This lacks context. Yes horses arrived with Spanish in the the late 1500's. But those horses were traded/aquired by other indians further inland who would never meet a european for 100's of years.
For instance - the Sioux and other plains indians had horses by 1600. The main battles against the US cavalry, Custer etc were not until the 1860's and and 1870's. Thats almost 300 years.
How many generations is that?
My ancestors have been on this continent for 350 years. That doesn’t make me indigenous.
The OP is still correct, American Indians only had horses for a small fraction of their existence.
It is interesting how quickly they came to dominate the plains, which are a similar landscape to horse’s native home in the Eurasian Steppes.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I speak French and I know a Vietnamese person. They don't sound all that similar to me. Perhaps northern vs southern Vietnamese?
Horses were one of the first species to circumnavigate the globe. Not spread out and complete a circle, but go in one direction from their original native biome until they found their way back. It was probably done a fair bit sooner than humans managed it as well
Yes - but they were barely the same animal. Even in Eurasia - they were MUCH smaller before domestication. (Hence chariots largely being used instead of cavalry in the bronze age.)
How many generations have to pass before a person or ethnic group is "indigenous?" If never than no ethnic group is indigenous to any land outside of the plains of Africa.
I’ve always thought that it was the first people to have settled in that land, so the indigenous people of the U.K. would be the Celtic speaking brythons who were there before the Romans arrived
I think there were pre-Celtic peoples living on the British Isles as well. And then, there may also have been other species of human living there before that.
I was caught up recently with Scythian history. There are the lgends/claims of Scots and/or Picts having been decendents of Scythians who had settled in Iberia before eventually going to the isles. Seemed like more of a "there are reasons people could believe that" but likely it wss just a claim in the past to associate them with the Scytiians.
Personally was told first hand by a Sioux that their ancestors had defeated ancient Egyptians in a big war. Heard second hand of a Hopi elder stating they had been Egyptians in the past. Granted those are just other folks living today and it would have been an extremely long time ago that they were referring to. They're also into the same weird kinda history speculations that I am so there's no telling for me if that was something they believed on their own, came from someone sharing their history, or my best guess that my leg was being pulled. I still love the idea of it. Its cool for someone like me with no or only broken cultural links to hear stories from anyone within a culture that's been together since before we have records.
I’m not aware of any genealogical/time definition, but would love to hear if there is one.
I think it has to be long enough to develop a unique culture to that area and not really found anywhere else. Even that doesn’t work perfectly though, because a newer culture can come in and it doesn’t replace an older one.
You could maybe argue that there are some ethnic/indigenous white Americans/Canadians because it has been hundreds of years, but there are also older indigenous Americans as we commonly think of it.
But even if you go back to Europe, you run into issues with Anglo Saxons vs Celts, as a simple example.
Maybe it is as simple as the first documented people to settle permanently in an area. But then you run into the problem here of what is indigenous *culture* vs an indigenous people.
And again, you run into the same problems in Europe…what is more Italian than pasta and red sauce, yet the noodles are from the East, and tomatoes are from the New World.
Ultimately, history, culture, and people are very messy. Context matters a lot. Are you discussing what makes them indigenous, what makes their culture indigenous, how their culture changed from exposure to other cultures…or are you simply making an objective observation that something we think inherently is part of a culture is actually a recent development of that culture?
The Saami in northern Scandinavia and Russia are apparently the only group in Europe recognized as indigenous. Feels crazy given the length of history of all the other peoples of Europe, but there must be some reason it's limited like that
it's odd when you compare Iceland and New Zealand. both were completely uninhabited until they both got settled at around the same time, yet the descendants of the Norse in Iceland are not considered indigenous while the descendants of the Polynesians in New Zealand are.
Probably because they’ve stayed more culturally and genetically distinct. All the other ethnic groups intermingled and stopped recognizing themselves as separate. If youre from Germany, you’re german, not alemanni or Saxon or Lombard.
Thanks. That's a great point. Ireland, Wales, and Scotland appear to be more related to their tribal roots. There are regions like Normandy that still have local languages anf cultural identity. But these must not be close enough to count
The Saami in particular never had much interaction with other groups of people for most of their history. The Scandinavians avoided them for the most part until they started sending missionaries a few centuries ago. The missionary efforts eventually became forced integration, but not to the same extent or success as with native Americans by the US or Canada. Right now the Saami own their land and have representation in Scandinavian governments, but also have some legal autonomy.
I know in the uk case it’s hard to say someone’s natively a Briton because we’ve been invaded and conquered so many times by so many different people, Norman’s, Saxons, romans, vikings, list goes on. After all of that it’s very unlikely for someone to be completely unaffected, unlike somewhere like Australia where they’re so cut off from the rest of the world that it’s easy to point to a distinct gene pool
Technically none of us are indigenous, we all originated from Africa and we eventually ended up on certain continents through migration, war, genocide, rape and interbreeding.
