From: Preston Hardison <tamvm1.tamu.edu!u.washington.edu!pdh>
Subject: Re: soc.culture.native newsgroup charter
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1993 20:28:31 GMT

Original Sender: Preston Hardison <tamvm1.tamu.edu!u.washington.edu!pdh>

20 years after the first working definition developed under the Special
Rapporteur on the Problem of Discrimination against Indigenous Populations
(UN Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of
Minorities), there is still no universally accepted definition of
indigenous, tribal, first peoples, or fourth world. Depending on the
document, definitions emphasize (ICIHI, 1987):

1. Pre-existence
2. Non-dominance
3. Cultural Difference
4. Self-Identification

The 1972 working definition for the UNSPDPM reads:

Indigenous populations are composed of the existing descendents of the
peoples who inhabited the present territory of a country wholly or
partially at the time when persons of a different culture or ethnic origin
arrived there from other parts of the world, overcame them and, by
conquest, settlement or other means, reduced them to a non-dominant or
colonial situation;

Who today live more in conformity with their particular social, economic
and cultural customs and traditions than with the institutions of the
country of which they now form a part, under a State structure which
incorporates mainly the national, social and cultural characteristics of
other segments of the population which are
predominant.(E/CN.4/Sub.2/L.566/June 29, 1972).

Although they have not suffered conquest or colonization, isolated or
marginal groups existing in the country should also be regarded as covered
by the notion of 'indigenous populations' for the following reasons:

(a) they are descendents of groups which were in the territory of the
country at the time when other groups of different cultures or ethnic
origins arrived there;

(b) precisely because of their isolation from other segments of the
country's population they have almost preserved intact the customs and
traditions of their ancestors which are similar to those characterized as
indigenous;

(c) they are, even if only formally, placed under a State structure which
incorporates national, social and cultural characteristics alien to their
own. (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1983 Addendum 8, para 379).

Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a
historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that
developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other
sectors of the societies now prevailing in those territories, or parts of
them. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are
determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their
ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis for their
continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural
patterns, social institutions and legal systems.
(E/CN.4/Sub.2/1986/7/Addendum 4 para 379).

In the UN working definition, the right of inclusion/exclusion exists with
the world community of indigenous peoples, who tend to restrict the
definition to peoples originating prior to and affected by the last 500
years of European colonialism, such that European groups such as the
Basques and Kurds are defined as ethnic minorities (ICIHI, 1987). The only
indigenous peoples of Europe, accepted by the world community of
indigenous peoples, reside around the Arctic Circle. Some groups that are
not "first inhabitants" (autochthones) outside of Europe have been
included in international indigenous bodies (e.g.: The Marroons of
Jamaica, a group descended from black slaves who fought for independence
from England in the early 1700's).

I don't have the most recent ILO definition, but the 1957 definition is
paternalistic, applying to "tribal and semi-tribal populations in
independent countries whose social and economic conditions are at a less
advanced stage than the stage reached by other sections of the national
community..."

ICIHI (1987). Indigenous Peoples: A Global Quest for Justice. Zed Books
Ltd., London.
 ______________________________________

Preston Hardison
Center for Indigenous Environment and Development
4224 University Way
Seattle, WA 98105
pdh@u.washington.edu
Tel: (1 206) 547 2361