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A Map of Native American Tribes
- tickerticker 9y agoIt is difficult to write history for any culture without a written language, but it can be approximated as the current "best guess" which can be improved over time. It is a great leap forward to begin this process, especially with autonyms. Future versions of this map might be color-coded to show tribal geography by century, as known from artifacts, oral histories, fossil remains, and general archeology. Rather than a monograph of anthropological scholarship, this strikes me more as a statement of cultural pride. It says to me that, even though history is written by the victors, there are other perspectives worth sharing.
- sorokod 9y ago"before their first contact with Europeans" is a very long time. Such map necessarily must reflect an idealised take on facts.
- gus_massa 9y agoThis is usual in history. They have some sources and try to do their best effort to make a reliable map. [I'm not a historian, so I can't be sure how good is this map.] When you see a map of Europe in 1000AD, you have almost the same problems. Europe is easier because they had a written record, and some map from that epoch. Anyway, the historical records may be wrong due to political reasons ... so it's not easy. Another point is that maps changes with time. The map of Europe in 1000AD, 1100AD, 1200AD, 1300AD, 1400AD, 1500AD are different. The maps of America in the same years should show the change of the territories each one had. Edit: Fixed DC->AD
- bmmayer1 9y agoPoint of information. I've heard of AD and BC, CE and BCE, but I've never heard of DC. What is DC?
- schoen 9y agoSome Romance languages use that for AD, like Italian "dopo Cristo" and Portuguese "depois de Cristo" ('after Christ'). https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/AD#Translations https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/AD#Translations
- gus_massa 9y agoExactly. I'm from Argentina and I forget to "translate" that part Fixed. Thanks to both.
- nerdponx 9y agoI've never heard of this before. Does anyone else find it strange that two very strongly Catholic societies abandoned the Latin version, while other societies didn't?
- schoen 9y agoI think abandoning ecclesiastical Latin terms for things is kind of random, and isn't usually very correlated with religiosity. (If people actually wanted to be secular about it, they would nowadays say "era volgare", "era comune", "era comum", etc.) Edit: for example Portuguese has retained numbered weekdays (like Hebrew and ecclesiastical Latin practice), while Spanish has gone along with the widespread European trend of using the classical Roman names. In Spanish the first work day is the Moon's Day, while in Portuguese it's Second Day (based on the Biblical second day of creation). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_the_days_of_the_week https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_the_days_of_the_week I don't think we can read any huge theological or cultural implications into this difference, though.
- dredmorbius 9y agoGiven that we're fast approaching the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's famous door-nailing, the roles of vulgar languages and schism with Catholic doctrine might be related to this, though I'd have to look into the history. The AD/BC system is formally known as the Dyonisian Era System, and dates to ... 525, er, CE, when it was created by Dionysius Exiguus. The use of "common era" dates to 1615. The English Reformation (schism with the Catholic Church) to 1532 - 1534. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Reformation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Reformation
- sorokod 9y agoOf course maps change with time, that is the point of my comment.
- robotbikes 9y agoWell let's just say the period immediately predating the European invasion, that generally occurred starting around the 1600s in North America. Of course this isn't static but the perspective is important because a lot of displacement occurred post contact with Europeans and a lot more warfare and disease resulted. The perspective this map provides could be compared to a post contact map of tribes to highlight the many migrations that occurred.
- mcv 9y agoEuropeans contacted different areas at different times, and I can imagine some of these areas and borders changed. It's probably going to be a rough approximation no matter what you do. That's no reason to belittle this effort, though. There's enormous amounts of information on that map, and even if it's not 100% perfectly accurate, it's still way better than what we had before.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- arca_vorago 9y agoI really dislike sites that prevent me from zooming in on mobile.
- sizzzzlerz 9y agoIn school, we learned about the Yokut tribe who inhabited the central valley floor and foothills from Bakersfield to Merced/Stockton. The map didn't show this tribe, however, looking up the Yokut on Wikipedia revealed that the tribe names are different and the map correctly shows these names. Interesting to get the real info 50 years later.
- asciimo 9y agoThis is a great point. Many comments are noting that Carapella's map doesn't jibe with history books or government records or even local lore. But all of these sources tell the story of the victor. We may never know the truth, but we non-natives rarely have access to this perspective.
- protomyth 9y agoNot all of the sources tell the story of the victor. Some of us are going from what had been told by enrolled members of the tribes themselves. HN is a surprisingly diverse community.
- asciimo 9y agoThere are detailed PDFs on Carapella's site, noted at the end of the article: http://www.tribalnationsmaps.com http://www.tribalnationsmaps.com
- js2 9y ago(2014)
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- aryehof 9y agoPerhaps such a map displayed prominently in every US school would be appropriate. Kudos to the map's author.