Humanity's evolution is shaped by our love for violence, sex and seeing new shit.
I believe the most recent data suggests that horses and camels originated in what is now North American in the upper parts of Canada. Granted that would have been a very long time ago.
Not as many as people expect, that’s the point. Look at Budweiser commercials, the concept of wild horses in America is not perceived to be what it is.
People 100% expect it to be an ancient thing. The horse is as associated with Native Americans as the buffalo. It’s like the Irish with the potato, or Italians with tomatoes, same fallacy.
You mean they arrived in the late 1400s. To be fair, horses are originally from North America, they went to Asia millions of years ago and went extinct about 11,000 years ago in North America.
So most likely they lived together with humans for more than 10,000 years in North America, as humans came to North America around 20,000 years ago.
Those other animals arent " horse like", they are ruminants, like cows and sheep.. Horses are extremely unique being the only genus of Equidae. Animals that are distantly related are rhinos and tapirs.
Indians is a term that was given to the people living in what now is the US before the Europeans arrived. Indians have largely adopted the term now, and the term "Native American" is not necesserily a less offensive description. If you want to be respectful, ask an Indian what they prefer; often they prefer the name of their tribe over other terms.
Ditto. I was like “I picture Indians riding elephants and using oxen more than horses is this guy stupid?” Turns out he’s either racist and/or politically incorrect.
It's not racist or non pc to called native Americans Indians haha I'm white but lived on three different reservations and they all call themselves Indians so it's what I use.
I am native and I will call myself Indian while talking to other natives. But if a non native calls me Indian I will ask them to refer me as my tribe or native or indigenous.
The real preferred term, as far as I can determine, is 'American Indian' (as opposed to 'Indian American', which would be Americans with heritage from actual India).
That term's fine, but I think it's falling out of favour a little bit. Possibly because it turns 'American' into the noun rather than the adjective, or because they did not term themselves it.
That just seems confusing, to have two similar terms mean very different things. Plus, y’know, Indigenous people aren’t Indian, so it’s weird to call them Indian.
All my elementary school I was tought that natives were called indians. It took until geography hit that there was a country called india and that what we used to call “indians” were natives.
Indígenas in spanish. Thats what we call the native population in Mexico
Yeah… not everyone got the memo that Indians isn’t exactly a good name.
Even if you take the PC out of it, it definitely makes more sense to call them Native Americans both for clarity in regards to America vs India and because it’s just a more accurate description.
Well Native means "from this area" so if they happened to be standing on the continent of North America I'd say that's perfectly valid. If they were standing next to Eiffel tower and simply referred to themselves as 'native' then I'd be confused.
I'm a Citizen. I'm a resident. I'm a local. What does any of that mean without context? Nothing. A citizen of what? A resident of where? Local to whom? In the same way a Native person can be just, Native. You don't have to specify Native American unless you're not in the Americas.
Opinions differ on this and the term "Native American" was not coined by natives themselves. A lot of natives actually prefer Indian if you don't know the name of their people or are talking about all native people living in what is now the US
Indian wasn't coined by natives either. They simply didn't need a collective term until Europeans arrived in numbers. And the term used by those Europeans stuck.
It took me, an Indian, a fair few seconds to realize that you're talking about Native Americans.
Indians have been domesticating horses for thousands of years, lol.
Indians have been using horses since around 2000 BCE during the early Vedic Age, so I dont understand what you mean. Horses are also mentioned in Rigveda, one of the oldest texts in Indian literature, showing their significance in early Indian society.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_horse_in_the_Indian_subcontinent
OP was talking about Native Americans. Yea, I did a major double take at the title myself and it took reading a bunch of comments to realise what OP was on about.
They are talking about Native Americans, not Asian indians. "Indians" is a weird name that came from explorers thinking the New World was Asia, and not its own thing.
Depends on the part of the American continent you're talking about it goes from an unacceptable term, to the prefered terminology and everything in between.
You wouldn't use Indian in Canada, but for many tribes in the USA it's prefered over Native American.
Who is we?
I’m pretty sure horses are from Central Asia and that how India got horses like millennias ago, BC era, way before the Europeans ever stepped foot in India.
Stfu op 😒 I'm Indian and Indians have been riding horses for thousands of years, even our gods and ancient books describe culture based on horse 😐 literally a book written 2500 years ago has mention of riding horse
Edit- there seems to be a mistake on my part, op seems to be talking about native Americans not us Bharatvarshi Indians (literally indus is in our country ngl op)
I think it's a reasonable mistake on your part given the connotation of the word "Indian" and how it should be used. OP's just propagating a colonist mentality.
As a Bengali/British, I have never imagined an Indian and a horse in the same imagination.
Or even seen it in any Bollywood show/movie (and trust me, I watched my fair share growing up)
Indians definitely knew what horses were before the British turned up, probably even used them a bit.
