All about the ancient tribes
Indigenous peoples of Mexico
Group | Population | Speakers¹ |
---|---|---|
(Yucatec) Maya ( Maya ‘wiinik) | 1,475,575 | 892,723 |
Zapotec (Binizaa) | 777,253 | 505,992 |
Mixtec (Tu’un savi) | 726,601 | 510,801 |
Otomi (Hñähñü) | 646,875 | 327,319 |
The traditional homelands of 36 federally recognized tribes – including the Kumeyaay, Pai, Cocopah, O’odham, Yaqui, Apache and Kickapoo peoples – were split in two by the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and 1853 Gadsden Purchase, which carved modern-day California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas out of northern Mexico.
With 17 million indigenous citizens, Mexico is the country with the largest population of indigenous peoples in the Americas. Mexico has identified 78 distinct indigenous peoples, and according to the country’s Census Bureau (INEGI), 21.5 % of the total population identifies as indigenous.
The ten largest indigenous language groups are Náhuatl (22.7% of indigenous language speakers), Maya (13.5%), Zapoteco (7.6%), Mixteco (7.3%) Otomí (5.3%), Tzeltal (5.3%), Tztotzil (4.3%), Totonaca (3.9%), Mazateco (3.2%) and Chol (2.4%).
The Aztecs were a Mesoamerican people of central Mexico in the 14th, 15th and 16th century. They were a civilization with a rich mythology and cultural heritage. Their capital was Tenochtitlan on the shore of Lake Texcoco – the site of modern-day Mexico City.
Aztec, self name Culhua- Mexica, Nahuatl-speaking people who in the 15th and early 16th centuries ruled a large empire in what is now central and southern Mexico. The Aztecs are so called from Aztlán (“White Land”), an allusion to their origins, probably in northern Mexico.
Many matured into advanced pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations such as the: Olmec, Izapa, Teotihuacan, Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec, Huastec, Purépecha, Totonac, Toltec, and Aztec, which flourished for nearly 4,000 years before the first contact with Europeans.
The word Indian came to be used because Christopher Columbus repeatedly expressed the mistaken belief that he had reached the shores of South Asia. Convinced he was correct, Columbus fostered the use of the term Indios (originally, “person from the Indus valley”) to refer to the peoples of the so- called New World.
The Mexican Cession (Spanish: Cesión mexicana) is the region in the modern-day southwestern United States that Mexico ceded to the U.S. in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 after the Mexican – American War.
21.5% (27.5 million) of Mexico’s population describes themselves as indigenous people.
The complex process of admixture that gave rise to the majority of the current Mexican population (∼93%), known as Mestizos, can be examined with Y-SNPs to establish their paternal ancestry and population structure.
The Maya have lived in Central America for many centuries. They are one of the many Precolumbian native peoples of Mesoamerica. In the past and today they occupy Guatemala, adjacent portions of Chiapas and Tabasco, the whole of the Yucatan Peninsula, Belize, and the western edges of Honduras and Salvador.
The Spanish conquistador led an expedition to present-day Mexico, landing in 1519. Although the Spanish forces numbered some 500 men, they managed to capture Aztec Emperor Montezuma II.
The Aztecs were only one group that made up the diverse indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica, but they were among those groups that encountered Europeans when they arrived in the Americas.
Reservation land is held “in trust” for Indians by the federal government. Indians can ‘t own land, so they can ‘t build equity. This prevents American Indians from reaping numerous benefits.