or historically based in Oregon there. I noticed that when disambiguation is needed, the tribal name is usually followed by "(tribe)" but also by "(Native Americans)" or "(people)". Is there a consensus on which of these should be used? I lean toward "(people)" but most of them are "(tribe)". If this has been discussed somewhere, if someone could point to the right talk page, that would great. Also, I made the category a subcategory of Category:People from Oregon, since before the tribal articles were categorized all over the place, including history of Oregon, which I felt was rather disrespectful, since most Oregon tribes have not completely faded into history. I'm not sure if that was the right choice, so if anybody has a suggestion, let me know. Thanks! Katr67 17:46, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

It has been discussed but no conclusion reached. See all sorts of variation in a big list like Classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas. Rmhermen 02:04, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
OK. Thanks for replying. Katr67 14:41, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I would guess (people) would probably be the most universally accepted, though of course, only when disambiguation is needed. Generally, I think People from XXX categories are generally designed for individuals, not "peoples" but how to organise people by state is a problem being discussed above. Removing it from history of Oregon was definitely a good idea. -- TheMightyQuill 17:39, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I think I'll take Category:Native American tribes in Oregon out of Category:People from Oregon for now, and just make it a subcat of Category:Oregon. It will be easier to find that way. Katr67 17:46, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Treaty chart?

I just want to bounce this idea off all of you. What do you think about two pages listing treaties made with the Indigeonous peoples of the North America, one with the Royce Reference Numbers and USC Numbers for the US and another with Crown-treaty Registry Numbers for Canada, as well as the treaty year for both pages? The reason I ask is that in the larger world, often the treaties are not refered by their name but rather by one of these four methods mentioned. I don't know if we want bunch of redirects as well (and disabmiguations, in the case where only the year is mentioned), but having multilple ways of accessing the treaty information may prove handy. Thoughts? Comments? CJLippert 20:09, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Have you seen (obviously incomplete) List of United States treaties? Maybe the numbers could be added to the list there (and perhaps the Indigenous treaties part could be split from the main article.) A table format would be good too. I've never heard of the treaty numbers but it seems like a good idea to have them all on the same page. I would be willing to help add redirects to that page if you choose to go that route. Is this--Numbered Treaties--about the Canadian treaties you are talking about? Katr67 20:45, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I have seen that incomplete list, and no on others accounts. There is a table originally published by the Bureau of American Ethnology that attemps to qualify all the Indian treaties the US has been a signatory. The person who made these treaty listings was named Charles Royce and all US treaties involving land agreements were assigned a "Royce Number". For example, the Royce Reference Number 242 or simply Royce No. 242 corresponds to the 1837 Treaty of St. Peters (7 Stat. 536). As for the Canadian Numbered Treaties, they are systematical Canadian listing... new country, clean slate, start numbering in an orderly fashion. However, all Canadian, and all British treaties before them, also have been categorized and listed. For example, of the Numbered Treaties, the 1874 Treaty 4 corresponds to Crown-treaty Registry Number 135. CJLippert 03:15, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it's a great idea (though I ain't volunteering for the very hard work it'll involve!) Do word and format it in such as way as to potentially be able to incorporate treaties involving South American countries, Hawaii, Russian Alaska, etc. Vizjim 04:26, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Okie-dokie. CJLippert 13:41, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I've started a table in List_of_United_States_treaties#U.S._Native_American_treaties. I've done only the ones for 1776-1799. Please take a look. Does it work? Different heading categories needed? Feedback appreciated. CJLippert 21:42, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it looks great. Thanks for all your hard work. Maybe add a blurb at the top or link to an article about Royce numbers, since not everyone will know what those are. Let me know how you want to handle the redirects when the time comes. Katr67 22:11, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. I'm still playing around with the column titles. Similarly, but on the List of Indian reservations in the United States, other than Royce Reference Numbers, I would like to add in the corresponding Reservation Number. For example, the Mille Lacs Indian Reservation has two different reservation numbers. The Lake Mille Lacs Indian Reservation of the Mille Lacs Indian Reservation is the same as Indian Reservation Number 2280 while the Sandy Lake Indian Reservation is the same as Indian Reservation Number 3385. An easier example is the Fond du Lac Indian Reservation, which is Indian Reservation Number 1125. Canadian Indian Reserves also have numbers but they're not 4-digits like those in the US, which are currently restricted to numbers ending in either 0 or 5. Unfortunately, I'm quite ignorant if such a documentation is even possible with Mexico. CJLippert 22:52, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, now here are some problems in integrating the info already there and the next section of the table. The next section (1800-1829) has remarks, while the current layout for the table don't. So, keep the remarks or remove the remarks? Next, in the case of redirects. Currently, there is a redirect for Treaty with the Ottawa, etc. that goes to Treaty of St. Louis. However, I see this would be a problem since there are several different treaties of St. Louis where only the 1816 treaty would be that, while there are several treaties with the Ottawa, etc. where only the 1816 one should go to Treaty of St. Louis. Should we have a diambiguation page for Treaty with the Ottawa, etc. and alike instead of a redirect? CJLippert 23:35, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Moderator intervention requested