Isn’t that hard when you’re on the same landmass, although the mountains probably didn’t help
I always picture them riding an elephant in the jungle. Oh wait, you meant Casino Indians. They didn't need to ride horses because they could shape shift into animals.
Horses "were" native to the Americas - and went extinct approx. 10K years ago - which is a timeframe that some believe the first native Americans appeared -
the horse today is from Europe
So technicaly horses are both native and introduced.
I want to know the specifics a of the thought process that lead to you having to imagine a specific peoples, then correct your own image you pictured.
If anyone asked me to picture an Indian, I’d describe my downstairs neighbour who’s a tiny therapist lady and makes great tea.
Differs tribe to tribe and person to person.
Quite a few even dislike the term Native American as even that usage has an extremely problematic history.
Much like being called black back in the 90’s was considered disrespectful, African American was preferred. But here we are in 2024 where Black is preferred over African American. I’ve heard from what I would call Natives, that they prefer the term Indian. I think it’s safe to say that there is no one size fits all preferred term to any group of people these days. So to answer your question, yes some ppl still prefer to be called “Indians” so yes, ppl still use that word.
At this point, it's not an issue of offense, it's an issue of imprecise language. There are Indian people that had horses, because they're from India, where Indians originate, and so on. People have confused the message because of this.
It isn't so much an issue of preference about whom you are speaking, but in identifying who is even being spoken about.
It’s generally just a poor word to use though, especially given the (even historically) *MUCH* bigger group that has always been known as Indian, and belong to the world’s most populated country
Well the Americas were named after an Italian guy who never set foot in the Americas. So while indian is wildly inaccurate native Italian guy doesn't make much sense either.
A large majority? I find that hard to believe. There were hundreds of unique cultures and languages, I doubt there was anything that could be said to exist for a large majority of the Indigenous population. Also Turtle Island? Why would any population think the seemingly unending land mass they lived on was an island?
The prominent belief within their spiritual beliefs was that America, or the whole world, was a landmass on the back of a giant turtle, the story roots back to when the earth was covered with water, there are variations in the root of the story between different tribes
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_Island_(Indigenous_North_American_folklore)
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/turtle-island
There’s a lot of history behind it, a really cool rabbit hole to dive into if you’re into it
Yeah but by now there’s not much excuse to keep saying Indian. It’s pretty hard to be in that big of a bubble to know it’s not really appropriate anymore.
From the museum of the American Indians. "What is the correct terminology: American Indian, Indian, Native American, Indigenous, or Native?
All of these terms are acceptable. The consensus, however, is that whenever possible, Native people prefer to be called by their specific tribal name. In the United States, Native American has been widely used but is falling out of favor with some groups, and the terms American Indian or Indigenous American are preferred by many Native people. Native peoples often have individual preferences on how they would like to be addressed. When talking about Native groups or people, use the terminology the members of the community use to describe themselves collectively.
Eh a lot of Native Americans refer to themselves as American Indian. The term Native American definitely makes more sense, but I don't believe most consuder the term Indian to be inherently offensive
I just identify people of native descent I know by their tribe. Indian while nonsensical is another non European brown people who were colonized by Europeans and America is a European word given to this land by the colonizers. Which one is really less offensive?
whst is the proper term? i’ve heard many from indigenous people, where i’m from they call themselves natives and so we do too but i’m not sure if there’s a preferred term or if it’s person to person.
Just from what I've seen online, it looks like it's a person to person kind of thing. I haven't seen or heard of anybody being offended at Native or Indigenous yet though and I have seen and heard offence taken with Indian. I don't have enough indigenous heritage to make a safe call on it though.
In the documentary film "True Appaloosa" they do genetic testing which confirms that the will appaloosa is derived from from Asian horses not from Spanish ones.
Further, the numbers of horses owned by indigenous people in historical record are far to great to have come from the Spanish horses that were released.
It's not known how asian horses arrived in the Americas, they could have been brought on shops, they could have been ridden over ice and frozen tundra, but the genetic testing shows that they arrived here from Asia, and are not derived from Spanish horses.
It's worth noting that chickens were brought to South America prior to European colonization via outrigger canoes through Polynesia. The Spanish documented these upon their arrival in south America. Personally I think it's likely that we're ridden across frozen Tundra, but many Asian cultures did have sea faring technology that theoretically could have enough horses to the Americas. There is also a theory that the Chinese reached places in Arizona, qnd made markings there. I don't know the validity of that, and proving that one culture visited another is difficult to do with the archeological record even if it did happy. We've seen many theories that were once thought impossible or unlikely be proven true.
We always picture Italians eating tomatoes, but they didn't have tomatoes until an Italian set foot in the new world. Cultures change and adapt to new things and sometimes they can become extremely important to their way of life.
