response 1 of 28:

Jun 10 17:27 UTC 1994

The terms "[American] Indian" and "Native American" used to refer to the
indigenous (at least relative to Europeans) peoples of North America are
obviously created by European settlers.  One - Indian - obviously "wrong,"
since Columbus was wrong in believing he had reaches the West Indies.  The
other - America[n] - is derived from Amerigo Vespugi, "discoverer" of the
North American continent.

So my question is, what did the native people call themselves as a whole?
Or did they only refer to their own nation as "us", and other nations as
"them?"  (e.g. "we" are Ojibway, "they" are Iriquois)

response 3 of 28:

Jun 11 17:53 UTC 1994

Oh, yeah, I forgot to ask what name(s) the Native Americans had for the
continent of North America itself?

response 5 of 28:

Jun 12 01:23 UTC 1994

I would also not expect them to have had any collective name for themselves
(but excluding Europeans, etc.) until quite late in the game, for the same
reasons.

Remember that we're talking about a very diverse group of cultures, too.
A lot of people seem to think that all the indigenous peoples automatically
had things in common just in virtue of inhabiting the same two continents,
but actually I doubt that this is particularly true in any important way.
Even peoples from the same general area have some really striking cultural
differences, at least in some cases.  And where in Europe there were some
very widespread unifying cultural influences which touched the whole
continent (or almost all) quite a while back and which continued in force,
I don't think anything like this was true of the Americas as a whole.  (There
were definitely some large areas with some analogous factors, though.)

I know (meaning "have been told repeatedly by seemingly reliable sources")
that in many cases peoples had names for themselves which (it's claimed)
are reasonably translated something like "the people", but I've always been
curious as to what kind of evidence backs up this translation.  (In fact,
I'm in the middle of one of Tony Hillerman's mysteries, set among the Navajos,
and there are some contexts where he sometimes transliterates a word,
"Dineh" (I think) and sometimes uses the English word "People", referring
to the Navajos - pretty clearly the Navajo phrase is the same in both
cases.  For instance, "Slow Talking Dineh/People", a Navajo clan.)

I would conjecture that the development and widespread transmission of
alphabetic/phonetic writing was a major unifying influence on European
culture which was absent in the Americas.  This is a tremendously important
technological innovation; even in the absence of mass media of any kind,
it made possible the dissemination of ideas geographically and through time.

response 7 of 28:

Jun 13 01:24 UTC 1994

Re #5:
s/Dineh/Dinee/g

Re #6 re #5: I think it's people as in parallel to tribe/nation, not as in
persons.  But as I say, I've always wondered - I've seen this in many and
diverse sources (& relating to peoples from all around the world, too), but
that may just show that it's a common piece of misinformation.

response 9 of 28:

Jul 2 00:03 UTC 1994

Oh yes!  You are so right!  I speak two langauges, and I am constantly torn
between how I see things in one language vs. how I see things in the other...I
am always asking myself, "I wonder what s/he *really* means?", if there is more
than one way to translate something someone's said in one of the language.
E.g., did you ever try to explain the difference between "to make" and "to do"
to someone whose language has only *one* word for our two?  Good luck! No doubt
the difference is greater between languages of different branches, e.g., any
native american language cf. an indo-european one... Regarding the concept of
continent, my husband is a product of the  Spanish school system and he insists
there are *five* continents, not seven (N & S america, and eurasia are the
different ones).  Makes more  sense to me...

response 11 of 28:

Jul 10 02:51 UTC 1994

There is at least one group of native Americans who referred to the continent
of North America (or some geographical approximationthereof) as "Turtle
Island~" implying that the land rose from the sea as does the carapace of a
surfacing sea turtle. This also implies knowledge of both coasts, not unlikely
among wandering tribes especially when you consider the oral tradition and the
passing of the story of the original arrival of humans on this continent.

        As far as names go, it is likely that individuals have totemic names in
addition to common names.  The name they tell you won't be the totemic, but
will likely be the common.  I've never heard of a totemic name for an entire
people...

response 13 of 28:

Jul 12 14:33 UTC 1994

I remember in one of my classes my professor told us that "race" is a
European idea and that no other culture has words such as "race" native
to it.  ( I don't mean to say that there is one European culture ) 
It's interesting because even the European concept of race doesn't hold up
very well at all when you deal with most areas of the world.  It makes

sense then that Native Americans did not have any word for "race"  Since
I'm not familiar with any Native american languages, I can't really 
support this, though.  Does anyone here know any?

response 15 of 28:

Jul 25 15:15 UTC 1994

yeah, it's pretty silly, but you can't avoid it really because its so much
a part of our lives to see people by race.  I think it would be interesting to 
not be shackled by that kind of vision, but it's impossible for me (and 
anyone else who grew up in a society like ours) to escape.

response 17 of 28:

Jul 29 14:55 UTC 1994

Was it?  The Aborigines in Australia have little concept of owning the land;
the people live on the land, which has no ownership; same, allegedly, for the 
!Kung in AFrica.  So it would surprise me if the pre-Columbian aborigines
here conceived of possessing the land.

response 19 of 28:

Jul 30 01:10 UTC 1994

Believe it or not, the ancient Irish also felt that the land belonged to
the gods.  Kings could give out the right to use it, not to own it.

response 21 of 28:

Aug 1 18:24 UTC 1994

I agree, it seems kind of silly for us to be talking about what we think the
"native Americans" collectively might have possibly thought about such
important things as land ownership, sense of people, etc. when we don't really
have any one presenting facts about actual cultures...

response 23 of 28:

Aug 1 23:06 UTC 1994

Research?  That's too much like work.  Armchair hypotheses are more fun. :-)