At Míkmaq language, the user Codex Sinaiticus persists in reverting referenced material regarding words relating to the people and language to his unsubstantiated view of what is correct. I have requested that he discuss the references on the Talk page, and instead hs simply reverts, and jeers while doing so (as you can see on the history page. May we have some intervention here, please? -- Evertype·✆ 15:52, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm looking into it now, though I don't know much about the language. After a cursory Internet search, it seems to me that your information is correct.--Cúchullain t/c 17:54, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
May I note that being "correct" is not a goal. WP:V and WP:NPOV usually take care of the situation. As per your issue, continue to insist on citations. Then remind the person that WP:V is our only alternative, as few of us are "experts". Respectfully --meatclerk 07:55, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Classification/request for comments

Could we use Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America/Article Classification for classification requests and request for comments (as of now it's a redirect to the this talk page)? --Qyd 17:17, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 18:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Biographies of Historians

Certain historian are important to our work on Ohlone, but they are important to others. Any comments or addition to the articles below welcome. --meatclerk 09:35, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sherburne F. Cook

  • Populations of North American Natives

[edit] Alexander Smith Taylor

  • collector, historian and "first bibliographer of California"

[edit] Abenaki

Hello! This is my first contribution to the Project (but I worked on the fr:Abénaquis page before tackling its English counterpart). I cleaned it up, rearranged the sections so they make more sense, and deleted repeated, garbled mentions of the current Abenaki reservations in Quebec. I found the page the original writer kept referring to and corrected the footnotes. The article, however, still needs a lot of work, so if any of you can add references or any information at all, it would be lovely. Marialadouce 20:25, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arts of the North American indigenous peoples?

Hi all, I've been working the last few days on comparing Wikipedia's and Macropedia's coverage. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a WP analog of the Macropedia article Arts of Native American peoples, but I thought perhaps that I just didn't know where to look. Does anyone here know of a good WP article on that topic? Thanks for your help! Willow 20:58, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Category:Native American art doesn't show one although there is a Native American pottery article. Rmhermen 21:50, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed category renaming

I have just proposed renaming two native american categories, and wanted to list the proposals here in order to get any feedback, positive or negative, from those with knowledge of the subject. Links to the proposals are here and here. - TexasAndroid 17:06, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Duplicate article?