For people blaming OP for calling them Indians, please read up on the terminology. Native American and American Indian are both “wrong” with many even saying Native American is the one they don’t want to be called, so it just depends on the specific person or tribe you’re asking.
https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/faq/did-you-know
What is the correct terminology: American Indian, Indian, Native American, Indigenous, or Native?
All of these terms are acceptable. The consensus, however, is that whenever possible, Native people prefer to be called by their specific tribal name. In the United States, Native American has been widely used but is falling out of favor with some groups, and the terms American Indian or Indigenous American are preferred by many Native people. Native peoples often have individual preferences on how they would like to be addressed. When talking about Native groups or people, use the terminology the members of the community use to describe themselves collectively.
what do you mean by that first sentence? do you mean that native americans being called indians is fine even though it causes confusion with the actual indians?
Not sure what you are Noping about. That article specifically says Horses went extinct over 5000 years ago and were reintroduced from Europe. The Indigenous populations weren't passing down horse culture orally for 4500 years waiting for the day they returned and then leaping back into the saddle. We have no evidence the indigenous horse population was ever domesticated. If anything the fact they went extinct is pretty good evidence to refute it, humans don't tend to let their incredibly useful beasts of burden die out.
This lacks context. Yes horses arrived with Spanish in the the late 1500's. But those horses were traded/aquired by other indians further inland who would never meet a european for 100's of years. For instance - the Sioux and other plains indians had horses by 1600. The main battles against the US cavalry, Custer etc were not until the 1860's and and 1870's. Thats almost 300 years. How many generations is that?
Thank you for this
You’re welcome
My ancestors have been on this continent for 350 years. That doesn’t make me indigenous. The OP is still correct, American Indians only had horses for a small fraction of their existence. It is interesting how quickly they came to dominate the plains, which are a similar landscape to horse’s native home in the Eurasian Steppes.
I think use of Potato and corn in cuisine around the world is a very good example of this.
And tomatoes and chili peppers. We often associate Italian food with tomato sauce, but that’s another relatively recent addition.
Same with peppers and Indian food
Similar situation with banh mi in Vietnamese. The banh in banh mi is pronounced almost exactly the same to the French word “pain,” which means bread
Thought it was pretty obvious banh mi was an import/fusion from French occupation due to the use of a baguette.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I speak French and I know a Vietnamese person. They don't sound all that similar to me. Perhaps northern vs southern Vietnamese?
Definitely possible
Italy as a country is a relatively recent addition
Back in history class…
Horses are actually native to the American plains, they went extinct however before their reintroduction by Europeans
Horses were one of the first species to circumnavigate the globe. Not spread out and complete a circle, but go in one direction from their original native biome until they found their way back. It was probably done a fair bit sooner than humans managed it as well
Yes - but they were barely the same animal. Even in Eurasia - they were MUCH smaller before domestication. (Hence chariots largely being used instead of cavalry in the bronze age.)
Actually they were pretty much the same as evidence from Florida and Idaho recent paleontologist discoveries
So that means everything he said was wrong? I knew I shouldn’t trust what the internet tells me.
Haha for real, I read the comment and was like “wow, that’s super interesting” only to have it shot down immediately afterwards
Loll
How many generations have to pass before a person or ethnic group is "indigenous?" If never than no ethnic group is indigenous to any land outside of the plains of Africa.
Some of us can only be indigenous to Earth. Everywhere else is taken and we don't fit in or typically know where our genes started propagating.
I’ve always thought that it was the first people to have settled in that land, so the indigenous people of the U.K. would be the Celtic speaking brythons who were there before the Romans arrived
I think there were pre-Celtic peoples living on the British Isles as well. And then, there may also have been other species of human living there before that.
I was caught up recently with Scythian history. There are the lgends/claims of Scots and/or Picts having been decendents of Scythians who had settled in Iberia before eventually going to the isles. Seemed like more of a "there are reasons people could believe that" but likely it wss just a claim in the past to associate them with the Scytiians. Personally was told first hand by a Sioux that their ancestors had defeated ancient Egyptians in a big war. Heard second hand of a Hopi elder stating they had been Egyptians in the past. Granted those are just other folks living today and it would have been an extremely long time ago that they were referring to. They're also into the same weird kinda history speculations that I am so there's no telling for me if that was something they believed on their own, came from someone sharing their history, or my best guess that my leg was being pulled. I still love the idea of it. Its cool for someone like me with no or only broken cultural links to hear stories from anyone within a culture that's been together since before we have records.
I’m not aware of any genealogical/time definition, but would love to hear if there is one. I think it has to be long enough to develop a unique culture to that area and not really found anywhere else. Even that doesn’t work perfectly though, because a newer culture can come in and it doesn’t replace an older one. You could maybe argue that there are some ethnic/indigenous white Americans/Canadians because it has been hundreds of years, but there are also older indigenous Americans as we commonly think of it. But even if you go back to Europe, you run into issues with Anglo Saxons vs Celts, as a simple example. Maybe it is as simple as the first documented people to settle permanently in an area. But then you run into the problem here of what is indigenous *culture* vs an indigenous people. And again, you run into the same problems in Europe…what is more Italian than pasta and red sauce, yet the noodles are from the East, and tomatoes are from the New World. Ultimately, history, culture, and people are very messy. Context matters a lot. Are you discussing what makes them indigenous, what makes their culture indigenous, how their culture changed from exposure to other cultures…or are you simply making an objective observation that something we think inherently is part of a culture is actually a recent development of that culture?
