In most functional languages using list indices are an anti-pattern. Pattern matching and generalized iteration is a much more elegant way to handle most things you would use an index for.

The primitive collection types index at 1, but, as you said, are almost never indexed that way. I'm not sure the motivation as to why, but the fact it feels clunky to use them that way is a benefit, as it raises resistance when you're using them wrong (as indexing them almost always is).