The Peoples Register: Who Is Gone, Who Is Here

Status: Researched draft — cultural review pending

How to read this register. This is a register of peoples, extending the Extinction Register into the full map the programme touches. Documented fact = census, tribal-government, or published scholarship (Sources, with year on every count). Tradition — a people's own account = how a people describes its own status (e.g., Myaamia "sleeping," not extinct), labelled as such. Debated / Claim = a disputed point, held open. No ceremonial or restricted content appears here.

The one-status rule, and its limits. Every main-table line carries exactly one status — EXTINCT, DORMANT / REAWAKENING, or LIVING TODAY. That rule is this register's filing discipline, not a claim that reality is single-layered. Where a people's own entry in this programme is layered (Taíno above all), the line gives the filing status and the layering is stated in the same line and flagged again at the end. Where the Extinction Register records a language's end and the people survive (Yaghan, Eyak), this register says both, in that order of importance: peoples first.

Count discipline (the Haida standard, applied throughout). Every count carries source + year. Counts that measure different things — enrolled citizens, census self-identification, ancestry, reservation residents, first-language speakers, conversational speakers — are never merged, averaged, or added across authorities. Where authorities disagree, both figures stand and the disagreement is flagged. Where no reliable count was found, the line prints "no sourced count held" — that honesty is the point of the register.

Consistency. This register was checked against the Gap Examination of 2026-10-27 and must never disagree with its tiers. Disagreements found while compiling it are flagged in §11 and in the compiler's report, not silently resolved. Peoples already entered in the Extinction Register are carried by reference (line + pointer), not re-researched. The Mexica and Inca knowledge entries describe ancient states; their living descendant peoples (Nahua, Quechua peoples) are registered under their own names — the ancient state is not listed as an "extinct people," because its people did not end.

1. Arctic / Subarctic

2. Northeast / Great Lakes

3. Southeast

4. Plains

5. Southwest

6. Great Basin / Plateau

7. Northwest Coast / California (and the programme's Pacific scope)

7.1 Ended in the record — descendants continue: the Vancouver Island west-coast table (added 2026-10-30)

Compiler's note on this class. These rows are the Vancouver Island audit's second class (Extinct Peoples Audit, 2026-10-30): named polities and local groups that ended — by war, absorption or amalgamation — while their descendants stand today inside another named nation. The class stands outside the register's three-status tally (the register's main tables as first compiled: 105 lines — EXTINCT 14 · DORMANT / REAWAKENING 11 · LIVING TODAY 80; verified by count at this build). The dated additions of this build — the blended row split into three living rows, Esowistaht EXTINCT, Pentlatch PEOPLE LIVING — bring the main tables to 118 lines: EXTINCT 15 · DORMANT / REAWAKENING 11 · LIVING TODAY 92 (verified by count). These 22 are counted in this class alone, never folded into the extinct count. Full treatment: [original-peoples-of-vancouver-island.md](original-peoples-of-vancouver-island.md).

In this class's own neighbouring line — LANGUAGE GONE, PEOPLE LIVING: the Island Comox (Sathloot) dialect is gone as a spoken tongue; its descendants stand in the K'ómoks First Nation and in Sathloot-descended Laich-kwil-tach bands (the Walitsum/Walitsima of Salmon River) — never in the extinct count.

HELD OUT of this register (CHECK OWED, audit §7.2): Hesquiaht's five constituent tribes (attested, names not in sources reached) · Ditidaht's unnamed local groups the record says 'became extinct' (asserted, unnamed) · the Mowachaht confederacy's absorbed members (unnamed) · Bear River (original people vs administrative band unit unsettled).

8. Mexico / Central America

Mexico's census counts speakers, not ethnicities — the INEGI 2020 figures below are people aged 3+ speaking the language, and the register does not rename them "population." Guatemala's 2018 census gives both ethnic shares and language shares; where they differ, both are printed.

9. Caribbean

Garífuna — the one Caribbean-origin people with a living mainland nation — is registered in §8, where its people now live, and cross-referenced here so the Caribbean section does not falsely read as total loss.

10. South America

10.1 Peoples in voluntary isolation — LIVING (added 2026-10-30)

Register note (Brazil). Brazil's confirmed isolated groups stand at 28 confirmed of 114–121 records (FUNAI/CGIIRC and the systematised registers); beyond the rows above, the register carries them as this note at the registers' own totals — individual rows follow only as the public record names a people. The register does not invent rows for references it cannot name. No location beyond the public record's own naming stands in any row of this subsection, and no imagery of persons in isolation is republished anywhere in this strand.