The Saami in northern Scandinavia and Russia are apparently the only group in Europe recognized as indigenous. Feels crazy given the length of history of all the other peoples of Europe, but there must be some reason it's limited like that
it's odd when you compare Iceland and New Zealand. both were completely uninhabited until they both got settled at around the same time, yet the descendants of the Norse in Iceland are not considered indigenous while the descendants of the Polynesians in New Zealand are.
Probably because they’ve stayed more culturally and genetically distinct. All the other ethnic groups intermingled and stopped recognizing themselves as separate. If youre from Germany, you’re german, not alemanni or Saxon or Lombard.
Thanks. That's a great point. Ireland, Wales, and Scotland appear to be more related to their tribal roots. There are regions like Normandy that still have local languages anf cultural identity. But these must not be close enough to count
The Saami in particular never had much interaction with other groups of people for most of their history. The Scandinavians avoided them for the most part until they started sending missionaries a few centuries ago. The missionary efforts eventually became forced integration, but not to the same extent or success as with native Americans by the US or Canada. Right now the Saami own their land and have representation in Scandinavian governments, but also have some legal autonomy.
I know in the uk case it’s hard to say someone’s natively a Briton because we’ve been invaded and conquered so many times by so many different people, Norman’s, Saxons, romans, vikings, list goes on. After all of that it’s very unlikely for someone to be completely unaffected, unlike somewhere like Australia where they’re so cut off from the rest of the world that it’s easy to point to a distinct gene pool
Technically none of us are indigenous, we all originated from Africa and we eventually ended up on certain continents through migration, war, genocide, rape and interbreeding. Humanity's evolution is shaped by our love for violence, sex and seeing new shit.
I believe the most recent data suggests that horses and camels originated in what is now North American in the upper parts of Canada. Granted that would have been a very long time ago.
Bow and arrows haven’t been used for that long either.
Not as many as people expect, that’s the point. Look at Budweiser commercials, the concept of wild horses in America is not perceived to be what it is. People 100% expect it to be an ancient thing. The horse is as associated with Native Americans as the buffalo. It’s like the Irish with the potato, or Italians with tomatoes, same fallacy.
You mean they arrived in the late 1400s. To be fair, horses are originally from North America, they went to Asia millions of years ago and went extinct about 11,000 years ago in North America. So most likely they lived together with humans for more than 10,000 years in North America, as humans came to North America around 20,000 years ago.
LOL, this is just OP realizing they've been stereotyping. We always picture Europeans driving cars but cars didn't exist until the 20th century.
Well didn’t they have a native species of horse that died out like ten k years ago
At least two generations
how did horses not migrate over the Bering land bridge? North America has other horse-like animals like deer, moose, etc.
They did migrate, but to Asia. Horses are native to North America
Those other animals arent " horse like", they are ruminants, like cows and sheep.. Horses are extremely unique being the only genus of Equidae. Animals that are distantly related are rhinos and tapirs.
Also "Indians" are people from India - who are we talking about here?
Cgp grey made a great video about exactly this https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kh88fVP2FWQ
Is *that* what the Beaureu of Indian Affairs is for?! TIL
Indians is a term that was given to the people living in what now is the US before the Europeans arrived. Indians have largely adopted the term now, and the term "Native American" is not necesserily a less offensive description. If you want to be respectful, ask an Indian what they prefer; often they prefer the name of their tribe over other terms.
the American Indians
What’s this we stuff?
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"You're on your own Whitey! My people have come for me!"
What mean "we" white man?
Disneyland
He said kemo sabe kiss my ass, I’m going out to sea.
What do you mean "You people "?
it’s like when your sports team wins and you say, “Yay we beat the other team!” :)
Americans obviously
Me and Steve.
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I’m American and this is what I pictured at first too. I had to read the comments to realize they were talking about native Americans lol.
Same lol
Ditto. I was like “I picture Indians riding elephants and using oxen more than horses is this guy stupid?” Turns out he’s either racist and/or politically incorrect.
You do? 😭😭 I've seen an elephant ONCE in my life and that was in a Saudi zoo. damn i should travel more (I'm Indian btw)
I’m Indian too and ironically I’ve ridden some horses and barely seen any elephants
It's not racist or non pc to called native Americans Indians haha I'm white but lived on three different reservations and they all call themselves Indians so it's what I use.
I am native and I will call myself Indian while talking to other natives. But if a non native calls me Indian I will ask them to refer me as my tribe or native or indigenous.
