#& essentially erase indigenous people who wouldn't also id as either black/white/hispanic/asian

[undeadcourier]

I have a headcanon that my courier is from a small Islamic town/community near shady sands. I'm not sure whether the ncr would consider them tribals, bc they have a distinct culture outside of that of the mainstream ncr citizens, but they aren't indigenous (iirc the great khans are similar, bc they came from vault dwellers, and I doubt the vault dwellers in question were actually turkic or mongolian given how small that diaspora is). Do you have any thoughts on what a tribal actually is or means in postwar america?

Canonically, Shady Sands was founded by one group of former inhabitants of Vault 15, and other groups from the vault became the Khans, Jackals, and Vipers.

As far as how the label "tribal" is applied in canon, it's not incredibly clear. When Caesar, House, or the NCR speak of "tribals" it's often perjorative, referring to groups they deem uncivilized; more broadly, it's frequently used to refer to any distinct cultural group that lacks formal government and is self-sufficient.

Anthropologically speaking, a tribe is a group linked by social, economic, religious, or blood ties, with a common culture and dialect—which covers a range of post-war societies and could very well encompass the society you described. Of course, there are still certain connotations associated with the terms (especially "tribal") both irl and in the game that you may want to avoid, especially if you're incorporating Islam and potentially MENA/MENASA diaspora.

I don't mean to suggest you wouldn't do your due diligence, and you've obviously given this a lot of thought, but since we're talking about how it relates to canon and the precedents Fallout sets wrt its fictional tribes range from thoughtless to abhorrent, you may prefer to refer to your society by a different term than to adopt the baggage that canon has attached to tribe.

Josh Sawyer has explained that, in Honest Hearts at least, the tribes were meant to be made up of descendents of diverse ethnic backgrounds, and I imagine that was likely the intent in the other games. However (and to his credit, JS owns up to this in the linked post), the end result still played into a lot of Western stereotypes of Indigenous Peoples, particularly Indigenous Peoples of North America.

Of course the problems didn't begin or end with Honest Hearts—from New Vegas' Blackfoots of Arizona (not to be confused with the irl Blackfoot Nation, whose traditional lands comprise what is now Alberta, Canada, and Montana, U.S.) to the Whachutu tribals of Peoria (from Fallout Tactics), whose name is a reference to the fictional African tribe called the Wachootoo from Ace Ventura, there are a ton of examples of how not to handle a topic like this in a culturally sensitive/respectful way.

I'm glad that the dev team at Obsidian is taking criticism of these depictions to heart and involving more sensitivity readers, but unfortunately there's a lot of shit baked into the Fallout canon that anyone making derivative works has to navigate with extreme care.

(Also, I'd love to hear more about your courier and their community!)