11. Flagged disagreements, translations and weak points (held, not thinned)

• Taíno vs the one-status rule. The task governing this register requires exactly one status per line; the programme's own Taíno entry forbids flattening that people to one word. Resolution adopted and flagged, not hidden: the line files the language/polity status (EXTINCT) and carries the ancestry and living-identity layers inside the same line. If the owner prefers, Taíno is the one line that should be exempted from the one-status rule.
• Language registers vs peoples register (Yaghan, Eyak, Wukchumni, Xinca, Lenca, Chinook). The Extinction Register records languages; this register records peoples. Yaghan and Xinca file differently in the two registers because the units differ, and each line says so. Wukchumni is the hard case: filed EXTINCT here following the Extinction Register, although its taught-speaker line continues — a reader who files it DORMANT / REAWAKENING by the Myaamia precedent has the better of the argument on people-grounds, and this register records that rather than pretending the filing is clean.
• Mutsun vs Gap Examination Tier 1. Gap files Mutsun "Extinct (last fluent speaker d. 1930); revival working." This register files DORMANT / REAWAKENING, by the Myaamia precedent that a sleeping language with an active, document-based revival is not filed simply extinct. This is a genuine disagreement with the Gap Examination's tier label, flagged for the owner — not silently resolved in either direction.
• Inuit, five people. Statistics Canada's 2021 identity table prints Inuit 70,540; its own Daily release text prints 70,545. Both are Statistics Canada, 2021 Census. The register prints the table figure and flags the Daily figure.
• Peru Quechua, 2017. Two transcriptions of INEI's 2017 census table in circulation print 3,799,780 and 3,735,682 Quechua speakers. One census cannot have both; the register prints the table figure first and holds the variant in the same line pending a direct INEI table pull.
• Yanomami, almost every count. Brazil 19,420 (2011) / 24,603 (ISA 2017) / ~30,000 including Ye'kwana (2022); Venezuela 16,069 (2009) / 11,431 (INE 2011). Different units (people, territory residents including a second people, national censuses a decade apart). No total is constructed.
• Guatemala, ethnic share vs language share. Mam 5.2% vs 4.4%; Kaqchikel 7.8% vs 3.0% (INE 2018, via CIA summary). These are not errors — they measure different things — but any future entry that quotes one without naming its measure will create a false disagreement with this register.
• Garífuna speakers. The Gap Examination (§1.5) gives Garífuna ~50,000–100,000+ speakers; the language reference carries 146,000 speakers in Honduras alone, without a census citation on the line. The register adopts only the sourced floor ("more than 100,000," UNESCO-cited) and flags the 146,000 as uncited-at-source.
• Haida is not a disagreement. Gap Tier 2 and the Extinction Register call Haida critically endangered; this register files the Haida people LIVING TODAY. Endangerment describes the language; the filing describes the people. Both stand.
• Weakest-sourced points in this register (named, per strand discipline): (a) Hawaiian speaker figures — the 2,000 vs 24,000 spread rests on secondary summaries at both ends; a direct US Census / Hawaiʻi state table pull is needed before publication; (b) Ticuna, Emberá, Shuar and Asháninka — single secondary tables, two of them undated; (c) Blackfoot Confederacy 32,000 and Zuni ~10,000 — undated reference totals, printed only beside dated census measures; (d) the Caribbean five (Caquetío, Guanahatabey, Macorix, Ciguayo, Shebayo) rest on a formal list, not on individual last-speaker records — no such records were sourced, and none are invented; (e) US Census 2010 tribal self-identification figures are the last full decennial tribal table this compiler could source for many US peoples — they are a decade and a half old and are dated as such on every line.
• What this register is not. The Gap Examination counts ~870–1,020 still-spoken languages untouched by the programme and ~1,000 attested-and-lost ones. A peoples register of the whole hemisphere at this standard would run to hundreds of lines and years of census work. This register covers every people the programme touches at depth, plus the Tier 3 majors — and names the rest honestly below, rather than pretending completeness.

12. Named in the programme, status not yet sourced

These peoples are named in the programme's knowledge, extinction, practices, doorway or Tier listings. No sourced count or status meeting this register's standard was found in this phase for the individual line — so they are listed here, unsourced on purpose. Inclusion here is a work order, not a verdict.

