interestingly, on the general topic of Native Americans/American Indians/preferred generic term for indigenous peoples of North, Central and South America- my friend (from Northern Mexico) told me about something he found on the Internet which talks about the similarities between pre-Columbian Mayan culture and ancient Chinese culture. There's a 7th century Chinese account from a Buddhist missionary called Hoei Shin or Hui Shin of a country he'd been to, east of Siberia, which matches descriptions of ancient Mexico, with a few snags (probably due to distortion of what he actually saw, or based on stories he might have heard from people he met).