Indigenous Peoples
ANTH 146
Terms
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Indigenous peoples• Tribal / Tribal people
Genocide
• Ethnocide
Terra Nullius
• Social Darwinism
Imperialism
• Economies and
• Exchange
• Colonialism
Indigenous People
• claim their lands because they were the 1st
or have occupied them since time
immemorial
• are groups that have been conquered by
peoples racially, ethnically, or culturally
different from themselves (Colonization,
Westernization, Urbanization and the role
of Nation State)
• Native peoples of the Americas share
many parallels with indigenous peoples
today
• Indigenous peoples had no place in the
making of the Nation-state.
Social Darwinism
• Theory of social evolution
• Based on Darwin’s theory of evolution
• Scientific support for imperialism
– Proved Western superiority
– Justified imperialism in the name of
progress.
Social Darwinism
• Placed societies on an evolutionary
framework
• Hierarchy with indigenous and tribal peoples
at the bottom and Western societies at the
top
• Natural order of things was for stronger, more
advanced people to conquer and rule over
weaker, more backward ones
• To overcome “backwardness” and
indigenous society was urged to:
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Abandon its traditional way of life
Abandon its language
Cease to exist as a separate society
Assimilate with the population
Ethnocide
• Conquest of the indigenous peoples
was justified
– They were not fully human (no rights)
– Need to civilize them
– Development
• Indigenous peoples stand in the way of
development
• If indigenous peoples unwilling to
assimilate
• They undermine the State
• Impede modernization
Economies
• Definition: Making or getting a living
• Production, Distribution, Consumption
• Economic types:
– Foraging, food-collecting  reciprocal
exchange, mobile bands, consumption for
survival
• Horticulture, garden cultivation  redistribution
by chiefs for prestige
• Pastoralism  redistribution
Agriculture  market exchange, private land
ownership
Industrialization – of goods and food 
Exchange
• Exchange (distribution of goods)
promotes social cohesion
• Major types of exchange:
– Reciprocity
– Redistribution
– Market
Reciprocity
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Food collecting, small-scale societies
Egalitarian
Fosters long-term relations
Everyone taken care of moral economy
Redistribution
• Centralized collection of surplus (food,
goods, etc.) by chief
• Redistribution through feasting –
provides for all
• Often competitive -- gain in status,
prestige
Market Exchange
• Buying/selling of commodities (even
food)
• Direct exchange of goods (barter)
• Exchange through money
Nomads:
Foragers/Pastoralists
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Highly mobile
Inconvenient to nation-states
Straddle national boundaries
Disrupt the imaginary map of
homogenous development
• Hunter and Gatherer
• Pastoralists
– Animal husbandry
• Horticulturalists
– Swidden agriculture / slash and burn
Indigenous cultures are not
extinguished by natural laws but by
political processes that are susceptible
to human controls.