The term “Indian” for native North Americans is of course wildly inappropriate, based on a 500-year-old error in geography, but the term is now thoroughly embedded in language and literature. Americans tend to have a provincial viewpoint that “Indians” are limited to the United States. Those with a broader perspective extend the appellation to native Canadians, Mesoamericans, and South Americans.
One of the Moscow photo-centers has held an exhibition called “The Itelmens - Indians of Russia”.
Itelmens are a small ethnic group, who are original inhabitants of the Kamchatka peninsula. Their population today (speaking only of pure-blooded Itelmens) is about 1500. Their name is indeed a Russian-adapted pronunciation of the ethnically correct “itenman” which means “existing” or “living here”.
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