Tribal chief

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A tribal chief, chieftain, or headman is the leader of a tribal society or chiefdom.

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A portrait of a Koli tribal chief of Dahewan in Gujarat, India A Coolie Chieftain.jpg
A portrait of a Koli tribal chief of Dahewan in Gujarat, India

Tribal societies

There is no definition for "tribe".

The concept of tribe is a broadly applied concept, based on tribal concepts of societies of western Afroeurasia.

Tribal societies are sometimes categorized as an intermediate stage between the band society of the Paleolithic stage and civilization with centralized, super-regional government based in cities.[ citation needed ] Anthropologist Elman Service distinguishes two stages of tribal societies: simple societies organized by limited instances of social rank and prestige, and more stratified societies led by chieftains or tribal kings (chiefdoms). Stratified tribal societies led by tribal kings are thought to have flourished from the Neolithic stage into the Iron Age, albeit in competition with urban civilisations and empires beginning in the Bronze Age.[ citation needed ]

In the case of tribal societies of indigenous peoples existing within larger colonial and post-colonial states, tribal chiefs may represent their tribe or ethnicity in a form of self-government.

Chieftain

The most common types are the chairman of a council (usually of "elders") and/or a broader popular assembly in "parliamentary" cultures, the war chief (may be an alternative or additional post in war time), the hereditary chief, and the politically dominant medicineman.

The term is usually distinct from chiefs at lower levels, such as village chief (geographically defined) or clan chief (an essentially genealogical notion). The descriptive "tribal" requires an ethno-cultural identity (racial, linguistic, religious etc.) as well as some political (representative, legislative, executive and/or judicial) expression. In certain situations, and especially in a colonial context, the most powerful member of either a confederation or a federation of such tribal, clan or village chiefs would be referred to as a paramount chief. [1]

History

Arminius, a chieftain of the Germanic Cherusci tribe who defeated three Roman legions in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Arminius1.jpg
Arminius, a chieftain of the Germanic Cherusci tribe who defeated three Roman legions in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.

Classical sources of information about tribal societies are external descriptions such as from Greco-Roman ethnography, which identified societies, surrounding the societies of the ethnographers, as tribal.

States and colonialism, particularly in the last centuries, forced their central governments onto many remaining tribal societies.

In some instances tribes have retained or regained partial self-government and their lifestyles, with Indigenous peoples rights having been fought for and some being secured on state or international levels.

Terms of specific tribal chiefdoms

Americas

Africa

Badge of office of Chief Gambo, Rhodesia c. 1979. Rhodesia-chief-badge.jpg
Badge of office of Chief Gambo, Rhodesia c. 1979.

Oceania and Southeast Asia

Modern states or regions providing an organized form of tribal chiefships

Africa

Botswana

In Botswana, the reigning kgosis of the various tribes are legally empowered to serve as advisers to the government as members of the Ntlo ya Dikgosi, the national House of Chiefs. In addition to this, they also serve as the ex officio chairs of the tribal kgotlas, meetings of all of the members of the tribes, where political and social matters are discussed.

Ghana

The offices and traditional realms of the nanas of Ghana are constitutionally protected by the republican constitution of the country. The chiefs serve as custodians of all traditional lands and the cultures of the traditional areas. They also serve as members of the Ghanaian National House of Chiefs.

Nigeria

Although both the Nigerian traditional rulers and the wider chieftaincy aren't mentioned in Nigeria's current constitution, they derive their powers from various so-called Chiefs laws and are therefore legally recognized. The traditional rulers and select chiefs usually serve as members of each federating state's State Council of Traditional Rulers and Chiefs.

South Africa

Such figures as the king of the Zulu Nation and the rain queen are politically recognized in South Africa because they derive their status, not only from tribal custom, but also from the Traditional Leadership Clause of the country's current constitution. Some of them are members of the National House of Traditional Leaders.

Uganda

The pre-colonial states that existed in what is today Uganda were summarily abolished following independence from Great Britain. However, following constitutional reforms in 1993, a number of them were restored as politically neutral constituencies of the state by the government of Yoweri Museveni. Such figures as the kabaka of Buganda and the omukama of Toro typify the Ugandan chieftaincy class.

Americas

Latin America

El caciquismo is a distorted form of government through which a political leader has total control of a rural society expressed as political clientelism. This concept was most widespread in Latin America in its different periods of history. In Spain and some Latin American countries, the word cacique is used pejoratively to refer to those who hold the power through obscure networks of influence even though this type of fraud is not related to pre-Columbian era civilizations

Bolivia

The Afro-Bolivian people, a recognized ethnic constituency of Bolivia, are led by a king whose title is also recognized by the Bolivian government.