- protomyth 9y agoI wonder how far before contact because some of the placements don't jive with what I was taught as a youth. For the current map of Federally recognized tribes in the US: https://www.nps.gov/nagpra/DOCUMENTS/ResMAP.HTM https://www.nps.gov/nagpra/DOCUMENTS/ResMAP.HTM or https://www.blm.gov/cadastral/biamaps/biaoffices.htm https://www.blm.gov/cadastral/biamaps/biaoffices.htm
- ringaroundthetx 9y agoThere are many tribes that are not federally recognized for many arbitrary reasons. Many states recognize tribes that the federal government doesn't recognize. Many states don't recognize tribes that are trying to get the state to recognize them. My family's tribe only got state recognition less than 15 years ago. This delay was mostly from being broken up and mixed with Africans and the master's families during slavery. But enough genealogy was possible with updated tools to show a cohesive unit and re-establish the tribe for official purposes. I know of other tribes in the same quandary.
- protomyth 9y agoAnd that's why I stated the the maps were of the "Federally recognized". California has some state-only recognized tribes, and it is a hard process to get state or federal recognition, but it still happens. There is a reason "enrolled member" shows up in a lot places.
- ringaroundthetx 9y agoIt wasn't clear you understood that, you could have easily been using federally recognized as the infallible source to see tribal maps, and it also isn't clear that anybody else would understand that
- protomyth 9y agoI'm a bit familiar with the subject since I am typing this from one of those places on the map. I'm also a bit familiar with the unrecognized while watching a particular tribe of Chippewa trying to get their recognition. Land ownership will be a rather large issue with these fights.
- torstenvl 9y agoI appreciate the effort and think it's a good idea in that it tries to help people remember that this wasn't a barren empty land before European settlers arrived. That said, I think the NPR article overstates the quality of the map. I can't speak with any authority about any Native American tribes outside the upper Great Lakes, but the map understates the extent of both the Odawa and Potawatomi tribes, and fails to recognize the relationship among those tribes by, e.g., failing to list the Odawa name for the Odawa (Nishnaabeg), which would clearly mark them as closely related ethnolinguistically to the Ojibwe.
- ChuckMcM 9y agoIf you look at the PDF there is an email address for sending updates. I would encourage you to send that information on. That said, self taught cartography is like self taught coding (or anything else for that matter), it is an ongoing learning process.
- hackbinary 9y agoI'm sorry, but self taught or otherwise, learning is always an 'ongoing process.' Learning is never complete, cartography, coding, or anything else.
- hackbinary 9y agoUhm, why the downvote? Just because someone took a formal course in something does not give them the right to say that I have nothing further to learn in a subject.
- quadrangle 9y agoProbably (not the downvoter myself), you veered off too tangentially. It's not that you are wrong, it's that you wrote a whole comment about a particular way that another commenter bothered to emphasize the idea of updating the map (the real point, as opposed to the didactic status of the cartographer)
- 9y ago
- dogruck 9y agoThis map might give the misleading impression that the American Indians were a static mix of tribes, sitting in a time capsule, waiting for the Great White Man to stir things up. In reality, the situation was fluid. The standard forces of disease, warfare, trade networks, natural disaster, and human ingenuity were always at play.
- snambi 9y agoSure, think of europe of before 2nd world war. It was full of disease, warfare, trade networks, natural disaster, and human ingenuity were always at play. Don't need to denigrate the work, though.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- mikeash 9y agoDoesn't any map with political borders give that misleading impression?
- _Codemonkeyism 9y agoAny map.
- aaron-lebo 9y agoIt might be inaccurate, too. I got a little too interested in the Comanche over the summer, which the article notes is actually a Ute word basically meaning "enemy". The Utes called them enemy because the Comanche prior to European contact lived in the Rockies much farther north. It was only the horse which allowed them to move out onto the plains. He's got them located in the plains of Texas, which again, they weren't at until probably after 1700 and when they were they completely dominated a region way bigger than that. Wiki: The Comanche emerged as a distinct group shortly before 1700, when they broke off from the Shoshone people[15] living along the upper Platte River in Wyoming. In 1680, the Comanche acquired horses from the Pueblo Indians after the Pueblo Revolt.[16] They separated from the Shoshone after this, as the horses allowed them greater mobility in their search for better hunting grounds. http://www.npr.org/assets/news/2014/06/Tribal_Nations_Map_NA.pdf http://www.npr.org/assets/news/2014/06/Tribal_Nations_Map_NA... I'm not sure exactly what he's representing. It can't be a single moment in time. https://www.amazon.com/Empire-Summer-Moon-Comanches-Powerful/dp/1416591060 https://www.amazon.com/Empire-Summer-Moon-Comanches-Powerful...
- kahnpro 9y agoHave we never seen it before because it's inaccurate and irrelevant?
- asciimo 9y agoNot sure those are criteria for visibility, as I definitely see this comment yet it has the same qualities.
- _Codemonkeyism 9y agoTo all the critics, what would be a better map of say 1400 with the distribution of tribes?
