230 articles
Lumad
Lumad (Lumadnon) is the collective name for Mindanao's non-Moro indigenous peoples, adopted June 26, 1986 in Cotabato; Cebuano for native. Covers 15-plus groups, IPRA land rights, and school-closure conflict.
Lumbee
The Lumbee are a North Carolina tribe recognized by the state since 1885, descended per congressional findings from the Cheraw and related Siouan tribes; the 1956 Lumbee Act withheld federal benefits until full recognition on December 18, 2025.
Man of the Hole
The Man of the Hole (Tanaru) was the last surviving member of an uncontacted Indigenous people in Rondônia, Brazil. Monitored by Funai from 1996, he lived alone in the roughly 8,070-hectare Tanaru Indigenous territory, dug deep pits for trapping and hiding, repelled contact attempts in 1996 and 2007, and was found dead in August 2022 at about age 60.
Mandan
Mandan: upper Missouri River people of earth-lodge farming villages in North Dakota, now one of the Three Affiliated Tribes (MHA Nation) on the Fort Berthold Reservation; nearly destroyed by the 1781 and 1837 smallpox epidemics.
Mansi people
The Mansi people, formerly called Voguls, are an indigenous group of western Siberia in Russia. They live in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug and traditionally practice hunting and fishing.
Māori people
Māori are the indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand (tangata whenua); ancestors arrived by canoe before 1300 CE, signed the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, and numbered 978,246, 19.6% of the population, in the 2023 Census.
Mapuche
Mapuche, "people of the earth" in mapuzugun, are the largest indigenous people of Chile and Argentina, centered in Araucanía, known for resisting Inca, Spanish, and Chilean conquest until the 1880s Pacification of Araucanía.
Maricopa people
Maricopa people (Piipaash, Pee Posh), a Yuman-speaking Arizona tribe that migrated from the Colorado River to the Gila and Salt rivers, allied with the Akimel O'odham; about 100 language speakers remain.
Maya peoples
Maya peoples: Indigenous speakers of about thirty Mayan languages, including K'iche', Q'eqchi', Kaqchikel, Mam and Yucatec, living in Guatemala, southern Mexico, Belize and Honduras; about 42% of Guatemala's 2018 census population.
Meskwaki
The Meskwaki, also called the Fox, are an Algonquian-speaking Native American people, today the Sac & Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa and the only federally recognized tribe in Iowa.
Mi'kmaq
The Mi'kmaq (Mi'kmaw, L'nu) are an Indigenous Wabanaki Confederacy people of Mi'kma'ki in Atlantic Canada and Maine, known for the Peace and Friendship Treaties (1725-1779), which ceded no land, and for Mi'kmawi'simk language revitalization.
Miami people
Miami (Myaamia) people, an Algonquian-speaking Native American people of the lower Great Lakes; today the federally recognized Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and the unrecognized Miami Nation of Indiana, with a revitalized Miami-Illinois language.
Miskito people
Miskito (Miskitu) people of the Mosquito Coast of eastern Honduras and Nicaragua; Afro-Indigenous people of the historic Miskitu Kingdom, now the region's largest Indigenous population, with autonomy struggles, lobster diving livelihoods, and land-rights conflicts.
Mohawk people
The Mohawk people, who call themselves Kanien'kehá:ka, or People of the Flint, are the easternmost nation of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, with communities in Ontario, Quebec, and northern New York.
Mohawk skywalkers
Mohawk skywalkers are Kanien'kehá:ka ironworkers from Kahnawà:ke, Akwesasne, and Six Nations who have worked high steel since the 1886 Victoria Bridge riveting crews, building New York landmarks including the Empire State Building and World Trade Center.
Mohicans
Mohicans (Muh-he-con-neok, 'people of the waters that are never still'), an Algonquian-speaking people of the upper Hudson Valley, distinct from the Connecticut Mohegan; descendants are the federally recognized Stockbridge-Munsee Community in Shawano County, Wisconsin.
Mollie Kyle
Mollie Kyle (Mollie Burkhart), an allotted full-blood Osage woman, survived the 1920s Osage Reign of Terror in which her mother, sisters, and cousin were murdered for oil headrights; her husband Ernest Burkhart poisoned her insulin until FBI-led investigation broke the conspiracy.
Moriori
Moriori: indigenous Polynesian people of Rēkohu (Chatham Islands), related to Māori, keepers of Nunuku's peace covenant, devastated by the 1835 Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama invasion, and revived through a 2020 Treaty settlement.
Muscogee
Muscogee (Mvskoke), also called Creek, a Native American people of the Southeast whose Muscogee (Creek) Nation, headquartered in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, is the fourth-largest US tribe; known for its town confederacy, the Creek War, Trail of Tears removal, and 2020 McGirt reservation ruling.
Nahuas
Nahuas: the peoples of Mexico speaking Nahuatl, the Mexican language; 1,651,958 speakers in the 2020 census, distributed across ten-plus states, heirs of Central Mexican pre-Hispanic cultures, with 30 recognized language variants and medium-risk vitality.
Native American cultures in the United States
Native American cultures in the United States: diverse lifeways of 575 federally recognized tribes, spanning 15,000+ years, distinct languages, sovereignty, and federal policy eras from treaties to self-determination.
Native American mascot controversy
Native American mascot controversy: dispute over Native American names, logos, and imagery in sports, from about 2,400 US schools to pro teams; covers psychological research, NCAA 2005 policy, Washington and Cleveland name changes, and state bans.
Native American name controversy
Native American name controversy: the debate over American Indian, Native American, Indigenous, Native, and tribal-specific terms for Indigenous peoples of the United States and the Americas, including government style guidance and the self-identification versus enrollment dispute.
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States: 575 federally recognized tribes with government-to-government relations, 9.7 million alone or in combination (2020), defined by tribal sovereignty, the federal trust responsibility, and a history of removal, allotment, and self-determination.
Native Hawaiians
Native Hawaiians (kānaka maoli), the Indigenous people of the Hawaiian Islands, overthrown kingdom 1893, over 680,000 nationwide, homestead blood-quantum system, not a federally recognized tribe.
Navajo
Navajo (Diné, Diné Bizaad) — the largest federally recognized Native American tribe and reservation in the U.S., 27,425 sq mi across Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah; 2020 census 423,412 claiming Navajo ancestry; Long Walk 1864, 1868 treaty, 110-chapter three-branch government.
Navajo Nation
The Navajo Nation (Diné) is a tribal sovereign in the southwestern United States whose 27,425-square-mile land base in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah is the largest in the country.
Nez Perce
The Nez Perce (Nimiipuu, "we the people") are a Columbia Plateau tribe of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. Key facts: 1855 Walla Walla treaty reservation of about 7.5 million acres, the 1863 "Thief Treaty" shrinkage by 90%, the 1,170-mile Flight of 1877 ending at Bear Paw, and the modern Nez Perce Tribe at Lapwai, Idaho.
Nganasan people
The Nganasans are an indigenous Samoyedic people of the Taimyr Peninsula in northern Siberia, the most northern inhabitants of the Eurasian landmass, who traditionally hunted wild reindeer and speak the endangered Nganasan language.
Nicarao migration into Nicaragua
The Nicarao migration was the movement of Nahuat-speaking peoples from central and southern Mexico into Pacific Nicaragua, conventionally dated to about AD 1200 within a broader migration wave of AD 700 to 1350.