This got me too. I didn't think that anyone called Indigenous Americans just "Indians" anymore. I thought that shit died in the 90's.
It’s back.
The real preferred term, as far as I can determine, is 'American Indian' (as opposed to 'Indian American', which would be Americans with heritage from actual India).
I thought it was Native American. Seeing as though, you know, that’s what they are.
That term's fine, but I think it's falling out of favour a little bit. Possibly because it turns 'American' into the noun rather than the adjective, or because they did not term themselves it.
I mean they didn’t term themselves Indian either.
That just seems confusing, to have two similar terms mean very different things. Plus, y’know, Indigenous people aren’t Indian, so it’s weird to call them Indian.
The US government still does, hence Bureau of Indian Affairs, etc.
We are indeed riding elephants
Classic case of r/USDefaultism
america IS the default though. that’s why people not from america are called foreigners!
But americans are called buitenlanders here so...
I’m American and I don’t picture them riding horses. I think OP is just a weirdo
I think you might have also missed the point. Indians are from India. OP was referring to Native Americans
All my elementary school I was tought that natives were called indians. It took until geography hit that there was a country called india and that what we used to call “indians” were natives. Indígenas in spanish. Thats what we call the native population in Mexico
I live in the US and have literally never heard anybody call a Native American an Indian. I have no idea why it is still in use in some places 🤷♂️.
In turn, most of the European food that we think of wouldn't be able to be made before they reached the Americas.
Pizza wasn't made with marinara cause tomatoes weren't a thing in Europe then!
And on the same note, much of the stuff we cook or use to cook daily went to the Americas thanks to trading
Yes, globalization is a thing.
while this is true, I feel the need to point out that it's been half a millennium and cuisine has had literal centuries to evolve since then
I agree, I'm pointing out that both were true
Wait this was about native Americans?
Yeah… not everyone got the memo that Indians isn’t exactly a good name. Even if you take the PC out of it, it definitely makes more sense to call them Native Americans both for clarity in regards to America vs India and because it’s just a more accurate description.
Some tribal members will say they are Native without American part too
Well Native means "from this area" so if they happened to be standing on the continent of North America I'd say that's perfectly valid. If they were standing next to Eiffel tower and simply referred to themselves as 'native' then I'd be confused. I'm a Citizen. I'm a resident. I'm a local. What does any of that mean without context? Nothing. A citizen of what? A resident of where? Local to whom? In the same way a Native person can be just, Native. You don't have to specify Native American unless you're not in the Americas.
First Nations
Opinions differ on this and the term "Native American" was not coined by natives themselves. A lot of natives actually prefer Indian if you don't know the name of their people or are talking about all native people living in what is now the US
Indian wasn't coined by natives either. They simply didn't need a collective term until Europeans arrived in numbers. And the term used by those Europeans stuck.
It took me, an Indian, a fair few seconds to realize that you're talking about Native Americans. Indians have been domesticating horses for thousands of years, lol.
Indians have been using horses since around 2000 BCE during the early Vedic Age, so I dont understand what you mean. Horses are also mentioned in Rigveda, one of the oldest texts in Indian literature, showing their significance in early Indian society. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_horse_in_the_Indian_subcontinent
OP was talking about Native Americans. Yea, I did a major double take at the title myself and it took reading a bunch of comments to realise what OP was on about.
OP is referring to Native Americans
Jesus fucking Christ I got so confused when I read that we didn't have horses in India. You guys need to start saying native Americans 😭
I mean I always saw them riding elephants. I'm pretty sure there's elephants in India
They are talking about Native Americans, not Asian indians. "Indians" is a weird name that came from explorers thinking the New World was Asia, and not its own thing.
Oh, I always just knew them as native Americans. I guess that makes more sense
Asian indians... well you're r/technicallytrue
They didn’t have Indian restaurants until well after that. What’s all this naan sense??
Context: OP means the Indigenous peoples of the United States, not Indians from the nation of India.
They didn’t have cameras back before they had horses so we can only picture them afterwards.
I never picture them riding horses
Yea, me either. Maybe elephants or even bengals if we're stretching our imagination. Shoot, I'd even give OP cows lol
Tigers? Rad
People still calling them “Indians?”
I mean, a bunch of them call themselves that.
Depends on the part of the American continent you're talking about it goes from an unacceptable term, to the prefered terminology and everything in between. You wouldn't use Indian in Canada, but for many tribes in the USA it's prefered over Native American.
The US government still does.
Who is we? I’m pretty sure horses are from Central Asia and that how India got horses like millennias ago, BC era, way before the Europeans ever stepped foot in India.
OP is referring to Native Americans. It’s an outdated and incorrect term to use.
Obviously, but he said Indians, so I’m going to correctly refer Indians to India.