• Haudenosaunee severally: Seneca · Cayuga · Onondaga · Oneida · Tuscarora (the Confederacy aggregate is sourced in §2; the five individual nations are not, Mohawk excepted by status only)
• Anishinaabe world: the Anishinaabe nations of the Robinson (1850) and Williams (1923) treaty territories named in the knowledge entry
• Dene doorway peoples: Dene Tha' · Dene Zhatıé (South Slavey, status sourced §2-line family but no count) · Dene Kǝdǝ́ (Hare / K'ásho Got'ı̨nę, critically endangered per Gap §2.1) · Tłı̨chǫ (Dogrib) · Michif / Métis language community as distinct from the Métis Nation line in §1
• Alaska / northern: Aleut (Unangax) · Sugpiaq / Alutiiq · Ahtna · Dena'ina · Koyukon and the other Athabaskan peoples in the ANLC table (their language figures are sourced there; their peoples lines are not yet written)
• Southeast / Gulf: Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (separate enrolment not in the GAO 2024 table used here) · Miccosukee · Seminole Tribe of Florida · Chickasaw and Choctaw language communities as distinct from citizen counts
• Plains / Plateau severally: Assiniboine (Nakoda) · Arikara (as a people distinct from the MHA aggregate) · Gros Ventre (Aaniiih) · Salish / Kootenai confederation members severally · Nez Perce (Nimiipuu) · Umatilla · Warm Springs peoples
• Apache severally: Western Apache · Chiricahua · Jicarilla · Lipan · Mescalero (aggregate sourced in §5)
• Rio Grande Pueblos severally: Acoma (a 2000 census self-identification of 4,989 was found but is a quarter-century old — held here rather than printed as current) · Laguna · Taos · Santa Clara · Ohkay Owingeh · Isleta · Jemez · Santo Domingo (Kewa) · San Felipe · Cochiti · Picuris · Pojoaque · Nambé · San Ildefonso · Sandia · Santa Ana · Tesuque · Zia · Ysleta del Sur
• Great Basin severally: the Northern Paiute, Southern Paiute, Western Shoshone and Goshute nations (aggregates sourced in §6)
• Northwest Coast severally: the Coast Salish nations of BC and Washington by name · Squamish · Musqueam · Tsleil-Waututh · Nisga'a · Gitxsan · Heiltsuk · Tsimshian's Canadian nations severally
• California severally: the Yokuts peoples beyond Wukchumni · Miwok peoples · Pomo peoples · the peoples of the Arroyo/Mutsun mission record beyond Mutsun itself
• Mexico / Central America severally: Miskito · Guna · Ngäbe · Bribrí · Cabécar · Maya peoples beyond the seven named in §8 (Ch'ol — 254,715 speakers, INEGI 2020, is the largest omission and first for promotion — with Mazatec 237,212, Totonac 256,344, Huastec/Téenek 168,729, and the remaining Mayan nations: Q'anjob'al, Ixil, Tz'utujil, Poqomchi', Achi, Chuj, Akateko, and the rest of the 22 Guatemalan Maya peoples) · Rarámuri (Tarahumara, 91,554 speakers, INEGI 2020) · Wixárika (Huichol, 60,263, INEGI 2020) · Yaqui is registered in §5
• South America severally: Shipibo-Konibo · Wayuu is registered in §10 · Cofán · Pirahã · Trumai · Waorani · Warao · Aikanã · Andoque · Yuracaré and the remaining Glottolog isolates named in Gap Tier 4 · the Kanoê (named throughout the Akuntsu entry — the people whose warning to FUNAI saved the Akuntsu; their own line is owed) · Ye'kwana (counted inside one Yanomami territory figure in §10, owed a line of their own)
• Programme tracks outside the Americas regions: Kaurna (Australia — dormant → reawakening from the documentary record; equal-standing track per the owner's ruling; recovered witness stands in the programme; a full peoples line belongs in an Australian register, not forced into an Americas region) · Lokono (named on Trinidad in Gap §1.5; a living Arawakan people of the Guianas coast — status not yet sourced at this standard)

