[mbrumlow]

Okay, now the hard question.

Why should we care that anybody was a "first people"? And how long down the line will we recognize a group of people as fist people? Do they not make babies with non first people?

10k years from now are we still going to be going on about "so and so is of so so blood line making him indigenous" ?

While they seem like shitty questions, they are serious, because for somebody like me who knows little about his past, its hard to wrap my mind around being so attached to a group identity that really seems like it matters very little to your ability to succeeded and live a happy life today -- unless -- you declare being indigenous is something special and thus gives you extra rights, or more say, or something? And if having the label brings nothing, they why such the fuss?

Also, I am sure we can all trace our blood back to some "first people", so now what? Can I go back to my "first peoples" land and demand to be called indigenous?

[marmada]

It's not a hard question...

Indigenous peoples have their own cultures, languages, traditions, etc. Unfortunately, colonization has oftentimes wiped out these things, as said in the article:

>The act implemented Japan's compulsory national education system in Hokkaido and eliminated traditional systems of Ainu land rights and claims. Over time, the Ainu were forced to give up their land and adopt Japanese customs through a series of government initiatives.

>High levels of poverty and unemployment currently hinder the Ainu's social progress. The percentage of Ainu who attend high school and university is far lower than the Hokkaido average.

Recognizing that the Ainu are an indigenous people is one of many steps that are necessary to create a more inclusive society so the Ainu can preserve their culture/traditions and not be forced to assimilate.

[pvg]

It's not a particularly hard question, it's answered in the article for that specific case:

The act implemented Japan's compulsory national education system in Hokkaido and eliminated traditional systems of Ainu land rights and claims. Over time, the Ainu were forced to give up their land and adopt Japanese customs through a series of government initiatives.

This was in 1899, not 10,000 years ago. I don't know if they are 'shitty' questions but they aren't very serious since they are framed in a pointedly inaccurate and uninformed way.

[mbrumlow]

>This was in 1899, not 10,000 years ago

The first people were in 1899? Or just the "second" people came in 1899?

Part of my argument is that you can't be a "first" person in 1899, because the first people arrived thousands of years before.

Even the first subject is only partly decedents of the "first" peoples.

So if we are going to go down these lines of people get rights, or special treatment based off being indigenous, what are we really looking at? There are have been 1000s of years of intermingling both known and unknown, a "people" are not a static group, people are changing all the time.

Shitty was not the word I wanted to use but I was in a time crunch, callus is more how I feel on the subject.

[pvg]

special treatment based off being indigenous

Not having your language and culture coercively erased is not 'special treatment'. Again, framing it like that is not some flinty insight into a hard truth. It's just making stuff up.

[mbrumlow]

> Not having your language and culture coercively erased is not 'special treatment'.

Languages and cultures have a life cycle, I am not sure any of us would want to live in a society that tolerated and nurtured every culture that ever existed.

That being said you / me / they, are not their culture. You are a individual, and people should only be treated based off their individual merit. Using your culture as a way to distinguished your self and get special treatment, respect, or reconsecration is literally an extension of racism. This is not something you chose, there for it should be meaningless much like the color of your hair, or skin color. When you treat culture like you are -- you are creating exclusionary boundaries based on happenstance. There is nothing to be proud of because you were born in X culture, because you have done nothing. There is nothing to be ashamed of because you were born in Y culture because you as a individual have done nothing but simply existed. Wanting to preserve it -- and not make anew is just burying your head in the sand.

[pvg]

The article is about discrimination and coercion, not the natural ebb and flow of languages and cultures. If you haven't had a chance to read it, it's probably a good time to do so if you want to discuss what's actually in it.

[mbrumlow]

And this thread is about a small part of the topic. We don't need special designations or considerations to combat discrimination. I am also calling into the question the entire notion of indigenous people -- considering that many of groups in question have lived on the same land for 100s of years. I also call into question the notion that your (as in you/me/anybody) ancestors have any tangible relation to today. In such, that, we grant a clean slate to EVERYBODY when they are born, and judge and treat them only on their merit.

In short, your ancestors accomplishments/failures or sins matter not, for you are a new person.

[bobthepanda]

Part of the issue is cultural preservation, Distinct cultures, particularly indigenous ones, have unique oral and recorded histories, and translation can lose important cultural context.

As an example of that, there are a total of 10 Manchu native speakers left in the world. This is a problem because many Qing-dynasty documents are in Manchu.

Also, ethnic discrimination against indigenous peoples has a long history pretty much globally. Legal equality is often not enough, because the past couple centuries have been spent whittling their economic and social capital to basically nothing. Reparations or subsidy is required for even a hope of getting those people on equal footing.

[Mediterraneo10]

> there are a total of 10 Manchu native speakers left in the world. This is a problem because many Qing-dynasty documents are in Manchu

The lack of Manchu native speakers is not a problem for dealing with Qing-era state documents. The Manchu language is well-described and for many, many decades Han Chinese scholars (and then foreign scholars in Europe and North America) have been trained to work with Manchu sources. Does the lack of Latin native speakers hinder anyone from working with a new Roman-era text or inscription?

Furthermore, those handful of remaining native Manchus heavily code-switch with Chinese, and they have lost a great deal of their native Manchu vocabulary (a common phenomenon as a language dies), so even if you did show them a Qing-era text, they would probably be unable to understand much of its terminology without special training.

I am all for protecting language diversity, but your Manchu example is uninformed.

[bobthepanda]

A lack of native speakers can inhibit context. How many translations exist of, say, the Aeneid, or Beowulf?

If Manchu didn't need to be protected because of how widely known it is, the notoriously assimilationist PRC would not be launching an initiative to translate all the documents, and would not be promoting Manchu language use and education[0]. You don't see similar efforts with, say, Shanghainese.

[0]: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/1982570/quie...

[Mediterraneo10]

Language changes, and texts that were written before in a language are not necessarily intelligible to native speakers today. 2000 years after the Aeneid was written, ordinary native speakers of the language it was written in (i.e now French, Italian, Spanish, Romanian, etc.) are unable to make much sense of it, let alone provide valuable insights to scholars. It is trained non-native speakers who are able to read it at all.

Similarly, even if Manchu had not become so moribund, its native speakers probably would have been no more proficient in Qing-era texts, especially considering that they represent an elite literary style and bureaucratic terminology, than trained non-native speakers.

[harichinnan]

Speaking from experience in India, the indigenous people in India form the lowest strata of caste system. They were I'll treated and exluded from society for 1000s of years. Government now has a "schedule" of indegenous people that require government aid and affirmative action in jobs. These are people living in abject poverty.

[SpaceManNabs]

your ancestry and heritage are very much attached to your ability to succeed and live a happy life today, in most parts of the world. That is why people want these things recognized so that statistics can be collected to shape public policy. This is even more so for people that would be indigenous such as native americans, aboriginals, tainos, and ainu.