Although there is an existing Seneca Nation article, someone has started a new article, Seneca Nation of Indians. Just a heads up for any interested editor. -- Donald Albury 23:11, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Is one for the Seneca people, the other for the Seneca government? Just curious. If that's the case "Seneca Nation" should probably be retitled in the usual "Seneca (tribe)" or "Seneca people" format used for other groups; i.e. as per the threefold or fourfold delineation between ethno articles, political-org articles, and language articles and potentially separate community/town/rez/agency articles. Otherwise, yeah, I'd venture it's a duplicate.Skookum1 23:41, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Looks like someone is trying to differentiate between the people and the tribal entity? I've done some work on this with the Oregon tribes. But looking it over more closely maybe there is more going on there? I'm going to stick with Pacific Northwest articles, but perhaps someone can look into whether this is a legitimate content fork. Katr67 23:48, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
The new article was started by User:Scuggy, who is edit warring with User:Dtwarren on Seneca Nation and Upstate Citizens for Equality, that I know of. Both editors are mad at me now, so I want to stay out this particular case. -- Donald Albury 03:13, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Mr. Albury, I am not mad at you just frustrated over User:Scuggy. However I have come upon a similar situation with Oneida tribe and Oneida Indian Nation. Whether these are viewed as duplicates or not really depends on how we determine these situations should be handled because the descendants of the original Six Nations have splintered into multiple groups. For example the historic Seneca Nation has splintered into the Seneca Nation of Indians and the Tonawanda Band of Seneca Indians. Should we have both groups under the Seneca Nation page or should we have one article for the historic Seneca Nation that will cover it from the beginning to approximately 1848 and then an article for each of the current groups of the Senecas? --Dtwarren 03:29, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template Image

The Template:NorthAmNative includes this image: The full-size image I get following the link looks fine, but the 90px version here and in the template itself looks like two rabbits with thought bubbles for some reason. wtf? -- BCoates 08:36, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

That's incredibly weird. Here is the offending image, but who knows why it's there. I fixed the template in the meantime by changing the size to 91px. -- TheMightyQuill 09:13, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Vandalism on commons.wikipedia.org fixed. -- TheMightyQuill 02:45, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Paiutes-Mormons and Mountain Meadows Massacre

There is an on going debate at mountain meadows massacre. The article is currently locked, several LDS users have in that past pushed their religious beliefs. I've tried to include material on the oral tradition of the Paiutes that contradicted their paticipation in the massacre but its been removed in the past. Maybe someone with more info can help out. Sqrjn 18:52, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stubs

There are currently nearly 1000 article in Category:Indigenous peoples of North America stubs. Clearly, some of them are no longer stubs, and should have the tag removed, but even still, shouldn't they be divided to make management easier? Someone proposed a NA-native-bio stub, which was rejected here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Proposals/Archive24#.7B.7BNativeAmerican-stub.7D.7D_.2F_Cat:Native_American_biography_stubs

I think this problem is representative of our bigger questions of organization. Do we divide by region, or modern nation state? Do we, as criticized during the proposal debate above, put all indigenous north american people in a bio stub, based on ethnicity, but regardless of any other connection they have? It's a tough question. I would say the biography stub idea is actually a good one, but more people need to get out and support it next if we are going to get it done. Perhaps we should discuss it here first. -- TheMightyQuill 22:00, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

With 1,000 entries in the stub category, the sub-category for biography stubs is a no-brainer. Anyone who wants to create and populate {{NorthAm-native-bio-stub}} (along with Category:Indigenous peoples of North America biography stubs), should go ahead and do so. I unilaterally created the original template {{NorthAm-native-stub}} after looking at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting and realizing that the folks there, because of their orientation towards contemporary political categories, would reject the greatly needed template if proposed beforehand. (It had happened before.) They haven't quite figured out how to categorize indigenous people there: instead of filing them under "People", they list indigenous people under "miscellaneous", along with "animal rights" and "furniture". Seriously. —Kevin 04:30, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pauline Johnson

I've requested a peer review for this article. If you're interested in giving some feedback, click here. Thanks, Bobanny 00:24, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ojibwe language userboxes

Discussion moved to Wikipedia_talk:Babel#Ojibwe_language_userboxes. Please visit and discuss. CJLippert 19:08, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

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