Canada

The band is the fundamental unit of governance among the First Nations in Canada (formerly called "Indians"). Most bands have elected chiefs, either directly elected by all members of the band, or indirectly by the band council, these chiefs are recognized by the Canadian state under the terms of the Indian Act. As well, there may be traditional hereditary or charismatic chiefs, who are usually not part of the Indian Act-sanctioned formal government. There were 614 bands in Canada in 2012. [7] There is also a national organization, the Assembly of First Nations, which elects a "national chief" to act as spokesperson of all First Nations bands in Canada.

United States

Historical cultural differences between tribes

Generally, a tribe or nation is considered to be part of an ethnic group, usually sharing cultural values. For example, the forest-dwelling Chippewa historically built dwellings from the bark of trees. On the Great Plains, where trees were rare, some tribes typically dwelt in skin-covered tipis, usually acquiring the lodgepoles by trade, while other Plains tribes, such as the Pawnee, built their lodges of earth. The Pueblo people of the Southwest built their dwellings of stone and earth.

Political power in a tribe

A chief might be considered to hold all political power, say by oratory or by example. But on the North American continent, it was historically possible to evade the political power of another by migration. The Mingos, for example, were Iroquois who migrated further west to the sparsely populated Ohio Country during the 18th century. Two Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois, Hiawatha and the Great Peacemaker, formulated a constitution for the Iroquois Confederation.

The tribes were pacified by units of the United States Army in the nineteenth century, and were also subject to forced schooling in the decades afterward. Thus, it is uncommon for today's tribes to have a purely Native American cultural background, and today Native Americans are in many ways simply another ethnicity of the secular American people. Because formal education is now respected, some like Peter MacDonald, a Navajo, left their jobs in the mainstream U.S. economy to become chairpeople of their tribal councils or similar self-government institutions.

Not all tribal leaders are or were men. Wilma Mankiller was a well-known chief of the Cherokee Nation. Also, the chief may not free to wield power without the consent of a council of elders of some kind. For example: Cherokee men were not permitted to go to war without the consent of the council of women.

Historically, the U.S. government treated tribes as seats of political power, and made treaties with the tribes as legal entities. Be that as it may, the territory of these tribes fell under the authority of the Bureau of Indian Affairs as reservations held in trust for the tribes. Citizenship was formerly considered a tribal matter. For example, it was not until 1924 that the Pueblo people were granted U.S. citizenship, and it was not until 1948 that the Puebloans were granted the right to vote in state elections in New Mexico. In Wisconsin, the Menominee has its own county Menominee County, Wisconsin with special car license plates; 87% of the county's population is Native American.

Mainstream Americans often find pride and comfort in realizing that at least part of their ethnic ancestry is Native American, although the connection is usually only sentimental and not economic or cultural. Thus, there is some political power in one's ability to claim a Native American connection (as in the Black Seminole).[ citation needed ]

Economic power in a tribe

Because the Nations were sovereign, with treaty rights and obligations, the Wisconsin tribes innovated Indian gaming in 1988, [8] that is, on-reservation gambling casinos, which have since become a US$14 billion industry nationwide. This has been imitated in many of the respective states that still have indigenous American tribes. The money that this generates has engendered some political scandal. For example, the Tigua tribe, which fled their ancestral lands in New Mexico during the Pueblo revolt of 1680, and who then settled on land in El Paso County, Texas, has paid [9] for a low probable return to the tribe because of the Jack Abramoff publicity.

Many of the tribes use professional management for their money. Thus, the Mescalero Apache renovated their Inn of the Mountain Gods to include gambling as well as the previous tourism, lodging, and skiing in the older Inn.

The Navajo nation defeated bids to open casinos in 1994, but by 2004 the Shiprock casino was a fait accompli .

Asia

Arabia

Arabs, in particular peninsular Arabs, nomadic Bedouins and many Iraqis and Syrians, are largely organized in tribes, many of whom have official representatives in governments. Tribal chiefs are known as sheikhs, though this term is also sometimes applied as an honorific title to spiritual leaders of Sufism.

Philippines

Apo Rodolfo Aguilar (Kudol I) serves as the chieftain of the Tagbanwa tribes people living in Banuang Daan and Cabugao settlements in Coron Island, Palawan, Philippines. His position is recognized by the Filipino government.

Oceania

The Solomon Islands have a Local Court Act which empowers chiefs to deal with crimes in their communities, thus assuring them of considerable effective authority.

See also

Explanatory notes

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tribe</span> Human social group

The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. Its definition is contested, in part due to conflicting theoretical understandings of social and kinship structures, and also reflecting the problematic application of this concept to extremely diverse human societies. The concept is often contrasted by anthropologists with other social and kinship groups, being hierarchically larger than a lineage or clan, but smaller than a chiefdom, ethnicity, nation or state. These terms are similarly disputed. In some cases tribes have legal recognition and some degree of political autonomy from national or federal government, but this legalistic usage of the term may conflict with anthropological definitions.