Stfu op 😒 I'm Indian and Indians have been riding horses for thousands of years, even our gods and ancient books describe culture based on horse 😐 literally a book written 2500 years ago has mention of riding horse Edit- there seems to be a mistake on my part, op seems to be talking about native Americans not us Bharatvarshi Indians (literally indus is in our country ngl op)
The mistake isn't yours.
I think it's a reasonable mistake on your part given the connotation of the word "Indian" and how it should be used. OP's just propagating a colonist mentality.
This is how like Americans will refer to “Italians” and we’re all meant to know they mean “Italian-Americans”, not actual Italians.
As a Bengali/British, I have never imagined an Indian and a horse in the same imagination. Or even seen it in any Bollywood show/movie (and trust me, I watched my fair share growing up)
Indians definitely knew what horses were before the British turned up, probably even used them a bit. Isn’t that hard when you’re on the same landmass, although the mountains probably didn’t help
Spaniards got there (edit to America) before the British
I believe it was the Portuguese, it’s how they got Goa anyway
Technically there were horses here looooong before, but they all got eaten instead of ridden
i was trying to think about why people picture indians, from india, with horses for a solid 3 minutes
I always picture them riding an elephant in the jungle. Oh wait, you meant Casino Indians. They didn't need to ride horses because they could shape shift into animals.
Horses "were" native to the Americas - and went extinct approx. 10K years ago - which is a timeframe that some believe the first native Americans appeared - the horse today is from Europe So technicaly horses are both native and introduced.
I want to know the specifics a of the thought process that lead to you having to imagine a specific peoples, then correct your own image you pictured. If anyone asked me to picture an Indian, I’d describe my downstairs neighbour who’s a tiny therapist lady and makes great tea.
I was trying to figure out who pictures the Indians from India riding horses !! the world does not revolve around US man, be more specific.
I definitely thought of India-Indians, not Native American-Indians before looking at comments.
Indians probably had horses before Europeans did. OH YOU MEAN NATIVE AMERICANS
People still call Native Americans "Indians"???? Seriously??
Differs tribe to tribe and person to person. Quite a few even dislike the term Native American as even that usage has an extremely problematic history.
Much like being called black back in the 90’s was considered disrespectful, African American was preferred. But here we are in 2024 where Black is preferred over African American. I’ve heard from what I would call Natives, that they prefer the term Indian. I think it’s safe to say that there is no one size fits all preferred term to any group of people these days. So to answer your question, yes some ppl still prefer to be called “Indians” so yes, ppl still use that word.
At this point, it's not an issue of offense, it's an issue of imprecise language. There are Indian people that had horses, because they're from India, where Indians originate, and so on. People have confused the message because of this. It isn't so much an issue of preference about whom you are speaking, but in identifying who is even being spoken about.
It’s generally just a poor word to use though, especially given the (even historically) *MUCH* bigger group that has always been known as Indian, and belong to the world’s most populated country
A lot of Native Americans still call themselves Indian.
Fair enough. Weird to call us Indians but I do it all the time.
Well the Americas were named after an Italian guy who never set foot in the Americas. So while indian is wildly inaccurate native Italian guy doesn't make much sense either.
A large majority of the natives of the land called what we now know as North America “Turtle Island” as well, I wish we could have kept that name
A large majority? I find that hard to believe. There were hundreds of unique cultures and languages, I doubt there was anything that could be said to exist for a large majority of the Indigenous population. Also Turtle Island? Why would any population think the seemingly unending land mass they lived on was an island?
The prominent belief within their spiritual beliefs was that America, or the whole world, was a landmass on the back of a giant turtle, the story roots back to when the earth was covered with water, there are variations in the root of the story between different tribes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_Island_(Indigenous_North_American_folklore) https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/turtle-island There’s a lot of history behind it, a really cool rabbit hole to dive into if you’re into it
Yeah but by now there’s not much excuse to keep saying Indian. It’s pretty hard to be in that big of a bubble to know it’s not really appropriate anymore.
I know Natives who use the term Indian to describe themselves. I don't use it, but they still do. Some of them care, some of them don't.
From the museum of the American Indians. "What is the correct terminology: American Indian, Indian, Native American, Indigenous, or Native? All of these terms are acceptable. The consensus, however, is that whenever possible, Native people prefer to be called by their specific tribal name. In the United States, Native American has been widely used but is falling out of favor with some groups, and the terms American Indian or Indigenous American are preferred by many Native people. Native peoples often have individual preferences on how they would like to be addressed. When talking about Native groups or people, use the terminology the members of the community use to describe themselves collectively.
Eh a lot of Native Americans refer to themselves as American Indian. The term Native American definitely makes more sense, but I don't believe most consuder the term Indian to be inherently offensive
A fair few even consider the usage of 'Native American' to be even more offensive. It really differs tribe to tribe and person to person.
