Glossary
119 words you will meet when reading about peoples, each explained in one plain sentence.
Presented by ClearTrust Free for classrooms, newsrooms and the curious.
A
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
- The two broad groups of indigenous peoples of Australia: those of the mainland and Tasmania, and those of the Torres Strait Islands.
- Adivasi
- A collective name, meaning 'original inhabitants', used by and for many tribal peoples of India.
- Age set
- A named group of people of about the same age who pass through the stages of life together.
- Alaska Native
- A member of any of the indigenous peoples of Alaska, including Iñupiat, Yup'ik, Unangax̂, Tlingit, Haida and Athabascan peoples.
- Ancestor veneration
- Honouring dead family members, in the belief that they still care about and influence the living.
- Ancestral domain
- All the land, waters and resources a people have held and used since before living memory.
- Animism
- The view that animals, plants, rivers, mountains and other parts of nature have spirit or personhood.
- Anthropology
- The study of human beings: their societies, cultures, languages, bodies and past.
- Assimilation
- The absorbing of a minority people into the majority culture, so that their own language and customs fade or are suppressed.
- Autonym
- Another word for endonym: the name a people call themselves.
B
- Band
- A small group of families who live and move together. In Canada it is also the legal name for a First Nation community.
- Bilateral descent
- Counting relatives on the mother's side and the father's side as equally one's own family.
- Bridewealth
- Gifts of livestock, goods or money from the groom's family to the bride's family to seal a marriage.
C
- Census
- An official count of a country's population. How it asks about identity shapes how many indigenous people are recorded.
- Chief
- A recognised leader of a tribe, clan, band or village. The role may be inherited, earned or elected.
- Chiefdom
- A society of many villages or communities led by a chief whose office is permanent and usually inherited.
- Clan
- A group of families who believe they descend from the same ancestor, even if they cannot trace every link.
- Commons
- Land, water, forest or pasture that a community owns and manages together instead of dividing among individuals.
- Confederacy
- A lasting alliance of separate peoples or nations who agree to act together while each keeps its own government.
- Council of elders
- A group of senior members of a community who meet to make decisions and settle disputes.
- Country
- In Aboriginal Australia, the land, waters and sky a person belongs to and is responsible for.
- Cultural appropriation
- Taking designs, symbols, dress or knowledge from a people without permission, credit or understanding, often for profit.
- Cultural relativism
- The principle of understanding a people's beliefs and customs in their own terms, not judging them by one's own culture.
- Customary law
- The unwritten rules a community has long followed and accepts as binding, covering matters such as marriage, land and disputes.
D
- Dialect
- A regional or social form of a language, with its own words, sounds and grammar, that other speakers can mostly understand.
- Diaspora
- Members of a people who live away from their homeland but keep a tie to it and to one another.
- Displacement
- Being forced to leave one's home or land, whether by governments, companies, conflict, conservation projects or disasters.
- Doctrine of discovery
- An old legal idea that European Christian powers gained rights over lands they 'discovered', whoever already lived there.
- Dowry
- Money, goods or property that the bride's family gives to the bride, the groom or his family at marriage.
E
- Elder
- An older person respected by the community for their knowledge, experience and judgement.
- Endangered language
- A language at risk of falling silent because children are no longer learning it at home.
- Endogamy
- A custom or rule of marrying within one's own group, such as the same tribe, caste or religion.
- Endonym
- The name a people use for themselves, their language or their land, in their own language.
- Ethnic group
- A group of people who see themselves as sharing ancestry, history, language or culture, whatever their size or political status.
- Ethnobotany
- The study of how a people know, name and use plants for food, medicine, building, craft and ceremony.
- Ethnocentrism
- Judging other cultures by the standards of one's own, and assuming one's own way is the normal or best one.
- Ethnocide
- The deliberate destruction of a people's culture, language and identity, without necessarily killing the people.
- Ethnography
- A detailed, first-hand description of the way of life of one community, or the research method used to produce it.
