chieftain

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chieftain

the head or leader of a tribe or clan

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

References in periodicals archive ?

They were however, not states but independent tribal chieftainships who constantly fought each other for supremacy.

Socio Political and Economic of Society in Manipur: A Historical Backdrop

Melanesia offers particular advantages for testing such theories in that its societies ranged from largely egalitarian to those involving competitive leadership and hereditary chieftainships.

Violence and warfare in precontact melanesia

Not only did it suffer the loss of its economic base, its agricultural lands, forests, and other natural resources but it also suffered the loss of its political and cultural institutions: its chieftainships, its traditional social structure with its learned classes, secular and ecclesiastical.

Nobility and newcomers in Renaissance Ireland: a Folger Shakespeare Library exhibition

Apart from the stratified Brunei and Iranun coastal societies, indigenous peoples of northern Borneo were classless acephalous societies, not chieftainships. Leadership was determined by individual knowledge and wisdom, and there were no hereditary chiefs.

Bob Reece, ed., 2011. End of an Era. The Borneo Reminiscences of C.F.C Mackaskie, C.M.G

Throughout his reign, Durrani consolidated chieftainships, petty principalities, and fragmented provinces into one country.