- flukus 9y agoThe game Europa Universalis 4 maybe? I'm sure it's full of inaccuracies, omissions and generalizations, but it comes with different map modes that show things like religion, culture and various relationships between the tribes at the time.
- X86BSD 9y agoWow that is one horribly incomplete map. Where are the Kansa, the Wichita, the Osage, etc
- hellofunk 9y agoNote that they are labelling tribes based on the names the tribes called themselves, not the names that history or non-Indians would know. Not sure that explains it in your specific question.
- X86BSD 9y agoThose are the names the tribes call themselves. Half of the midwest is named after local tribes of the area.
- _Codemonkeyism 9y agoSounds like you want to help out.
- protomyth 9y agoI would hope that people who are interested in this type of thing contact the folks at the tribes about their own efforts.
- asciimo 9y agoPull request.
- mlinksva 9y agoCouple other places to help that might have wider impact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Indigenous_peoples_of_North_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Indigeno... https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Maps_of_the_indigenous_peoples_of_North_America https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Maps_of_the_indi...
- schoen 9y agoKansa listed as "Hutanga (Kanza)" (in Kansas), Osage listed as "Niukonska (Osage)" (in Oklahoma), Wichita listed as "Kitikiti'sh (Wichita)" (in Texas) — all three that you mentioned are present on the map.
- AtomicOrbital 9y agoOf course all species on earth as well as the entire surface of the earth are silent witnesses to this relentless shoveling under of prior lifeforms ... humans have no monopoly of this dynamic
- dredmorbius 9y agoLife is palimpsest.
- Pxtl 9y agoI can't even read the map on my phone - on both the PDF and the website, the text is too low res to read. I have no idea whether this is a problem with my phone or the content (I'm on wifi so it's not my ISP "helping"), but this is a constant frustration.
- averagewall 9y agoIn Chrome, go to the ... menu and pick "request desktop site". Many sites that are customized for mobile have massive failures and it's easier to just get the proper version which you can zoom and scroll to see all the details. I get a good map that way.
- Pxtl 9y agoI'm just surprised that I saw the same problem on the PDF.
- 11thEarlOfMar 9y agoI was recently wondering why there are no restaurants serving American Indian foods as a cuisine[0]. I'd have to think that it could be quite rich in variety, given the number of tribes and their dispersion across the continent. Any ideas why that food is not represented? [0] Yelped 'American Indian restaurant' and got zero results.
- oso2k 9y agoMuch of what you'd recognize as Mexican food or Central American food has roots in Native American food of those that spoke Nahuatl and its dialects (Southwestern tribes and further south). Many versions of corn, many non-sweet versions of potatoes, and many peppers are native to the Americas and have obviously been integrated into other cultures and cuisines. As for reasons why such food is not represented as Native American . . . Imperialism? Appropriation? Assimilation? If you're truly interested Native American food, don't Yelp it. You'll probably have to speak to several people at a Reservation, Tribal Council, Cultural Group or perhaps a museum curator.
- shanev 9y agoWasn’t bison a huge part of Native American food though? I haven’t seen it represented at any Mexican or Central American restaurant I’ve been to.
- stevenwoo 9y agoWasn't that just the Plains Indians? Bison might be overrepresented in popular culture because Hollywood emphasizes the years we spent subjugating the Plains Indians.
- protomyth 9y agoYes, it was only the plains Indians, and Hollywood lumped them all into generic Native America.
- oso2k 9y ago
- ajeet_dhaliwal 9y agoOne positive thing about the modern US and Canada is at least a lot of native names have been kept or are used for names of states, provinces, towns and regions. In Australia there seems to be far less of this.
- sanswork 9y agoIs it possible in Australia you're just not recognising the aboriginal words because pretty much everywhere I've lived in Australia has been full of areas named using aboriginal words. Sydney eastern suburbs have places like Bondi, Coogee, Maroubra, Woollahra, Woolloomooloo.
- danieltillett 9y agoThere is even a very long list of place names of Aboriginal origin on wiki and it is very far from complete [0]. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_place_names_of_Aboriginal_origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_place_names...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- codingdave 9y agoMy first reaction matched a lot of the comments, of questioning the accuracy based on my knowledge of my local area. But I'm quickly getting over that reaction, realizing it is just an ego driven, "Well, actually..." The truth is that these maps are trying to make a bigger point -- to remind people that there is a bigger picture to the history of this continent. And no history lesson is going to be perfect, so I am going to resist the temptation to let imperfections distract from this work -- they are pretty cool maps, and a worthwhile project.
- jaimex2 9y agoHe's also made a map of South America which for some reason isn't mentioned in the article. https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/history/events/new-pre-contact-map-transforming-understanding-of-south-america-one-tribe-at-a-time/ https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/history/events/new-pre...
- enriquto 9y agoa map of the whole of North America would make more sense in this context (instead of a map of "U.S. and Canada", which do not even appear in the map itself).
- xmrsilentx 9y agoThe map should be renamed to "North America prior to illegal immigration".