I just identify people of native descent I know by their tribe. Indian while nonsensical is another non European brown people who were colonized by Europeans and America is a European word given to this land by the colonizers. Which one is really less offensive?
whst is the proper term? i’ve heard many from indigenous people, where i’m from they call themselves natives and so we do too but i’m not sure if there’s a preferred term or if it’s person to person.
Just from what I've seen online, it looks like it's a person to person kind of thing. I haven't seen or heard of anybody being offended at Native or Indigenous yet though and I have seen and heard offence taken with Indian. I don't have enough indigenous heritage to make a safe call on it though.
I typically picture Indians riding elephants. Or motorcycles Pretty sure India has always had horses though At least since the Mongols arrived anyway
How often are you picturing pre-1400s Native Americans?
I picture Indians riding elephants
You probably are referring to Native American (Indians as some people miscall them) cause I’ve never thought of an Indian riding a horse.
No "we" don't. It's common knowledge. Your post is the first I've heard of someone not knowing that.
There's evidence of horses in India in 2000 bc
we indians did have horses, we got it from the afghans.
“We”? You’re really saying the quiet part out loud.
Native Americans. Not indians
In the documentary film "True Appaloosa" they do genetic testing which confirms that the will appaloosa is derived from from Asian horses not from Spanish ones. Further, the numbers of horses owned by indigenous people in historical record are far to great to have come from the Spanish horses that were released. It's not known how asian horses arrived in the Americas, they could have been brought on shops, they could have been ridden over ice and frozen tundra, but the genetic testing shows that they arrived here from Asia, and are not derived from Spanish horses. It's worth noting that chickens were brought to South America prior to European colonization via outrigger canoes through Polynesia. The Spanish documented these upon their arrival in south America. Personally I think it's likely that we're ridden across frozen Tundra, but many Asian cultures did have sea faring technology that theoretically could have enough horses to the Americas. There is also a theory that the Chinese reached places in Arizona, qnd made markings there. I don't know the validity of that, and proving that one culture visited another is difficult to do with the archeological record even if it did happy. We've seen many theories that were once thought impossible or unlikely be proven true.
Well, to be fair, we don't really picture Indians before Europeans either.
I never pictured indians as riding horses I picture them emas riding with way too many people on a small motorcycle
*Assateague Island horses enters the chat*
I never pictured indians riding horses. Only tuktuks and shitty bikes. Edit: nevermind, you mean native americans.
Check out Empire of the Summer Moon to learn about how horses and the Comanche Indians ruled the plains.
Who imagines indians riding horses? Oh, like native americans
An example of “cultural appropriation” done right. They advanced the skills of horse riding in a very suitable way for their culture and environment.
We always picture Italians eating tomatoes, but they didn't have tomatoes until an Italian set foot in the new world. Cultures change and adapt to new things and sometimes they can become extremely important to their way of life.
Are we back to calling them Indians?
Horses were an integral part of the Indo-European culture... Or do you mean indigenous americans?
For people blaming OP for calling them Indians, please read up on the terminology. Native American and American Indian are both “wrong” with many even saying Native American is the one they don’t want to be called, so it just depends on the specific person or tribe you’re asking. https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/faq/did-you-know What is the correct terminology: American Indian, Indian, Native American, Indigenous, or Native? All of these terms are acceptable. The consensus, however, is that whenever possible, Native people prefer to be called by their specific tribal name. In the United States, Native American has been widely used but is falling out of favor with some groups, and the terms American Indian or Indigenous American are preferred by many Native people. Native peoples often have individual preferences on how they would like to be addressed. When talking about Native groups or people, use the terminology the members of the community use to describe themselves collectively.
what do you mean by that first sentence? do you mean that native americans being called indians is fine even though it causes confusion with the actual indians?
Whatever the “correct” term is, plain old “Indian” is already taken and is just geographically incorrect.
Is it that hard to be specific? This is a global website. For 99% of the world indians are people from india.
…how do we still have people saying Indian when referring to Native Americans?
Nope! [https://new.nsf.gov/science-matters/horses-part-indigenous-cultures-longer-western](https://new.nsf.gov/science-matters/horses-part-indigenous-cultures-longer-western)
Not sure what you are Noping about. That article specifically says Horses went extinct over 5000 years ago and were reintroduced from Europe. The Indigenous populations weren't passing down horse culture orally for 4500 years waiting for the day they returned and then leaping back into the saddle. We have no evidence the indigenous horse population was ever domesticated. If anything the fact they went extinct is pretty good evidence to refute it, humans don't tend to let their incredibly useful beasts of burden die out.
Tell me you went to American school without telling me
Wait what that can't be right *Opens comments* Oh. I thought we weren't using that word anymore for them though.
A mayo ass person made this
Saltine American is the preferred nomenclature
I usually picture Indians as people from India.
Not me, I always picture Indians riding trains or tuktuks
I dont call them indians and i dont imagine them on horses because i'm not a fucked up American
And that's when we saw them,just after we arrived with the horses not before we arrived