Indigenous populations are composed of the existing descendants of the peoples who inhabited the present territory of a country wholly or partially at the time when persons of a different culture or ethnic origin arrived there from other parts of the world. Indigenous populations were overcome, by conquest, settlement or other means and reduced them to a non-dominant or colonial condition. Many today live more in conformity with their particular social, economic and cultural customs and traditions than with the institutions of the country of which they now form part and live under a state structure which incorporates mainly national, social and cultural characteristics of other segments of the population which are predominant.
