Peoples of the Americas

Sources

The working bibliography

Everything substantive on this site traces to the materials below. The list grows with the site, and each page names the sources it draws on.

  • Scholarship

    Smeets, Ineke. A Grammar of Mapuche. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2008.

    Reference grammar of Mapudungun.

  • Scholarship

    Zúñiga, Fernando. Mapudungun: El habla mapuche. Santiago: Centro de Estudios Públicos, 2006.

    Linguistic description, sociolinguistic situation, orthographies.

  • Scholarship

    Bengoa, José. Historia del pueblo mapuche (siglos XIX y XX). Santiago: LOM Ediciones, 2000.

    Standard history of the 19th–20th centuries.

  • Census data

    Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas (Chile). Censo de Población y Vivienda 2017: resultados sobre pueblos originarios.

    Self-identification figures for Chile.

  • Census data

    INDEC (Argentina). Censo Nacional de Población, Hogares y Viviendas 2010: población indígena u originaria.

    Self-identification figures for Argentina.

  • Scholarship

    Marimán, Pablo; Caniuqueo, Sergio; Millalén, José; Levil, Rodrigo. ¡…Escucha, winka…! Cuatro ensayos de Historia Nacional Mapuche. Santiago: LOM Ediciones, 2006.

    Mapuche-authored national history: priority source per our standards.

  • Scholarship

    Comisión de Verdad Histórica y Nuevo Trato con los Pueblos Indígenas (Chile). Informe final, 2003.

    State truth-commission record; source for dispossession figures (títulos de merced).

  • Scholarship

    Vivar, Jerónimo de. Crónica y relación copiosa y verdadera de los reinos de Chile (1558).

    Contemporary chronicle of the conquest-era campaigns; primary source for 16th-century Mapuche dress, weapons and the events of the 1553–1557 rising. Colonial perspective: read critically.

  • Scholarship

    Góngora Marmolejo, Alonso de. Historia de todas las cosas que han acaecido en el Reino de Chile (1575).

    Contemporary soldier-chronicler; colonial perspective: read critically.

  • Scholarship

    Ercilla, Alonso de. La Araucana (1569–1589).

    Epic poem, not documentary record: Ercilla reached Chile after Lautaro's death. Quoted only as literature, with framing.

  • Institution

    Memoria Chilena, Biblioteca Nacional de Chile: dossiers 'El toqui Lautaro (ca. 1534–1557)', 'Visión hispana de Lautaro' and 'La Araucana'.

  • Article

    'Entre El Vergel y la platería mapuche: el trabajo de metales en la Araucanía poscontacto (1550–1850 d.C.)'. Chungará (Arica) 47(4), 2015, 621–644.

    Peer-reviewed metals study: period metal was El Vergel copper; funerary metal associates with women and subadults, the basis of the no-metal ruling for the Leftraru reconstruction.

  • Article

    'Mapuche y Español en la Batalla de Penco de 1550. Nuevo espacio museográfico': museographic reconstruction study built on Bibar's chronicle.

    Secondary carrier of Bibar's dress, armour and wartime-hair testimony; methodological precedent for period reconstruction.

  • Scholarship

    Coña, Pascual (with Ernesto Wilhelm de Moesbach). Lonco Pascual Coña ñi tuculpazugun / Testimonio de un cacique mapuche. Santiago, 1930.

    First-person account of 19th-century Mapuche life, including dress and custom.

  • Scholarship

    Cayuqueo, Pedro. Historia secreta mapuche. Santiago: Catalonia, 2017.

    Widely read Mapuche-authored popular history.

  • Institution

    Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, Santiago: Mapuche collections and catalogue essays (silverwork, textiles).

  • Scholarship

    Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino. Catálogo Razonado: colección Mapuche (2025), co-produced with rütrafe, weavers, potters, longko and educators.

    Intercultural catalogue raisonné; primary reference for object terminology and dating.

  • Institution

    Memoria Chilena, Biblioteca Nacional de Chile: 'Fotografía del pueblo mapuche, siglos XIX y XX' and 'Indumentaria' collections.

    Photographic and dress documentation, presented under our historical-photography protocol: staging and commercial context are always named.

  • Institution

    Memoria Chilena, Biblioteca Nacional de Chile: digital collections on Mapuche history and culture.

  • Community project

    Kimeltuwe: materiales de mapudungun (community language-teaching project).

    Widely used contemporary teaching materials.

  • Census data

    Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática (Perú). Censos Nacionales 2017: autoidentificación étnica y lengua materna.

    Self-identification (5,176,809 Quechua; 548,292 Aymara) and Quechua speakers (3,735,682): the first Peruvian census with an ethnic self-identification question.

  • Census data

    Instituto Nacional de Estadística (Bolivia). Censo Nacional de Población y Vivienda 2012: pertenencia a naciones y pueblos indígena originarios.

    Self-declared belonging: 1,837,105 Quechua; 1,598,807 Aymara.

  • Census data

    Instituto Nacional de Estadística (Guatemala). XII Censo Nacional de Población y VII de Vivienda, 2018.

    About 42% of the censused population identified as Maya; K'iche' the largest Maya people.

  • Census data

    INEGI (México). Censo de Población y Vivienda 2020: población hablante de lengua indígena.

    Speaker counts incl. Nahuatl 1,651,958; Yucatec Maya 774,755; Zapotec 490,845.

  • Census data

    Instituto Nacional de Estadística (Paraguay). IV Censo Nacional de Población y Viviendas para Pueblos Indígenas, 2022.

    140,049 Indigenous Paraguayans across 19 peoples; the Guaraní linguistic family the largest at 76,506 (55.6%).

  • Census data

    DANE (Colombia). Censo Nacional de Población y Vivienda 2018: pueblos indígenas.

    380,460 self-identified Wayuu: Colombia's most numerous Indigenous people.

  • Census data

    Instituto Nacional de Estadística (Venezuela). XIV Censo Nacional de Población y Vivienda 2011: población indígena.

    413,437 Wayuu counted in Venezuela.

  • Census data

    U.S. Census Bureau. 2020 Census, Detailed DHC-A: American Indian and Alaska Native alone or in any combination.

    Cherokee the largest alone-or-in-combination group at about 1.5 million.

  • Institution

    Cherokee Nation: official enrolment and Language Department reporting.

    About 450,000 enrolled citizens (2023); roughly 2,000 first-language Cherokee speakers, with thousands more learning through tribal programmes.

  • Census data

    U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census; Navajo Nation Population Profile: U.S. Census 2020 (Navajo Epidemiology Center).

    Navajo Nation enrolment 399,494 (2020): the largest US tribal nation by enrolment.

  • Census data

    Statistics Canada. Census of Population 2021: Indigenous peoples and Indigenous languages.

    70,545 Inuit counted, the majority in Inuit Nunangat; 25,440 speakers of Ojibwe languages (Anishinaabemowin).

  • Scholarship

    Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico (Guatemala). Guatemala: Memoria del Silencio (1999).

    UN-backed truth commission on the armed conflict of 1960–1996 and its impact on Maya communities.

  • Institution

    Inuit Circumpolar Council: organisational documentation (founded Utqiaġvik/Barrow, 1977).

  • Institution

    IWGIA: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, The Indigenous World (annual country reports).

    Cross-checking reference for contemporary population and rights context.

Sources consulted for a specific page are listed in that page's “About this information” panel. If a claim seems unsupported by these materials, that is exactly the kind of thing we want to hear about.