[Talk-ca] First Nations reserve naming

[stevea]

I am very aware and sensitive that the USA and Canada are quite different from one another, as are many of these "reservations" and "tribes" (and "bands").  Yet, I am a USA-based OSM contributor who happens to subscribe to talk-ca, so here I am.  And while far from being any sort of expert, I also helped to "ease into" the current transition of tagging these several years ago (with some talk posts, off-list emails, wiki written and consensus forged) with others who wanted to "get this right:"  this can be either the newer boundary=aboriginal_lands or the older (a bit more popular, last time I looked, but things change...) boundary=protected_area + protection_class=24.  Either is fine, though the question here is about the name=* tag.

Scattered across the USA, I see both styles like "Round Valley Indian Reservation," "Yakama Indian Reservation" and "Quinault Reservation" AS WELL AS "Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribes," Muscogee (Creek) Nation" and "Quapaw Tribe."

I agree with John, his (to use the name of the reserve) seems a considered opinion and I lean towards it with him.  However, if a local tribe wishes to name theirs "...Tribe" or "...Nation" I certainly nod my head and do not object.

BTW, if I don't offend anybody by saying so, I find the Canadian choice of phrase "First Nations" to be a "seemingly" more-sensitive and respectful wording (than "Indian Reservation"), although I am told by some Native American friends of mine that all of "Native American" and "Indian" and "Indian Reservation" are acceptable wordings for those entities (in a USA context, anyway).  Some people prefer this or that, but these names / phrases are workable monikers for the people, the tribes, the areas.  It's good to be sensitive to what is "best practice" or "the preferred local choice," and it may come down to "what local people use" in most cases — or maybe even every single case.

If somebody is going around and doing a large number of edits based on something specious, it's likely erroneous and probably should be stopped and reverted.  Again, I think this is a one-at-a-time to consider, case-by-case.

I hope this helps.

> On Dec 2, 2022, at 12:51 AM, john whelan <jwhelan0112 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> My feeling is it should be the name of the reserve.
> 
> Cheerio John
> 
> On Fri, Dec 2, 2022, 1:11 AM Michael Stark, <michael60634 at gmail.com> wrote:
> How should First Nations reserves be named? Is it best to use the name of the reserve, or the name of the group that inhabits the reserve? I've noticed that two mappers changed the names of many reserves across Canada, and even the US, from the name of the reserve to the name of the tribe inhabiting the reserve.