Facts about Tribes

Archaeologists have explored the development of pre-state tribes.

Sometimes the different language groups are called tribes, although it can be very difficult to distinguish between different languages and dialects of a single language.

Conversely, a "nation" can be considered to be composed of tribes.

The "Twin City Liner" boat service connects Vienna and Bratislava.

Frequently, however, the territory of the tribes fell under the authority of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) as reservations held in trust for the tribes.

Historically the US government treated tribes as seats of political power, and made treaties with the tribes as legal entities.

Fried, however, proposed that most contemporary tribes do not have their origin in pre-state tribes, but rather in pre-state bands.

Similarly, he provided examples of tribes where people followed different political leaders, or followed the same leaders as members of other tribes.

Sometimes smaller communities are referred to as tribes, and other times many communities are included in the same "tribe."

The so-called "scheduled" tribes of the United States or of British India provide good examples of this.

One possibility is that states could set up "secondary" tribes as means to extend administrative and economic influence in their hinterland, where direct political control costs too much.

Tribes have more social institutions and clearly defined leadership such as a "chief," or "elder."

Considerable effort was expended over the course of the Holocaust to find increasingly efficient means of killing more people.

Tribes also privilege primordial social ties, are clearly bounded, homogeneous, parochial, and stable.

Many tribes are in fact sub-divided into bands; in the United States, some tribes are made up of official bands that live in specific locations.

Two of the more studied tribes are the Baka and the Mbuti (who were the subject of the well known book The Forest People (1962) by Colin Turnbull.

The Indo-Aryan tribes mentioned in the Rigveda are described as semi-nomadic pastoralists, subdivided into villages (vish) and headed by a tribal chief (raja) and administered by a priestly caste.

The Judahites were not among the "lost" ten tribes of the northern Kingdom of Israel when it fell to the Assyrians in 722 B.C.E.

The Twelve Tribes of Israel are a famous early example from biblical history.

Such "secondary" tribes, he suggested, actually came about as modern products of state expansion.

The United States recognizes the right of these tribes to self-government and supports their tribal sovereignty and self-determination.

Bands are distinguished from tribes in that tribes are generally larger, consisting of many families.

Clans can be most easily described as sub-groups of tribes and usually constitute groups of 7,000 to 10,000 people.

Such tribes were either destroyed by the more powerful nation-states, such as Ancient Rome, or were more peacefully subsumed into new or existing kingdoms.

According to the Torah, after the civil war in the time of Solomon's son Rehoboam, ten tribes split off to create the northern kingdom of Israel.

Some of this debate stems from perceived differences between pre-state tribes and contemporary tribes; some of this debate reflects more general controversy over cultural evolution and colonialism.

Before French colonization in the early nineteenth century, the Tuareg were organized into loose confederations, each consisting of a dozen or so tribes.

Limitations on tribal powers of self-government include the same limitations applicable to states; for example, neither tribes nor states have the power to make war, engage in foreign relations, or coin money.

Tribes are also more permanent than bands; a band can cease to exist if only a small group walks out.

The families and their descendants of these twelve sons comprise the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

Fried argued that through encounters with an expanding state, bands could form tribes in one of two ways.