Tribes

By: Keenan L.

Tribes are now a days one of the biggest topics studied all through out Anthropology.  What makes them so interesting is there clash with modernized everyday life for most of us.  The reason that I know this because the word “Tribe” comes from the Latin root word tribes, which means not technologically advanced.  The theory of tribes is that they are secondary in evolution from a complex society.  So basically they are all the minorities of a complex society and they all come together to form a tribe.

 A tribe is a food producing society that depends on the limited domestication of plants and animals.  There are three different types of tribes.  The first is Horticultural tribes; this is a tribe that uses a non-mechanical technology to cultivate plants as their food. 

A very widely known and popular method of the Horticulture is the Slash-and-burn method.  Although it takes up a lot of land when performed it is a good way to grow healthy thick crops for a food source.  It begins when the men of the tribe start clearing giant tracks of land and setting fire to the brush that has fallen.  The burned vegetation and ashes remain, all the nutrients from them are unlocked and sink into the soil then, various crops are planted (in most cases the women and children spend a lot of time tending and weeding the gardens).  The crops can stay lavish and full for three to fifteen years.  After the land is worn and crops do not grow well on it the tribe gathers all of their things and moves to a new track of land to start all over.  The second type of tribe are Pastoralists, these types of tribes specialize in hunting domestic animals, and in some cases farm them for easy eating. 

The roles of male and females in a tribe are very important to know.  The males are the dominant ones in a tribe.  The males are also in charge of hunting and doing more of the tribe wide duties.  As for the woman and children they usually just gather food and take care of the living quarters or space for the man and themselves.  Women, when married, do not have a choice of who they will marry.  When a woman is married it is usually to a man of another tribe to keep tribal alliances or even an exchange of land is arranged.  A man’s land ownership in the tribe is constituted by his roll or job in the tribe, and also their social web-link in the community.  Usually when a tribal war occurs it is usually because of landowner confusion and dispute.