E/CN.4/SUB.2/1986/7/ADD.4, PARAS.
379-382
379. 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.
380. This historical continuity may
consist of the continuation, for an extended period
reaching into the present, of one or more of the
following factors:
(a) Occupation of ancestral lands, or
at least of part of them;
(b) Common ancestry with the original
occupants of these lands;
(c) Culture in general, or in
specific manifestations (such as religion, living
under a tribal system, membership of an indigenous
community, dress, means of livelihood, lifestyle,
etc.);
(d) Language (whether used as the
only language, as mother-tongue, as the habitual
means of communication at home or in the family, or
as the main, preferred, habitual, general or normal
language);
(e) Residence in certain parts of the
country, or in certain regions of the world;
(f) Other relevant factors.
381. On an individual basis, an
indigenous person is one who belongs to these
indigenous populations through self- identification
as indigenous (group consciousness) and is recognized
and accepted by these populations as one of its
members (acceptance by the group).
382. This preserves for these
communities the sovereign right and power to decide
who belongs to them, without external
interference.
(E/CN.4/SUB.2/L.566, PARAS. 34 AND
45)
34. In the light of these historical
considerations, the following working definition is
proffered:
"Indigenous populations are composed
of the existing descendants of the peoples who
inhabited the present territory of a country wholly
or partially at the time when persons of a different
culture or ethnic origin arrived there from other
parts of the world, overcame them and, by conquest,
settlement or other means, reduced them to a
non-dominant or colonial condition; who today live
more in conformity with their particular social,
economic and cultural customs and traditions than
with the institutions of the country of which they
now form part, under a State structure which
incorporates mainly the national, social and cultural
characteristics of other segments of the population
which are predominant."
45. ISOLATED OR MARGINAL
POPULATIONS.
Although they have not suffered
conquest or colonization, isolated or marginal
population groups existing in the country should also
be regarded as covered by the notion of "indigenous
populations" for the following reasons: (a) they are
descendants of groups which were in the territory of
the country at the time when other groups of
different cultures or ethnic origins arrived there;
(b) precisely because of their isolation from other
segments of the country's population they have
preserved almost intact the customs and traditions of
their ancestors which are similar to those
characterized as indigenous; (c) they are, even if
only formally, placed under a State structure which
incorporates national, social and cultural
characteristics alien to theirs.