A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, a clan may claim descent from a founding member or apical ancestor who serves as a symbol of the clan's unity. Clans, in indigenous societies, were not endogamous: their members could not marry one another.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cowlitz people</span> Two distinct indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest

The term Cowlitz people covers two culturally and linguistically distinct indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest; the Lower Cowlitz or Cowlitz proper, and the Upper Cowlitz / Cowlitz Klickitat or Taitnapam. Lower Cowlitz refers to a southwestern Coast Salish people, which today are enrolled in the federally recognized tribes: Cowlitz Indian Tribe, Quinault Indian Nation, and Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation. The Upper Cowlitz or Taitnapam, is a Northwest Sahaptin speaking people, part of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chinookan peoples</span> Group of Indigenous people in the Pacific Northwest

Chinookan peoples include several groups of Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest in the United States who speak the Chinookan languages. Since at least 4000 BCE Chinookan peoples have resided along the upper and Middle Columbia River (Wimahl) from the river's gorge downstream (west) to the river's mouth, and along adjacent portions of the coasts, from Tillamook Head of present-day Oregon in the south, north to Willapa Bay in southwest Washington. In 1805 the Lewis and Clark Expedition encountered the Chinook Tribe on the lower Columbia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jicarilla Apache</span> Ethnic group of Native Americans

Jicarilla Apache, one of several loosely organized autonomous bands of the Eastern Apache, refers to the members of the Jicarilla Apache Nation currently living in New Mexico and speaking a Southern Athabaskan language. The term jicarilla comes from Mexican Spanish meaning "little basket", referring to the small sealed baskets they used as drinking vessels. To neighboring Apache bands, such as the Mescalero and Lipan, they were known as Kinya-Inde.

A chiefdom is a political organization of people represented or governed by a chief. Chiefdoms have been discussed, depending on their scope, as a stateless, state analogue or early state system or institution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blood quantum laws</span> American laws of race

Blood quantum laws or Indian blood laws are laws in the United States that define Native American status by fractions of Native American ancestry. These laws were enacted by the federal government and state governments as a way to establish legally defined racial population groups. By contrast, many tribes do not include blood quantum as part of their own enrollment criteria. Blood quantum laws were first imposed by white settlers in the 18th century. Blood Quantum (BQ) is a very controversial topic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians</span> Federally recognized tribe based in Oklahoma

The United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma is a federally recognized tribe of Cherokee Native Americans headquartered in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. According to the UKB website, its members are mostly descendants of "Old Settlers" or "Western Cherokees," those Cherokees who migrated from the Southeast to present-day Arkansas and Oklahoma around 1817. Some reports estimate that Old Settlers began migrating west by 1800, before the forced relocation of Cherokees by the United States in the late 1830s under the Indian Removal Act.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wetʼsuwetʼen</span> First Nations people of British Columbia, Canada

The Wetʼsuwetʼen are a First Nation who live on the Bulkley River and around Burns Lake, Broman Lake, and François Lake in the northwestern Central Interior of British Columbia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ysleta del Sur Pueblo</span> El Paso in the United States

Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, also Tigua Pueblo, is a Native American Pueblo and federally recognized tribe in the Ysleta section of El Paso, Texas. Its members are Southern Tiwa people who had been displaced from Spanish New Mexico from 1680 to 1681 during the Pueblo Revolt against the Spaniards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon</span> Federally recognized Indian tribe in Oregon, United States

The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon (CTGR) is a federally recognized tribe of Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau. They consist of at least 27 Native American tribes with long historical ties to present-day western Oregon between the western boundary of the Oregon Coast and the eastern boundary of the Cascade Range, and the northern boundary of southwestern Washington and the southern boundary of northern California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pamunkey</span> Indigenous tribe

The Pamunkey Indian Tribe is one of 11 Virginia Indian tribal governments recognized by the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the state's first federally recognized tribe, receiving its status in January 2016. Six other Virginia tribal governments, the Chickahominy, the Eastern Chickahominy, the Upper Mattaponi, the Rappahannock, the Monacan, and the Nansemond, were similarly recognized through the passage of the Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act of 2017 on January 12, 2018. The historical people were part of the Powhatan paramountcy, made up of Algonquian-speaking nations. The Powhatan paramount chiefdom was made up of over 30 nations, estimated to total about 10,000–15,000 people at the time the English arrived in 1607. The Pamunkey nation made up about one-tenth to one-fifteenth of the total, as they numbered about 1,000 persons in 1607.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pueblo of Isleta</span> Unincorporated community and Tanoan pueblo in New Mexico, US

