230 articles
Nivkh people
The Nivkh, formerly known as the Gilyaks, are an indigenous people of the Russian Far East who live along the lower Amur River and on Sakhalin Island, speaking the language isolate Nivkh.
Occupation of Alcatraz
Occupation of Alcatraz: Native American activists of Indians of All Tribes, led by Richard Oakes and LaNada War Jack, occupied Alcatraz Island from November 20, 1969 to June 11, 1971 for nineteen months, demanding treaty recognition and a cultural center; it helped end federal Indian termination policy.
Odawa
The Odawa, also spelled Ottawa and called Odaawaa in Anishinaabemowin, are an Indigenous people of the northern Great Lakes, known as fur-trade middlemen and for Pontiac's War of 1763.
Ojibwe
The Ojibwe, self-named Anishinaabeg and also called Chippewa, are an Algonquian-speaking Indigenous people of the Great Lakes, closely related to the Odawa and Potawatomi, with about 200,000 people in the United States and Canada.
Olive Oatman
Olive Ann Oatman (1837–1903), American Indian captive and lecturer; survivor of the 1851 Oatman massacre on the Gila River, held by Yavapai and Mohave for five years, tattooed, ransomed at Fort Yuma in 1856, subject of Stratton's Captivity of the Oatman Girls.
Oneida people
The Oneida (Onyota'a:ká:, People of the Standing Stone) are a founding nation of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy from central New York, American allies in the Revolution, now in New York, Wisconsin, and Ontario.
Onondaga Council Fire
The Onondaga Council Fire is the central council fire of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, kept by the Onondaga Nation near Syracuse, New York, where the Grand Council meets.
Orang Asli
Orang Asli ("original people" in Malay) are the indigenous peoples of Peninsular Malaysia: 18 subgroups in the Negrito, Senoi, and Proto-Malay groups, about 227,900 people in 2025, governed by the Aboriginal Peoples Act 1954 with common-law customary land rights.
Osage Nation
The Osage Nation (Wahzhazhe, 𐓏𐓘𐓻𐓘𐓻𐓟) is a federally recognized Dhegiha Siouan tribe in Osage County, Oklahoma, seat Pawhuska. It purchased its 1.47-million-acre reservation in 1872, retains tribal ownership of the Osage Mineral Estate under the 1906 Act with headright royalties, endured the 1920s Reign of Terror, and has had a tripartite constitutional government since 2006.
Paiute
Paiute: Northern, Southern, and Owens Valley Paiute peoples of the Great Basin, speaking Numic languages of Uto-Aztecan; native names Numu and Nuwuvi; history includes the 1889 Ghost Dance, 1954 termination, and 1980 restoration.
Pawnee people
Pawnee people: Caddoan-speaking Plains nation of four bands (Chaui, Kitkahahki, Pitahawirata, Skidi), historically of Nebraska earth-lodge villages, removed to Oklahoma in 1874-75; today the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma has over 3,500 enrolled members.
Pemon
The Pemon (Pemón) are a Carib-speaking indigenous people of southeastern Venezuela and adjacent Guyana and Brazil; their Gran Sabana heartland lies largely within Canaima National Park.
Pend d'Oreilles
Pend d'Oreilles (Ql̓ispé, Kalispel), Salish-speaking tribe of Flathead Lake, Clark Fork, and Pend Oreille rivers; French name from shell earrings; Hellgate Treaty 1855; now part of Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.
Peoria people
Peoria people, or Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, a confederated Algonquian tribe of Kaskaskia, Peoria, Piankeshaw, and Wea (Illini peoples) united in 1854, removed through Missouri and Kansas to Miami, Oklahoma; terminated 1950, restored 1972; Miami-Illinois language revival program.
Petun
The Petun, self-named Tionontati, were an Iroquoian-speaking people farming near Georgian Bay in Ontario from about 1580 to 1650, named the Tobacco Nation by the French.
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, home of the Oglala Sioux Tribe (Oglala Lakota), established 1889 in southwestern South Dakota and northwestern Nebraska; about 2.1 million acres, nine districts, Wounded Knee site, largest IHS service unit in the Great Plains Area.
Pirahã people
Pirahã people (Hiaitsiihi), a Mura-family indigenous people of the Maici and Marmelos rivers, Amazonas, Brazil, several hundred strong; famous for Daniel Everett's contested claims of a language without numbers, color terms, or recursion.
Plains Indians
Plains Indians: over 30 Indigenous nations of the North American Great Plains, also called Plains tribes, spanning the Mississippi River to the Great Basin; horse-mounted bison hunters and settled farmers, later reservation communities restoring bison herds.
Plenty Coups
Plenty Coups (Alaxchiiaahush, "many achievements"), 1848–1932, last traditional chief of the Crow (Apsáalooke) Nation; Crow ally of the U.S. Army, defender of reservation land, and 1921 Tomb of the Unknown Soldier representative.
Pocahontas
Pocahontas, also Matoaka or Rebecca (c. 1596–1617), daughter of the Powhatan paramount chief, married John Rolfe in 1614; the famous John Smith rescue story is doubted by most historians.
Potawatomi
Potawatomi (Bodéwadmi, Keepers of the Fire): Great Lakes Anishinaabe people with the Ojibwe and Odawa; removed in the 1838 Trail of Death; today 12 nations in the US and Canada, including the 38,000-member Citizen Potawatomi Nation.
Powhatan
Powhatan (Wahunsenacawh, d. 1618) was the mamanatowick, or paramount chief, of Tsenacomoco, an alliance of 28 to 32 Virginia Algonquian tribes, and the central Native counterpart to the Jamestown colonists from 1607 until his death.
Powhatan (Native American leader)
Powhatan (Wahunsenacawh, c. 1550–1618) was the mamanatowick, paramount chief of Tsenacomoco, who united 28–32 Virginia tribes before Jamestown's 1607 founding; father of Pocahontas, not the Virginia county named for him.
Quapaw
The Quapaw, self-named Ogaxpa or Ugaxpa ("Downstream People"), are a Dhegiha Siouan Native American people of the Arkansas River and Mississippi confluence; the French named Arkansas after them.
Quechua people
Quechua people: diverse Andean indigenous populations whose maternal language is Quechua, centered in Peru (5,179,774 self-identified; 4,800 localities) and highland Bolivia; heirs of Inca-era civilizations, organized in ayllus and comunidades campesinas.
Rapa Nui people
The Rapa Nui are the indigenous Polynesian people of Easter Island (Rapa Nui), Chile, settled from Eastern Polynesia around 1250 CE, annexed by Chile in 1888, decimated to 111 people by 1877, and now about 7,500 strong.
Rarámuri
Rarámuri (Ralámuli, Tarahumara): indigenous people of the Sierra Tarahumara, Chihuahua, Mexico, about 120,000 strong, known for long-distance running, Jesuit-era cargo government, and recent land restitutions.
Redskin
Redskin is an English slur for a Native American; originally a self-referential term (1769, via French peau-rouge), it became pejorative, drew trademark cancellations against Washington's NFL team, and was retired by the franchise in 2020.
Richard Oakes (activist)
Richard Oakes (1942–1972), Akwesasne Mohawk activist and Red Power leader, organized the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz Island, led Fort Lawton and Pit River campaigns, and was killed in 1972.
Sacagawea
Sacagawea (also Sakakawea, Sacajawea), Lemhi Shoshone woman, c. 1788-1812, interpreter and diplomat on the Lewis and Clark Expedition 1805-1806; depicted on the US Sacagawea dollar.