tribe

tribe [Lat., tribus: the tripartite division of Romans into Latins, Sabines, and Etruscans], a social group bound by common ancestry and ties of consanguinity and affinity; a common language and territory; and characterized by a political and economic organization intermediate between small, family-based bands, and larger chiefdoms. Some anthropologists believe that tribes developed when more stable and increased economic productivity, brought on by the domestication of plants and animals, allowed more people to live together in a smaller area. A tribe may consist of several villages, which may be cross-cut by clans, age grade associations, and secret societies; each of these cross-cutting institutions may, at different times and in different ways, perform economic, political, legal, and religious functions. Tribes are popularly believed to be close-knit and parochial, but some anthropologists now argue that they are flexibly defined communities of convenience. They have observed that there has been as much marriage between tribes as within, that members of many tribes may speak the same language and that members of any one tribe may speak different languages, and finally that all members of a given tribe rarely—if ever—unite in any important political or economic activity. Anthropologists have noted that every known tribe has been in contact with states, and suggest that tribal institutions may be adaptations to the greater state power, or direct consequences of the activities of states.

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tribe

Any of a variety of social units, including some defined by unilineal descent and some defined by ethnic origin. Cultural anthropologists now usually apply the term to a unit of social organization that is culturally homogeneous and consists of multiple kinship groups—such as the family, lineage, or clan—that prohibit marriages within themselves but endorse or require marriages with persons of the other kinship groups. (See exogamy and endogamy.) Most tribes are organized as unitary political entities, within which people share a common language and culture. Some tribes are spread across large territories, and individual members may never meet or know all of the others. Some are small groups, confined to a limited territory, sometimes a single small island, within which everyone knows everyone else very well. What unites societies of such diverse scales as being “tribal” is their own internal sense of “being a single people,” but—anthropologists would add—a people that lacks the equipment of citizenship, a constitution, or a formalized legal system that would define them as a nation-state. Throughout most of the history of modern cultural anthropology, the terms tribe and primitive were usually linked; however, in recent years primitive has been avoided by most anthropologists because it appears to carry with it an unintended judgment of the moral or technological development of a people. See also ethnic group.

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tribe

(Greek, phylai; Roman, tribus) In ancient Greece and Rome, any of a group of political and demographic subdivisions of the population. In Greece the groups divided into tribes were distinct by location, dialect, and tradition, and they included the Ionians, Dorians, Achaeans, and Aetolians. In Attica, Cleisthenes replaced the 4 Ionian tribes with 10 new tribes, each of which was named after a local hero; these came to develop political and civic functions, including the election of magistrates. The demes developed out of the tribal system. In Rome the tribes formed the 3 (later 4, and still later 35) original divisions of Roman citizens. These were the basis of military levies, property tax, census taking, and voting units in political assemblies.

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tribe

1. a social division of a people, esp of a preliterate people, defined in terms of common descent, territory, culture, etc.

2. an ethnic or ancestral division of ancient cultures, esp of one of the following

a. any of the three divisions of the ancient Romans, the Latins, Sabines, and Etruscans

b. one of the later political divisions of the Roman people

c. any of the 12 divisions of ancient Israel, each of which was named after and believed to be descended from one of the 12 patriarchs

d. a phyle of ancient Greece

3. Biology a taxonomic group that is a subdivision of a subfamily