A peaceful, rational proto-Vulcan people of Mintaka III who came to worship Jean-Luc Picard as a god after a Federation observation post was exposed.
The Mintakans are humanoids of Mintaka III, a proto-Vulcan species at a Bronze Age level of development. They are rational and peaceful, having long since abandoned belief in the supernatural.
Federation anthropologists observed them from a hidden post. In Who Watches the Watchers, the post's cloaking failed, and a Mintakan named Liko was injured and treated aboard the Enterprise. Seeing Picard there, he concluded he was an all-powerful god, the Picard, and his belief began to spread.
Picard, horrified at the cultural contamination, brought the Mintakan leader Nuria aboard to show that he was mortal. The point was made when Liko shot him with an arrow, and Nuria persuaded her people that the visitors were simply more advanced beings.