Groundspeak Portal

I took some pictures and obtained coordinates of a statue of a Native American the other day (not a specific person, but a statue depicting a member of a former local indigenous tribe). I was surprised when I couldn't find a category for statues of indigenous peoples (I thought I had seen this category before, but now I can't find such thing). These statues seem to be fairly common in my area (and maybe elsewhere) - am I missing the category? If not, has this been discussed before?

There are two categories you could possibly post the statues to.  Figurative Public Sculpture  and if they happen to be on horseback Equestrian Statues

BruceS:

There are two categories you could possibly post the statues to.  Figurative Public Sculpture  and if they happen to be on horseback Equestrian Statues

No horse, so Equestrian Statues won't work. But Figurative Public Sculpture probably is a good fit. For some reason, I always thought that category was looking for abstract figures, but I see now looking at the waymarks listed that the category accepts life-like scultpures and statues too.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Also if the person is famous, try Historical figures.

saopaulo1:

Also if the person is famous, try Historical figures.

In opening post it is indicated that the sculptures are not of any specific person.

Specific person goes into Statues of Historic Figures
Non-specific goes into Figurative Sculptures
Abstract into Public Abstract Sculptures

The idea of a category for indigenous people has been discussed before, but has problems.  Who is indigenous in any given area/region/country?  Then there are some ethnic/racial sensitivities to be considered.

Perhaps a specific one for Native Americans could work.  Some prefer the term First Nation Peoples for themselves.  So, right away there are problems . . .

And in the interests of global play "Native Americans" are limiting, which I'm sure is why the word Indigenous was chosen for the thread. Frankly, all the Native Americans I know (kin) prefer Native Indians or the actual tribe name.

I actually like "First Nation Peoples" and statues would not necessarily be pointing generally towards groups of people of a particular ethnicity but would be waymarking statues depicting a specific culture for a respectful reason. In other words, something acceptable. And, of course, First Nation is easily defined as any cultural/ethnic/race group that is displaced from its home due to colonisation.

Calostimucu is a fantastic example and the statue offends only the delicate sensibilities of the Chamber of Commerce people working next door.

Interesting to consider who the indigenous people of the British Isles might be.  We've had Celts, Picts, Gaels, Romans, Danes and miscellaneous Vikings, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Normans (basically Viking via France) ... (And that's just off the top of my relatively ignorant head)

silverquill:

The idea of a category for indigenous people has been discussed before, but has problems.  Who is indigenous in any given area/region/country?

I certainly understand this complication - I know that the Wamesit tribe did populate this region at one time, but while doing research on this particular statue, I encountered some indications that the Wamesit might have actually migrated to this area from elsewhere in the not too-distant past.

In any case, The Wamesit Indian waymark has now been listed in the Figurative Public Sculpture category.

But of course silverquill knows that already. Thanks!

Team Sieni:

Interesting to consider who the indigenous people of the British Isles might be.  We've had Celts, Picts, Gaels, Romans, Danes and miscellaneous Vikings, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Normans (basically Viking via France) ... (And that's just off the top of my relatively ignorant head)

You listed them in the right order. I don't remember where I read this definition, but it made sense: Indigenous People are people who never replaced other people but were the very first humans who came to an area and stayed there for good, so all the Picts, Gaels, Romans, Danes and miscellaneous Vikings, Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Normans are not indigenous, because somebody was already there when they came - the Celts. But the Celts are indeed one of the three commonly acknowledged indigenous nations of Western Europe - the other two are the Basks in northern Spain and the Saami in Lapland.

However, even this definition is somewhat arbitrary: European nations that replaced other European nations (like the Saxons driving the Celts out of most of Britain) are not considered indigenous, while Native American Nations that replaced other Native American Nations in pre-Columbian times (Like the Navajo taking over the land of the Anasazi) are still indigenous.

If you really want to pursue this any further and turn it into a category (and I think you should), here is a good Wikipedia article on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples

 

Indigenous is problematic in Asia, too. 

The Japanese, for instance, are not indigenous to the islands.  Actually the Ainu, a Caucasian race, were there, and eventually pushed all the way to the northern island of Hokkaido.  I'm not sure if they still exist as a people group, but they had a type of reservation for a long time.  I'm not sure there are any monuments to them, either.

Who is indigenous to Korea, parts of China?  How about the Pacific Islands?

I still think the issue may be too thorny to develop into a category, but if someone is intrepid enough to tackle it, who knows?