The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas Volume I, II, and III

Introduction 13
So a first problem in making sense of ethnonyms arises from sorting
out the innumerable "nicknames" in written records. Many are synonyms.
It takes great local expertise to filter them, and in the case of
historic sources from past centuries, the knowledge needed to do so is
often no longer available.
A second problem arises from the indiscriminate proliferation of seeming
"peoples" which in many cases are really just the names of very small
units such as the inhabitants of a river segment. As for their culture and
ethnic sense of selfhood, they would better have been classified under
more inclusive terms. Nonetheless, the historical record swarms with
names of supposed "nations" or "extinct tribes" or "peoples" heard
about vaguely and rarely, sometimes only once.
A third problem arises from graphophonemic inaccuracy. It is usual
to find South American peoples referred to under varying spellings:
Machiguenga/Matsiguenka; Caingang/Kaingang/Kainjgang; Quechua/
Kechwa/Qheshwa/Kkechua/Qquichua, and so on, depending on the native
language habits of the writer and on the ethnographic norms of the
era, among other factors.
A fourth problem lies in the politics of naming. Many names in print,
including some of the most widely used, are distasteful to those named
(like "Campa" for Ashaninka in Peru or "Jivaro" for Shuar and "Auca,"
meaning 'enemies,' for Wao in Ecuador). When an attributed name is
plainly the expression of hostility or incompetent testimony, many of our
authors have disposed of it with a reference pointing to a more acceptable
name. In recent years, many or most indigenous groups have demanded
the replacement of stigmatizing names (usually nicknames in origin) by
ethnonyms of their own choosing, and we generally favor such reforms.
Reforms can, however, bring difficulties anew. For example, many Ecuadorian
Quichua speakers would today prefer to be called by a broad
autodenomination, Runa, meaning 'men' or 'people'. But this word has
problems of its own. It carries an implicit message of gender inequality
unwelcome to the increasingly active feminist sector within this population.
Also, some Quichua speakers dislike it because it is homonymous
with the local Spanish-language usage of runa, which is a racist pejorative;
and finally, anyone who knows the region will wonder whether it also
includes Peruvian Quechua speakers, who could also be called Runa, but
who avoid the term in ethnic autodenomination.
A fifth problem arises at this point. The never-ceasing historic process
of coining names does not simply relabel peoples; it retaxonomizes them,
merging or dividing previous ethnic categories. These new taxa are them-
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