indigenous

[Mark A. Mandel]

I have assumed that this usage means "the people who were found there by
the first outside explorers that we know about", "we" being something like
"modern civilization" or "participants of technological European-derived
culture". Please, no flames! I'm just trying to get a fix on what is meant
here.

When I was in high school (NYC early sixties) some of my peers misused
"native" as a noun for something like "primitive, savage [person]". They
probably knew the word mostly from lines like "The natives are restless
tonight" and generalized from that.

-- Mark A. Mandel