identification of "Indigenous peoples" is the primacy of their settlement in certain
territories or lands before the arrival of other nations.
From the beginning of the twentieth century other criteria appeared to define
Indigenous peoples. The definitions involved the idea of inferiority. In the Covenant
of the League of Nations, a precursor of the current United Nations, the term
"Indigenous" refers to peoples who lived under the rule of colonial powers and did not
demonstrate the ability to survive independently in the modern world (Oriekhova,
2011). Most of the current definitions of this term emphasize the need to protect the
specific rights of Indigenous peoples in connection with the negative past legacy of
colonialists’ persecution, discrimination and the extermination of the Indigenous
culture. Despite the problems accompanying the process of defining the term
"Indigenous", we can observe a significant progress. For example, the Working Group
on Indigenous Populations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination, established in 1982 and operating under the UN Human Rights
Committee, proposed the following criteria for determining the status of "Indigenous
people". These criteria include living on an ancestral land or at least a part of these
lands ; a common origin from the inhabitants who lived on these lands from time
immemorial; the presence of a common culture in general or in some of its common
manifestations (religion, tribal lifestyle, similarity in clothing, lifestyle, etc.); use of a
single language; living in certain regions of the country or in certain regions of the
world; other essential conditions (Oriekhova, 2011).
Taking into account the above criteria, the Working Group identifies Indigenous
people as "... indigenous communities, peoples and nations that maintain historical
succession with the societies that existed before the invasion and the introduction of
the colonial system and developed in their own territories; who consider themselves
different from other sectors of society currently dominant in these territories or their
parts. They form a part of a society that is not dominant. They want to preserve, develop
and pass on to the future generations the territory of its ancestors and ethnic identity.
The ethnic identity is the ground for the continuation of their existence as a people in
accordance with their own cultural features, social institutions and legal systems
"(Oriekhova, 2011 , p. 294).
As in any other country in the world, the terminology associated with the names
of Indigenous peoples in Canada is the result of terminology historical development.
Very often, the names of Indigenous peoples were chosen by colonizers on the basis of
their own assumptions or associations and do not correspond to the names that
Indigenous people chose for themselves. This led to the fact that many terms have a
negative connotation and may offend Indigenous people. On the other hand, there are
terms denoting peoples’ names which reflect the self-identity potential, correspond to
the linguistic or cultural traditions of the people and fill them with dignity.
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