- Ethnology
- The comparative study of different peoples and cultures, looking for patterns, similarities and differences.
- Ethnonym
- Any name for a people or ethnic group, whether given by the people themselves or by outsiders.
- Exogamy
- A rule that a person must marry someone from outside their own group, such as their clan or village.
- Exonym
- A name given to a people, language or place by outsiders, different from the name the people use themselves.
F
- Federal recognition
- The United States government's formal acknowledgement that a tribe is a self-governing nation with a direct relationship to it.
- Fieldwork
- Research done by living among the people being studied, watching, listening and taking part in daily life.
- Fifth Schedule
- A part of India's constitution that gives special protection to tribal-majority areas in ten states.
- First contact
- The first meeting between a previously isolated people and outsiders.
- First Nations
- The indigenous peoples of Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are more than 630 First Nations.
- Forager
- Another word for hunter-gatherer: someone who lives on wild foods that are hunted, fished or collected.
- Forest Rights Act
- A 2006 Indian law that recognises the rights of tribal and other forest-dwelling people to the forest land they live on and use.
- Free, prior and informed consent
- The principle that a people must agree, freely and with full information, before a project affecting them or their land begins.
G
- Gram sabha
- In India, the assembly of all adult residents of a village, which holds decision-making power under several laws.
H
- Hapū
- A Māori clan or sub-tribe: a group of extended families within an iwi.
- Homeland
- The land a people regard as their place of origin and belonging, whether or not a state recognises it as theirs.
- Horticulture
- In anthropology, small-scale growing of crops in gardens with hand tools, without ploughs or large irrigation.
- Hunter-gatherer
- A person or society that lives mainly by hunting, fishing and collecting wild plants, not by farming or herding.
I
- ILO Convention 169
- A binding international treaty of 1989 on the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples, for countries that ratify it.
- Indigenous people
- A people descended from those who lived in a place before colonisers or a modern state arrived, and who keep a distinct identity.
- Initiation
- A ceremony that marks a person's move from one stage of life to another, most often from childhood to adulthood.
- Intangible cultural heritage
- Living traditions that are passed on, such as songs, dances, crafts, rituals, festivals and knowledge of nature.
- Inuit
- The indigenous people of the Arctic regions of Canada, Greenland and Alaska.
- Iwi
- A Māori tribe or nation: a large group of people descended from a common ancestor.
K
- Kinship
- The web of family relationships, by birth, marriage or adoption, that tells people who they are to one another.
L
- Land grab
- The taking of large areas of land from the communities who use it, often without fair consent or compensation.
- Land rights
- The legal right of a people to own, use and control the lands and waters they have traditionally lived on.
- Language family
- A group of languages that all descend from one older language spoken long ago.
- Language isolate
- A language with no known relatives, belonging to no larger language family.
- Language revitalisation
- Organised efforts by a community to bring a declining language back into daily use.
- Lineage
- A group of relatives who can trace, step by step, their descent from one known ancestor.
- Lingua franca
- A common language used between people who do not share a mother tongue.
M
- Māori
- The indigenous Polynesian people of Aotearoa New Zealand.
- Material culture
- The physical things a people make and use, such as tools, houses, clothing, art and ornaments.
- Matrilineal
- Tracing family membership, names or inheritance through the mother's line.
- Matrilocal
- A custom in which a married couple lives with or near the wife's family.
- Métis
- A distinct indigenous people of Canada who trace their origins to both First Nations and European ancestors.
- Moiety
- One of two halves into which a whole society is divided, each person belonging to one half from birth.
- Mother tongue
- The language a person learns first at home as a child.
N
- Nation
- A people with a shared identity and a claim to govern themselves. Many indigenous peoples call themselves nations.
- Native American
- A member of any of the indigenous peoples of the United States, especially of the lower 48 states.
- Native title
- Legal recognition that an indigenous people's rights to land, under their own laws, survived colonisation.
- Nomad
- A person or group with no single fixed home, who moves from place to place as a way of life.
