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II.5 Indigenous peoples – should they be defined?
Indios, aborigines or indigenous? And…
what about First Nations?
As is well known, Colombo called the
native people he first met “Indians”
since he was convinced that he found
the way to India by the sea. Nowadays,
especially in US, the term “First
Nations” is preferred to “Indians”,
which has become a depreciative term
over the years. This occurred also to
the Spanish word “Indios”. Now the
word commonly used is "indígena",
while the word "aborigen" is not
accepted. In English and in Italian the
words “aborigine” or “indigenous” have
the same significance, but in French the
word for "indigène" is depreciative, and
the word "aborigène" is preferred.
The “first” attempt of a definition was
put forward in 1971 by Mr. Josè R.
Martinéz Cobo, the UN-Special
Rapporteur on the situation of human
rights and fundamental freedoms of
indigenous peoples. His definition,
handed in to the UN-Sub-commission on
Prevention of Discrimination and
Protection of Minorities between 1981
and 1984, and adopted in 1986, was
criticized as being too simplistic and
containing many flaws, especially
regarding historical origins. Moreover his
definition did not encompass the isolated
tribal peoples living in Asia and Africa.
It is estimated that approximately 350 million
individuals living in more than 70 different countries
worldwide fall under the umbrella term
“Indigenous Peoples”.
As for “minorities”, there is no universally accepted
definition of “indigenous people”. Some attempts to
identify a common definition have been advanced
under the premises of the United Nations, which has
been dealing with Indigenous Peoples’ protection
since the 1970s. Nevertheless, the difficulties in
describing over 5.000 different groups, each
speaking various languages and with different
historical background, caused those involved in the
creation of instruments for the protection of
Indigenous Peoples to abandon a “definition”.
Cobo’s definiton
“Indigenous communities, peoples and nations
are those which, having a historical continuity
with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that
developed on their territories, consider
themselves distinct from other sectors of the
societies now prevailing in those territories, or
parts of them. They form at present non
dominant sectors of society and are determined
to preserve, develop and transmit to future
generations their ancestral territories, and their
ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued
existence as peoples, in accordance with their
own cultural patterns, social institutions and
legal systems” (UN document
C/CN.4/Sub.2/1986/7/ Add.4, para. 379)
Nevertheless, two fundamental principles have been introduced by José Cobo: “selfidentification”,
and “self-recognition”.
These principles have been acknowledged in article 1 by the 1989 International Labour
Organization (ILO) “Indigenous and Tribal Peoples' Convention” (Convention no. 169),
while the UN 1994 Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Preamble and
articles 25, 27, 37 and 39) introduced peculiar (but not too restrictive) characters in
order to identify indigenous peoples:
• Distinctiveness, in the sense of being different and wanting to be different;
• Dispossession of lands, territories and resources, though colonization or other
comparable events, causing denial of human rights or other form of injustice;
• Lands (located in a specific area), as a central element in the history and
identity;
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