[S33V]

Not the original commenter, but what I'm taking from it is that the notion of land ownership was/is foreign to indigenous people. Given that, using the term native land can be misrepresenting native history. I'm not sure what the alternative verbiage would be to describe an area has inhabited by an indigenous tribe. Urban Native Era, a pretty large Native movement/brand, holds the slogan "You Are On Native Land" and I believe they are holding themselves to a pretty high standard of racial sensitivity.

[krapp]

"indigenous people" comprises hundreds of tribes, with distinct cultures and beliefs. Talking about what was or wasn't a "foreign concept" in that context is like doing so for Africans or the kind of Indians that Columbus intended to find.

It's difficult to come to an objective conclusion because so much of what's believed and reported about native culture is often done through appropriate by the descendents of European settlers, rather than the natives themselves, and a lot of mythologizing, fetishizing and stereotyping has taken place over the years as a result. One should at least be wary of sweeping "just so" truisms about historically oppressed people.

Anecdotally, I was able to find some evidence to the contrary[0], and I would expect the actual truth to vary according to tribe.

[0]https://daily.jstor.org/yes-americans-owned-land-before-colu...

[1]https://mises.org/wire/did-indians-understand-concept-privat...

[S33V]

I agree, I do think it is disingenuous to make a blanket statement on Native American's knowledge of land ownership and border establishment. I was merely interpreting what the original comment said.

Given your points, is there a more correct way to define the lands once inhabited by Native peoples?

[krapp]

I strenuously disagree with that part of hhernandez's premise and I don't think "native lands" is actually problematic at all. It's just a generic, umbrella term to me. You could say tribal lands, First Nations lands, aboriginal lands, it's all the same.

[tspike]

It's fundamentally irrelevant anyway to the immediate questions; the land rights they have were assigned by our own system and have been unlawfully disregarded.