late edit: DISCLAIMER: The pictured map is not actually a representation of the territories before colonisation. It’s a hypothetical map of what countries there might have been had the continent not been colonised, thus all the names and borders are fictional and have never existed.
For good actual maps, check out native-land.ca.
Unless I’m remembering middle school wrong, the map seems shy a few hundred tribes.
And many more tribes and communities were outright murdered by colonizers before they could even be documented. There are plenty of tribes that are just lost to time or we know nearly nothing about because they have no surviving members.
Indigenous peoples also don’t necessarily view tribes, nations, etc as rigid categories where you’re either one or the other, no exceptions. That in fact is the European view where you can only be part of one empire and where every empire seeks to capture as much land and resources for themselves as possible. You’ll notice that the native-land.ca map has tons of overlapping territories.