Sources

• Alaska Native Language Center (ANLC), University of Alaska Fairbanks — Krauss, Michael E. (2007), "Native languages of Alaska," table (population/speakers by language; Tlingit updated 2013); ANLC language summaries (accessed Oct 2026).
• Alaska Native Language Preservation & Advisory Council — highly-proficient-speaker table, via Alaska Department of Education & Early Development (accessed Oct 2026).
• Associated Press (2026) — via the Akuntsu extinction entry (FUNAI figures, Dec 2025 birth).
• Chile, Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas (INE) — 2017 Census results synthesis (Mapuche 1,745,147); 2024 Census reporting (Mapuche 1,623,073) via reference synthesis (accessed Oct 2026).
• CIA World Factbook (2020 summary of INE Guatemala, 2018 Census) — Guatemala ethnic and language shares (Maya 41.7%; K'iche', Q'eqchi', Kaqchikel, Mam shares).
• Gap Examination — GAP_EXAMINATION_2026-10-27.md, Indigenous Knowledge programme (2026) — tiers, statuses, and programme coverage cited throughout; the consistency authority for this register.
• INEGI (Mexico) — 2020 Census, Indigenous-language speakers aged 3+ by language (Nahuatl 1,651,958; Maya 774,755; Tseltal 589,144; Tsotsil 550,274; Mixtec 526,593; Zapotec 490,845; Otomí 298,861; Purépecha/"Tarasco" 142,459; Mam (Mexico) 11,369; K'iche' (Mexico) 589; Pápago 203), via the 2020 census language table (accessed Oct 2026).
• INEI (Peru) — 2017 National Census language table (Quechua 3,799,780, with the 3,735,682 transcription variant flagged; Aymara 450,010), via census-table transcriptions (accessed Oct 2026).
• Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), Povos Indígenas no Brasil — Yanomami compilations (Brazil 19,420, 2011; 24,603, 2017); Akuntsu/FUNAI record via the extinction entry.
• Minority Rights Group — Garífuna in Honduras profile (43,111 people; UNESCO 2001/2008 proclamation/inscription) (accessed Oct 2026).
• Statistics Canada — 2021 Census: Indigenous identity table (First Nations 1,048,405; Métis 624,220 — printed 624,215 in one Focus table, a further five-person-class variant held with the Inuit flag; Inuit 70,540, Daily text 70,545); The Daily, 21 Sept 2022; ancestry summary (Cree ~250,000; Mi'kmaq 122,000; Ojibway 92,000; Algonquin 56,000); Haida isolates report, 31 Mar 2025 (via extinction entry).
• US Census Bureau — 2010 Census, American Indian and Alaska Native population by selected tribes (Apache 64,869; Blackfeet 23,583; Cheyenne 11,688; Comanche 12,784; Crow 13,258; Iroquois 48,365; Kiowa 9,253; Menominee 7,494; Navajo 308,013 in 2010 — superseded for enrolment by the §5 line; Osage 7,242; Ottawa 7,975; Paiute 13,728; Potawatomi 18,329; Pueblo 59,337; Puget Sound Salish 14,241; Shoshone 8,299; Sioux 131,048; Tohono O'odham 23,313; Ute 8,105; Yakama 8,643; Yaqui 17,714; Chippewa 115,859; Colville 10,081; Inupiat 57,137); 2020 Census (Honolulu County NHPI share); American Community Survey 2019–2023 tribal-area estimates (Hopi 6,377; Zuni 7,461 residents; Jicarilla and Mescalero resident tables).
• US Government Accountability Office — GAO-26-107118, tribal enrolments as reported by the Five Tribes in 2024 (Cherokee Nation ~468,600; Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma ~225,000; Muscogee (Creek) Nation ~102,000; Chickasaw Nation ~81,500; Seminole Nation of Oklahoma ~18,800).
• UNESCO — Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (Northern Haida: Critically Endangered; Hawaiian: Critically Endangered, via cited summaries); Intangible Cultural Heritage inscription, Garífuna language, dance and music (proclaimed 2001, inscribed 2008).
• Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project / Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe — reclamation history (founded 1993; first new native speakers in over a century) (accessed Oct 2026).
• Extinction Register entries (this programme, 2026) — [beothuk.md](beothuk.md), [eyak.md](eyak.md), [yahi.md](yahi.md), [myaamia.md](myaamia.md), [yaghan.md](yaghan.md), [taino.md](taino.md), [akuntsu.md](akuntsu.md), [wukchumni.md](wukchumni.md), [haida.md](haida.md), and [INDEX.md](INDEX.md) — carried by reference, not re-researched.
• Knowledge entries (this programme, 2026) — [anishinaabe.md](../knowledge/anishinaabe.md), [cherokee.md](../knowledge/cherokee.md), [haudenosaunee.md](../knowledge/haudenosaunee.md), [inca.md](../knowledge/inca.md), [inuit.md](../knowledge/inuit.md), [lakota-dakota.md](../knowledge/lakota-dakota.md), [maya.md](../knowledge/maya.md), [mexica.md](../knowledge/mexica.md); practices entry [survival.md](../practices/survival.md).

Compiler's tally (main tables only, §1–§10; verified by count of status lines in the file): 105 peoples registered — EXTINCT 14 · DORMANT / REAWAKENING 11 · LIVING TODAY 80 — plus the closing list in §12, which names roughly 90 further peoples and nations whose individual status is not yet sourced at this register's standard. The tally counts lines, and several lines are honest aggregates (Apache, Rio Grande Pueblos, Coast Salish) whose constituent nations stand in §12 — the register says so on each such line rather than inflating the count.

— Register ends. Every count sourced as found; disagreements printed, not resolved; the unsourced named, not filled in.