Pueblo of Isleta is an unincorporated community and Tanoan pueblo in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, United States, originally established in the c. 14th century. The Southern Tiwa name of the pueblo is Shiewhibak (Shee-eh-whíb-bak) meaning "a knife laid on the ground to play whib", a traditional footrace. Its people are a federally recognized tribe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chickasaw Nation</span> Native American tribe based in Oklahoma

The Chickasaw Nation is a federally recognized Native American tribe with headquarters in Ada, Oklahoma, in the United States. They are an Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, originally from northern Mississippi, northwestern Alabama, southwestern Kentucky, and western Tennessee. Today, the Chickasaw Nation is the 13th largest tribe in the United States.

The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians in the United States is a federally recognized confederation of more than 27 Native American tribes and bands who once inhabited an extensive homeland of more than 20 million acres from northern California to southwest Washington and between the summit of the Cascades and the Pacific Ocean. After the Rogue River Wars, these tribes were removed to the Coast Indian Reservation, now known as the Siletz Reservation. The tribes spoke at least 11 distinct languages, including Tillamook, Shasta, Lower Chinook, Kalapuya, Takelma, Alsea-Yaquina, Siuslaw/Lower Umpqua, Coos, the Plateau Penutian languages Molala and Klickitat, and several related Oregon Athabaskan languages.

In Canada, an Indian band, First Nation band or simply band, is the basic unit of government for those peoples subject to the Indian Act. Bands are typically small groups of people: the largest in the country, the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation had 22,294 members in September 2005, and many have a membership below 100 people. Each First Nation is typically represented by a band council chaired by an elected chief, and sometimes also a hereditary chief. As of 2013, there were 614 bands in Canada. Membership in a band is controlled in one of two ways: for most bands, membership is obtained by becoming listed on the Indian Register maintained by the government. As of 2013, there were 253 First Nations which had their own membership criteria, so that not all status Indians are members of a band.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians</span> Ethnic group

The Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians is a federally recognized Native American tribe of Odawa. A large percentage of the more than 4000 tribal members continue to reside within the tribe's traditional homelands on the northwestern shores of the state of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. The historically delineated reservation area, located at 45°21′12″N84°58′41″W, encompasses approximately 336 square miles (870 km2) of land in Charlevoix and Emmet counties. The largest communities within the reservation boundaries are Harbor Springs, where the tribal offices are located; Petoskey, where the Tribe operates the Odawa Casino Resort; and Charlevoix.

The Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians of Michigan is a federally recognized tribe of Potawatomi people in Michigan named for a 19th-century Ojibwe chief. They were formerly known as the Gun Lake Band of Grand River Ottawa Indians, the United Nation of Chippewa, Ottawa and Pottawatomi Indians of Michigan, Inc., and the Gun Lake Tribe or Gun Lake Band. They are headquartered in Bradley, Michigan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kuteb people</span> West African ethnic group

Genesis sanda from Takum LGA taraba state

References

  1. ↑ Service, Elman R (1976). Primitive Social Organization: An Evolutionary Perspective . Chicago, IL: Random House. ISBN   0394316355. OCLC   974107713.
  2. ↑ The Popular Science Monthly. Original from Harvard University: Published 1889 D. Appleton. 1889. p.  260. tyee Chinook.
  3. ↑ Gibbs, George (1863). A Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, Or, Trade Language of Oregon. Cramoisy Press. p.  28. tyee Chinook.
  4. ↑ "Okudzeto, 13 others appointed by Akufo-Addo to Council of State". GhanaWeb. 14 February 2017. Retrieved 23 May 2023.
  5. ↑ Marsh, Kelly G. (October 14, 2020). "Maga'låhi: Highest Ranking Son". Guampedia. Retrieved 10 March 2021.
  6. ↑ Marsh, Kelly G. (October 14, 2020). "Maga'håga: Highest Ranking Daughter". Guampedia. Retrieved 10 March 2021.
  7. ↑ Frequently Asked Questions About Aboriginal Peoples Archived 2013-09-22 at the Wayback Machine . Aadnc-aandc.gc.ca (2010-09-15). Retrieved on 2013-07-28.
  8. ↑ "JS Online: Tribal casino dispute heats up". Dec 31, 2005. Archived from the original on December 31, 2005. Retrieved Jul 16, 2020.
  9. ↑ Myers, Lisa (2005-04-20). "4.2 million dollars in political contributions in Texas". NBC News. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved 2012-03-08.
  10. ↑ "Why is Roman Reigns Called the Tribal Chief?". 29 March 2022.
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