Native american indians?

[Ulvenok]

There are various made-up races in fantasy and science fiction that are generally assumed to be based on actual peoples. But this is because they have specific, obvious points of cultural similarity. "Lived in harmony with nature" is much too vague to cut it.

I was thinking more of it's geographical location in the world and how it relates to our world. But then again maybe that continent after Valinor was meant to be america in Tolkien's mind. In either case it's fun to speculate, I wonder if the other locations in middle earth stand in some relation to our world map. Then Mordor would be around Israel wouldn't it!