O
- Oral tradition
- Knowledge, history, law and stories passed from one generation to the next by speaking, singing or reciting.
- Origin story
- A sacred account of how the world, a people or their land came to be.
P
- Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group
- An official Indian category for Scheduled Tribe communities judged most at risk, which receive extra support.
- Pastoralism
- A way of life based on herding animals such as cattle, sheep, goats, camels, yaks or reindeer.
- Patrilineal
- Tracing family membership, names or inheritance through the father's line.
- Patrilocal
- A custom in which a married couple lives with or near the husband's family.
- PESA Act
- A 1996 Indian law that gives village assemblies in Fifth Schedule areas power over local resources and decisions.
- Phratry
- A group of several clans that treat one another as related and often act together.
R
- Reindeer herding
- Keeping herds of semi-tame reindeer for meat, hides and transport, practised by many peoples of the Arctic.
- Repatriation
- The return of human remains, sacred objects and cultural treasures from museums and collections to the peoples they came from.
- Reservation
- In the United States, land set aside for a tribe by treaty or federal action and governed by that tribe.
- Reserve
- In Canada, land held by the Crown and set apart for the use of a First Nation.
- Residential school
- A boarding school, run by a government or church, where indigenous children were sent to be separated from their culture.
S
- Sacred site
- A place of deep religious or spiritual meaning to a people, such as a mountain, grove, spring or burial ground.
- Sámi
- The indigenous people of the far north of Norway, Sweden and Finland and the Kola Peninsula of Russia.
- Sámi parliament
- An elected body that represents the Sámi people. Norway, Sweden and Finland each have one.
- Scheduled Tribe
- A community officially listed as a tribe under India's constitution, which entitles it to special protections.
- Self-determination
- The right of a people to decide their own political status and to run their own economic, social and cultural affairs.
- Self-identification
- The principle that a person or group decides for themselves whether they are indigenous or tribal.
- Shaman
- A person believed able to contact the spirit world, often in a trance, to heal, guide or protect the community.
- Shifting cultivation
- Farming in which a plot is cleared, cropped for a few years, then left to regrow while the farmer moves to another plot.
- Sixth Schedule
- A part of India's constitution that sets up self-governing tribal councils in parts of four north-eastern states.
- Sovereignty
- The authority of a people to govern themselves, make their own laws and manage their own territory.
- Subsistence
- Producing food and goods mainly for one's own family and community to use, not to sell for profit.
- Swidden
- A field cleared from forest by cutting and burning for temporary farming. Also a name for shifting cultivation.
T
- Taboo
- A strong rule that forbids touching, saying, eating or doing something because it is sacred or dangerous.
- Terra nullius
- A Latin phrase meaning 'land belonging to no one', once used to justify taking indigenous lands without treaty or payment.
- Territory
- An area of land and water that a people use, look after and claim, or that a state has set aside for them.
- Totem
- An animal, plant or natural thing that stands for a clan or family and is treated as its relative or emblem.
- Traditional ecological knowledge
- What a people know about their land, plants, animals and seasons, built up and tested over many generations.
- Transhumance
- Moving livestock between fixed summer and winter pastures each year, usually up and down mountains.
- Treaty
- A formal agreement between nations. Many states signed treaties with indigenous nations over land, peace and rights.
- Treaty of Waitangi
- The 1840 agreement between the British Crown and Māori chiefs, regarded as New Zealand's founding document.
- Tribal people
- A people whose social, cultural and economic life sets them apart from the wider nation and who follow their own customs or laws.
- Tribe
- A group of people who share a name, a sense of common descent, a culture and usually a homeland, and who organise much of life through kinship.
U
- UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
- The United Nations advisory body on indigenous matters, which meets each year in New York.
- Uncontacted peoples
- Peoples who have no peaceful, ongoing contact with the wider society around them.
- UNDRIP
- The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted in 2007 as a global standard.
V
- Voluntary isolation
- The term used by the United Nations for peoples who choose to avoid contact with outsiders.