Identification

• Most Native American languages do not have a system of writing. The exception to this are the Cherokee and Cree tribes, which have their own writing systems. When Americans attempt to document words from a Native American language, or a tribal name, it is done with letters or characters used in the English language. It is not uncommon for words or tribal names to have various spellings. Without a written history among the native tribes, original tribal names are either passed down through oral history or lost to future generations.
  
  

Types

• The name of an Indian tribe may not necessarily be the same name as what the group calls themselves. For example, the Chemehuevi, a Southern California tribe, refers to themselves as Nüwüwü or Nuwu which means "the People." They are a branch of the Southern Pauites. There are both Chemehuevi and Pauite tribes. Over the years, as bands of Native Americans (with differing names) joined together, or separated, tribal names evolved.
  
  

Features

• Original tribal names, the name the Native Americans call their own band of people, were often the word in their language that meant "people." In many cases, they simply referred to themselves as "the people" or "people." Some examples of this would include the Ndee, Numinu, Nuutsiu, Mamaceqtaw, Maklak, L'nu'k, Lenape, Alnombak, Dena'ina, Dene, Dine'e, Gwich'in, Innu, Inuit, Olekwo'l and Tsitsistas, which each meant "people" or "the people." They might also refer to themselves as a people from a specific region, such as the Ugakhpa, which means "downstream people" or the Hualapai, "people of the pine trees."
  
  

Significance

• While original tribal names might simply represent their language's word for "people," or the geographic location of their people, it might also represent their beliefs or tribal identity. Hopi means "peaceful or civilized person," while Mikasuki means "boar clan" and Nakoda means "allies." But names such as Pekwatawog, which means "destroyer," makes some historians wonder if this original tribal name was given to the people as opposed to one they assumed.
  
  

History

• Some Native American tribes had two names, one that they used amongst their people and another they shared with the outside world. Modern day tribal names are not necessarily an original tribal name, but a name given to the group by a neighboring tribe or European explorers, that became attached to the group and later accepted as the official name.