The tribe as a sociopolitical unit

Essays on the Problem of Tribe. Proceedings of the 1967 Annual Spring Meeting of the American Ethnological Society. • Published In • Pages: 120-149 •
By Cohen, Ronald, Schlegel, Alice, Felt, Lawrence W., Carlson, Earle

Abstract

Samples

Sample Used Coded Data Comment
Ethnographic Reports

Hypotheses (9)

HypothesisSupported
"Non-chief societies are smaller, on the average, than chieftancies" (136)Supported
". . . several criteria can be seen as 'constants' for chieftancies. These are (a) authority over redistribution . . . (b) recruitment of political followers by territorial membership . . . (c) and (d) authority of top leadership over adjudication and administration . . . and (e) claims to leadership which do not involve any conflict over legitimacy . . ." (138)Supported
". . . recruitment of followers through kinship . . . [and] through faction . . . [are] closely associated with the nomadic/transhumant societies . . ." (139)Supported
". . . recruitment of leadership through council election . . . is . . . associated primarily with small sedentary societies" (139)Supported
"Homogeneous settlement is associated with the non-chief group while differential consumption [patterns] and incorporation [through warfare] are associated with the 'chief' group of societies" (139)Supported
"Permanent alliances [were] most often associated with chieftancies and nomadic/transhumant polities, but not with sedentary non-chief ones" (140)Supported
"Storable surplus . . . [is] associated with an increasing scale of political authority and sedentary life" (140)Supported
"Exchange at the community level was associated with half of the chieftancies and about one-quarter of the sedentary non-chieftancies. . . . No non-sedentary groups exhibited exchange at the community level" (142)Supported
". . . non-chief, sedentary societies . . . have clan exogamy. . . . Nomadic and transhumant societies did not. . . . Among the chieftancies, clan exogamy was split . . ." (142)Supported
Documents and Hypotheses Filed By: mas