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The terms "native" or "indigenous" are used numerous times in Lost:

  • Both the Hydra and the Arrow orientation films use the term "indigenous" to describe non-DHARMA people already living on The Island
  • In the episode "Confirmed Dead", Frank refers to Juliet as a "native"
  • In the episode "LaFleur", Horace says "There are hostile indigenous people on this island, and we don't get along with them"
  • The document known as "The Truce" (included in the DHARMA Initiative Orientation Kit; not sure if this is canonical) is nominally an agreement between "the DHARMA Initiative and the indigenous island inhabitants"

However, most of the people I remember from The Others were not originally from The Island. Richard arrived on the Black Rock. Ben came because his father worked for DHARMA. Even Dogen was once a successful banker off-island. And Jacob, while he was born on the island, was conceived off-island and carried to The Island while still a fetus.

Are there any known members of The Others who were native to The Island, meaning they were born on-island and potentially their people lived there going back generations - or even just a single generation?

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We don't know but most likely not.

The only individual that is pretty much accepted as an original inhabitant of the island is the woman who raised Jacob and Man in Black and is known as Mother. All other inhabitants are presumed to have been brought to the island through shipwrecks, plane wrecks, etc, and therefore not original inhabitants. Its not known where Mother came from but we do know that she was the original protector of the island so she may have been there for a long time with immortality.

During the time Mother is raising Jacob and MIB, there are other inhabitants of the island, however these are thought to be other survivors of the same shipwreck that Jacob and MIB's birth mother survived before she was murdered by Mother.

The idea that all other inhabitants of the island are not indigenous is supported by the following statement by Mother:

"They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same."

This implies that she has seen other people come to the island and follow the same pattern, hence her disdain for them. She even eventually kills all of them after they are helping MIB dig a well to find the source of the island.

The group known as The Others to the survivors of Oceanic 815 are generally thought to have come from The Black Rock and possibly other groups who came to the island similarly through shipwreck.

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  • Given the devices and remains at the Source, I think we are to infer that Mother was not the original - that something similar to what happens in the series happened before, resulting in Mother (or a predecessor) becoming protector.
    – OrangeDog
    Commented Nov 15, 2018 at 12:22
  • I disagree. There's nothing about the remains that really indicates their origin so all we can really infer is that people have found the source and been killed by it. They could just as easily be from people in the 2000 years after Jacob became the protector.
    – sanpaco
    Commented Nov 16, 2018 at 16:08
  • except Jacob made it so that nobody could find the source. If the plug and related construction didn't already exist when Jacob became protector and was added later, then the MiB would've been freed already.
    – OrangeDog
    Commented Nov 16, 2018 at 16:25
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    Mother was not an original inhabitant of the island. She explicitly said that she came to the island by accident.
    – Keshav Srinivasan
    Commented Dec 13, 2018 at 3:49

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