My country was founded on the idea of basically killing Frenchmen for sport and doing cross-country hikes through Belgium. That doesn't mean it's still a good idea.
It does sound like a jolly good time though.
Hm, not sure what I should use then...
For the group as a whole, just say "Indian", it's common parlance. Or whatever, it doesn't really matter because
I haven't met with any Amerindian in real life.
Chances are you're not going to offend anybody regardless of what term you use.
If you do want to be respectful though, try using the actual correct name for the nation or ethnocultural group in question instead of lumping them all together. In this case the relevant group are Moapa (tribe/nation) Paiutes (ethnocultural group).
Well, for me, it's largely not knowing what people prefer and Native American (or Native Peoples) when referring to indian peoples in general is the most neutral term, I believe.
It's one of those things that doesn't really matter. Even if it's more or less neutral, which is debateable, the difference is pretty inconsequential compared to denying the diversity of an entire continent's worth of largely unrelated groups.
It's not that I haven't had some exposure to Native American cultures and, well, honestly, I'm, well, I don't know how to explain it, just out of not having met and personally known anybody who is Amerindian.
Then why are you concerned about trying to be politically correct in the first place? If you're ignorant, trying to appear tolerant and understanding is simply patronizing and deceptive.
Nobody on the net that I've known to be Native American have complained about using the term, so...
Why would they? If people brought up everything that a member of a majority group says that's well-intentioned but patronizing, what good would come of it?
Point taken, though I thought using the word Indian was generally insulting, which is why I was correcting it. It's incorrect anyway because it arose from Christopher Columbus thinking he was in or near India.
It's only used for India because of the Indus river which has no real relation to southern or eastern parts of the country. Just like white people are often called "Caucasian" despite not having anything really to do with the Caucasus Range. It's just a name, it's common parlance so who cares? The reason I think some people find "Native American" to be more offensive is that you're already going out of your way to say something unusual, but since it doesn't actually address the main functional problem of the common term (lumping a whole ton of unrelated cultures and societies together) it only serves to let you feel self-righteous about it.
I'm afraid I'm going to need a little more basis than one post on the internet before I change my mind about that.
What, that a children's rhyme is wrong? Columbus obviously couldn't steal much by 1493 because he only had a few ships' worth of people with him. And even going out from that, the actions of Spain were more of a traditional conquest and military engagement without the large-scale genocide and displacement of French and English colonization. The Spanish were coming off of having to populate the Canaries so they understood the value of local people, and while they were not that good about preserving local cultures, this really was only the case when those cultures were associated with religious values. The primary missions were to save the people of the New World from damnation and to extract gold, not to take land. Columbus didn't really do any of this though, while he didn't exactly treat the local people with the highest respect, it was pretty standard for what happens when different cultures meet and he's mostly demonized for the things that followed in his wake rather than his actual actions.