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    Bands, Tribes, Chiefdom, State and Nation

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    Nath Bongalon
    This document defines and provides brief overviews of different types of political structures: bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states. It explains that bands are small, nomadic groups without formal leadership that are egalitarian societies. Tribes are larger than bands and consist of multiple kin or non-kin groups linked by a common culture, also without formal leadership. Chiefdoms have a chief who holds power over multiple community groups, are not egalitarian, practice redistribution of goods, and chiefs have mana or supernatural power to rule.

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    Bands, Tribes, Chiefdom, State and Nation

    Uploaded by

    Nath Bongalon
    1K views2 pages
    This document defines and provides brief overviews of different types of political structures: bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states. It explains that bands are small, nomadic groups without formal leadership that are egalitarian societies. Tribes are larger than bands and consist of multiple kin or non-kin groups linked by a common culture, also without formal leadership. Chiefdoms have a chief who holds power over multiple community groups, are not egalitarian, practice redistribution of goods, and chiefs have mana or supernatural power to rule.

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    This document defines and provides brief overviews of different types of political structures: bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states. It explains that bands are small, nomadic groups without formal leadership that are egalitarian societies. Tribes are larger than bands and consist of multiple kin or non-kin groups linked by a common culture, also without formal leadership. Chiefdoms have a chief who holds power over multiple community groups, are not egalitarian, practice redistribution of goods, and chiefs have mana or supernatural power to rule.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    1K views2 pages

    Bands, Tribes, Chiefdom, State and Nation

    Uploaded by

    Nath Bongalon
    This document defines and provides brief overviews of different types of political structures: bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states. It explains that bands are small, nomadic groups without formal leadership that are egalitarian societies. Tribes are larger than bands and consist of multiple kin or non-kin groups linked by a common culture, also without formal leadership. Chiefdoms have a chief who holds power over multiple community groups, are not egalitarian, practice redistribution of goods, and chiefs have mana or supernatural power to rule.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    This lesson will seek to explain the different social structures that exist across the globe.

    In doing so,
    it will highlight bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states. It will also define mana and redistribution.

    Types of Political Structures


    My daughter's social studies class is studying the political structures of our society. In doing this, my
    little one has brought home all sorts of coloring papers with words like town, county, state, and
    country peppered all over them. However, if my family and I lived outside the industrialized West,
    these words might be replaced with words like band, tribe, chiefdom, or even state. Now, although
    many of these words are familiar to our ears, not many of us can readily distinguish between them.
    Today's lesson will seek to remedy this as we discuss each of them, giving just a brief overview of
    each.

    Bands
    Usually being the smallest of the four, bands are where we'll start. A band is usually a very small,
    oftentimes nomadic group that is connected by family ties and is politically independent.
    With nomadic meaning moving from place to place, usually in search of food, bands are most often
    made up of hunter-gatherers.
    Due to their small size and their tendency to move around, bands usually have little to no formal
    leadership. In other words, when to move and when to stay is usually based on group consensus
    rather than one governing official calling the shots. With this, bands are usually referred to as
    being egalitarian societies, societies in which all persons of the same age and gender are seen as
    equals. Now notice, this doesn't mean that men and women are always equal, it more means that
    men are equal to men and women are equal to women.

    Tribes
    With this, we sort of move up the non-industrialized political ladder to tribes. Speaking technically,
    a tribe is a combination of smaller kin or non-kin groups, linked by a common culture, that usually
    act as one.
    Sort of multi-grouped and usually bigger than bands, tribes tend to contain communities that are a bit
    larger. Many social scientists assert that this is because rather than just being hunter-gatherers,
    tribes often dabble in agriculture and herding, making it easier to support a larger yet still rather
    small population. However, similar to bands, and very unlike the old cowboy movies that show a
    bunch of warriors surrounding a chief, most tribes have no formal leadership. Instead, they, too, are
    egalitarian in nature.
    However, this is a great segue into our next topic, chiefdoms. A chiefdom is a political unit headed
    by a chief, who holds power over more than one community group. With more than one community
    involved, chiefdoms are usually more densely populated. Also, as the name chief implies, chiefdoms
    are not egalitarian but instead have social rank, with the chief and his family holding power.
    Since chiefs are usually chosen by heredity, this usually gives his family and their inner circle the
    reigns to power. In fact, many chiefdoms practice redistribution, in which goods are accumulated
    by one central person or power, who then decides how to allocate them among the people.
    Adding to this, many chiefdoms believe their chiefs are endowed with mana, a supernatural power
    that gives the right to rule. However, despite this powerful force, chiefdoms usually have no form of
    bureaucracy or written laws that help support the chief. For this, we need to move onto our last term,
    states.

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