I need help from someone north of the border, to help my daughter help with a school paper.
What is the “accepted” term for Indians up there in the Great White North? “Native Canadians” doesn’t sound familiar, and I’m pretty sure “First Nations” is reserved for the Inuit (and ours don’t mind being called Eskimos, why do yours?). Is the PC term simply Indians (or les Indes, or whatever)?
Thanks in advance.
“First nations” is good for all the aborginal people, I think.
http://www.ualberta.ca/~bleeck/canada/firstntn.html
I would say that native people or native Canadians are quite acceptable.
I don’t think any Canadian natives in the North want (or like) to be called “Eskimos”. We generally call them “Inuit”, which (I believe) means “The people”.
There’s also something called “status Indians”, which (I think) means you’re “officially” a member of the First Nations.
Sorry I couldn’t be more certain about the details. Perhaps your best bet would be to go to the search engine at http://www.alltheweb.com and search for these key words:
native Canada “status indian” inuit
That should turn up some useful links.
Native, First Nations, and/or Aboriginal, although it’s been my experience that most Natives call themselves “Indians.”
If the topic of part-Native, part-White people comes in your daughter’s paper, the term is Metis (pronounced may-TEE.)
Thanks, everyone - now PLEASE don’t tell me that an individual who belongs to the “First Nations” is a “First National.”
FWIW, “Native Americans” usually just call themselves “Indians” too. Don’t ask me to explain why we need a PC term when the original one isn’t thought derogatory by the very people it applies to.
Indian may not be derogatory, but it sure is confusing, not to mention, inaccurate. In my mind, an Indian is someone who comes from India. Unless someone comes up with some proof that Native Americans somehow walked over here from Asia, I’m sticking with Native American. PC has nothing to do with it…
On the other hand, it’s not my place to be telling a race of people what they can or cannot call themselves. If they want to call themselves Indians, fine, but I still can’t think of them that way.
Blame the Europeans, it’s their fault anyway… 
Um, you do know that walking is how Native Americans did get here from Asia, right?
I’d hate to think you believed they grew here…
The ‘governing’ council in Canada for aboriginals is called The Council of First Nations. As an adjective, you could say ‘native protesters’ or ‘native leaders.’ ‘Aboriginal’ counts too.
Ironically, although no politician in his or her right mind would refer to aboriginals in Canada as ‘Indians’, the federal minisrty is the Dept of Indian and Northen Affairs.
When possible, I find it’s usually easiest to refer to a Native American (meaning North or South America, not the USA) by his or her tribe. For instance, I don’t say that my great[sup]4[/sup] grandmother was Indian or Native, I say that she was Shawnee. Of course, there are some cases where you really do need a general term.
frogstein: “Native” is as confusing as “Indian.” From Merriam-Webster Online:
I am a native American because I was born in America. My ancestry is Eastern European.
As has been implied or said elsewhere in this thread, “Aboriginal Americans” would be more accurate than “Native Americans” or “Indians.”
Wasn’t there a recent post about Columbus really calling the aboriginals he met “um gen in Dios” (a people in God), and THAT’s the word that got misused? Didn’t stop the European explorers from killing, enslaving, and infecting them, though.
“Aboriginal” isn’t completely accurate either - the Indians came here 10,000-20,000 years ago; they haven’t been here “since the origin”. “Native” is not specific enough, either. “First Nations” seems accurate, but still awkward and pretentious.
Since the various tribes were geographically isolated, they didn’t have a common spoken language, and never developed their own common word for each other. Even “people” doesn’t have a different word other than the name of the tribe itself, I believe. That’s not a problem when referring to my mother-in-law’s relatives as Choctaws, since they all are (my wife and kids are registered too, but they don’t identify with the tribe).
So, dammit, what IS a proper word? I think the default has to be the one they themselves use now. “Indians” it is.
And thanks again to my colleagues in the Grandmother Land.
While in journalism class two years ago, we ran into this problem. We were writing a story on the proposed Aboriginal School Board. The accepted terms, as we were told are as follows: Aboriginal, First Nations and the very lengthily and unwieldy Canada’s Indigenous People. Indians, we were told, is not acceptable. I always felt there must be an easier way. Natives, I believe fell out of favor because all of the negative connotations many people attached to the word.
>> Indian may not be derogatory, but it sure is confusing, not to mention, inaccurate. In my mind, an Indian is someone who comes from India. Unless someone comes up with some proof that Native Americans somehow walked over here from Asia, I’m sticking with Native American. PC has nothing to do with it…
Frogstein, please! So the rest of humans born on this continent are not “native” americans? They would native of where?
Your use of "native american"is even less consistent than the use of “indian”. The word “indian” has evolved to have other meanings besides a native of India. If we have to stick with the original ethymological meanings of words the language would be unworkable.
In any case, all Americans born in America are “native Americans” so you are less consistent than those who use the term “indian”.
And don’t even get me started with “African-American”.
Here’s a fairly recent document from the Dept. of Indian and Northern Affairs. You’ll find the definition of Indian at the bottom of the first page. (You’ll need Acrobat Reader)
Hey! I’m a native American. I just happen to be of European descent.
Now that the obvious has been repeated once again, I can offer the following, which isn’t proof but could be a likely explanation:
Christopher Columbus (“Don Cristobo”) was an Italian sailing for Spain (who presumably spoke Spanish). The word used in Mexico (Spanish) to refer to Amerindians is “indigeno,” which sounds a whole lot like “Indian” when you hear it with gringo ears. An Asian Indian is called “Indio” (which is also a fairly tastely Mexican beer). Thus, Spanish (in Mexico anyway) uses two separate words, one of which sounds a whole lot like “Indian” and really means “indiginous” (suprise, suprise) or “aboriginal.”
I don’t know, but offer the above for your perusal.
By the way, what ever happened to the term “Amerindian”?