Hi,
Are the Yupic included among the First Nation peoples of Canada? I believe they do not include tribes in the U.S.
I look forward to your feedback.
davidmich
First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis.[2] There are currently over 630[3] recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia.[4] The total population is nearly 700,000 people. Under the Employment Equity Act, First Nations are a “designated group”, along with women, visible minorities, and persons with physical or mental disabilities.[5] They are not defined as a visible minority under the Act or by the criteria of Statistics Canada.[6]
No, because the Yupik don’t live in Canada. I mean, a suppose a Yupik individual could move there, but the ancestral homes of the Yupik are in Russia and the United States.
Within Canada, “First Nations” (most often used in the plural) has come into general use—replacing the deprecated term “Indians”—for the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Individuals using the term outside Canada include supporters of the Cascadian independence movement as well as American tribes within the Pacific Northwest. The singular, commonly used on culturally politicized reserves, is the term First Nations person (when gender-specific, First Nations man or First Nations woman). A more recent trend is for members of various nations to refer to themselves by their tribal or national identity only, e.g., “I’m Haida,” or “We’re Kwantlens,” in recognition of the distinctiveness of First Nations ethnicities.[7]
I’m pretty sure the term “First Nation” is in common usage (outside of Canada) for all American Indian tribes in the Americas. I’ve seen it used when referring to tribes within the US.
No, the term “First Nation” is strongly associated with Canada. Some non-Canadians use the term, but not many. I’ve been to international conferences on indigenous issues, and you can pretty much pick out the Canadian speakers in the catalog of presentations by their use of the phrase “First Nation” in the title of their talk.
Just one or the other – “Native American,” or “Indian.” For several decades, US academics and the like almost exclusively used “Native American,” because they assumed that indigenous US people found “Indian” to be insulting. In recent years, however, many US academics and the like have realized that many (not all) indigenous US people actually PREFER the term “Indian.”
I grew up in Alaska. The Yupik people I know either said they were Yupik, or Eskimos, or Yupik Eskimos. These are people who live in Southwest Alaska. On the northern part people called themselves Inupiat, or Eskimo, or Inupiat Eskimo. I never heard anyone call themselves Inuit, that’s a name used by people who live in Canada.
Inuit and Inuipiat are very closely related groups, or perhaps Inupiat is a subset of Inuit. Yupiks are a related but distinct group with a different language. In Alaska there are about twice as many Yupik people as Inupiat people.
Me too, and you’re right. While the Inupiat are Inuit, they don’t refer to themselves as such, nor does anyone else. The Yupik also have a branch called the Alutiiq.
If this were as universally true as you claim, that would make for a big difference between Canadian and U.S. indigenous peoples (see my post above). I doubt the distinction is so strong. I’ll try to find a cite now.
Unfortunately, I haven’t found a similar statistic for Canadians. Some sources (especially government ones) trot out the blanket statement that Canadian indigenous* prefer “First Nation,” implying that they all do. Many other sources acknowledge a more complex mix, like in the U.S. – “many” or “some” prefer one term it the other. But no hard numbers, sorry.
(*“indigenous” is the least-ambiguous GLOBAL term in English, at least in U.S. academia (not to downplay the inevitably fuzzy and disputed ways of defining the term). But Canadians, especially in official documents, also use “aboriginal,” which includes Inuit and Métis as well as First Nations. In the U.S, the term “aboriginal” is nowadays usually associated with Australia.)
My point exactly! The term has never been as universally condemned among Indians themselves as it has been among academics (including many academic Indians – note the quote from my former neighbor and colleague Michael Yellow Bird, in the link I cited a couple posts back).
Americans tend to call our indigenous peoples Native Americans and call people from India Indians. This is what I’ve generally seen/heard, anyway. I don’t know any Native Americans personally, and would call an individual whatever their preferred term. But for the sake of clarity, this is a good rule of thumb.
