Basic Concepts:
Sociopolitical Typology
Band-Tribe-Chiefdom-State
Sociopolitical Typology
•  Categorization of a culture by the ways in which the members of a
culture interact via power relationships
•  A way of categorizing cultures by their level or type of social and
political complexity; proposed by Elman Service
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Band
Tribe
Chiefdom
State
Sociopolitical Organization:
An Interest of Early Anthropologists
•  Influenced by colonization in India and Africa (e.g., British
colonialists)
•  They asked “How are people ruled without a state?”
•  At home in Europe, they had been experiencing Victorian
Europe and the appearance of the modern nation-state
•  Interested in, e.g., the idea of acephalous societies
(societies ‘without heads/leaders’
Band
•  Small group of politically independent, though
related, households
•  Social relationships based on kinship
•  Least complex form of political organization
–  Perhaps the oldest form as well: implications for
biological anthropology
•  Associated with foraging forms of subsistence
•  Decisions made through consensus
–  The disgruntled members leave
Band
•  No fixed, formal, guaranteed leadership roles;
rather one or a few group members are
informally recognized for their prowess and
competence, and are thus ascribed more
respect by group members
–  These people are typically male, but females have
power as well (often the most successful hunter and
most senior woman)
Band
•  Generally consists of a small group bonded by kinship and marriage,
no larger than 100 people
•  Membership is fluid
•  Formal social institutions are few or non-existent.
•  Often egalitarian (not always), with some sex- and age-based
differences in status
•  Informal leadership, if any
•  Prestige based on ability
•  The older members of the band generally are looked to for guidance
and advice
•  No written laws and none of the specialized coercive roles, e.g.,
police, seen typically in more complex societies.
•  Conflict resolution generally through social means
Band
•  Many known band societies hunt and gather to obtain
their food.
•  All bands are foragers, but not all foragers are bands
(e.g., pacific-living indigenous Americans had a different
form of sociopolitical complexity, even though they
gathered all their foods, e.g., shellfish and acorns)
•  Bands' customs are almost always transmitted orally.
•  Religion is generally based on family tradition, individual
experience, or counsel from a shaman.
Band
•  In his 1972 study, “The Notion of the Tribe,” Morton Fried
defined bands as “small, mobile, and fluid social
formations with weak leadership that do not generate
surpluses, pay no taxes and support no standing army.”
•  With the spread of the modern nation-state to all corners
of the globe, there are very few true band societies left.
Band
•  Some examples include:
–  the Aka foragers of Central Africa (rainforest)
–  the !Kung (also called the Ju/’hoansi or Dobe Ju/’hoansi) of
southern Africa
–  some Inuit (“Eskimo”) groups in Arctic region
–  the Shoshone of the Great Basin in North America
–  some groups of Indigenous Australians
Aka
Aka
Aka
Aka
Aka
Aka
Aka
Aka
Forest
mushrooms
Aka
Aka
Aka
Aka (and Washingtonian)
!Kung
•  The !Kung of South Africa, for example are politically organized as a
band.
•  They live in a dry desert environment
•  Bands are uncentralized and are made up of equals.
•  However they do have a leader that settles disputes and fulfills
ceremonial roles. The !Kung leader is known as the "headman."
•  Despite having a headman, bands still consider their members
equals, and because of this, bands are considered to be egalitarian
societies.
•  They have a small population, usually only being made up of less
than 100 members.
•  Their main way of subsistence is food-foraging. This economic
system requires a band to be mobile, and they maintain a constant
rotation of seasonal territories.
!Kung
!Kung
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrK-XVCwGnI
Inuit
Atanarjuat‐‐great
movie!
Band vs. Tribe I
•  Bands are distinguished from tribes in that tribes are
generally larger, consisting of many families.
•  Tribes have more solid social categories that entail
specific rights and responsibilities, such as a clear
leader, clear gender-based roles, etc.
•  Tribes are also more permanent than bands; a band can
cease to exist if only a small group walks out.
•  Some tribes can be in fact sub-divided into bands.
Tribe
•  Consists of one or more autonomous communities or villages which
may then form alliances
•  May range across a broad territory
•  Members integrated through lineages, clans, age grades, or other
associations, and territory
–  Tribes trade less autonomy for greater security (e.g., food and warfare)
•  Associated with horticulture or herding subsistence strategies
–  greater food production…
•  Greater population density
•  Associated with a need for alliances, which may function for
–  defense or raiding
–  pooling of resources
–  capitalizing on a on a windfall (e.g., seasonally-available fish may be
cooperatively gathered by allied villages)
•  Communities engaging in allied activities return to autonomous
communities after the activity
Tribe
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Members of a tribe typically share a name and a territory (perhaps divided in
some places for horticulture by a particular family, e.g., manioc or tobacco
gardens with the Yanomamo)
Tribes are relatively sedentary, though may move seasonally to accommodate
livestock (e.g., Nuer following water), or periodically to accommodate
horticulture (e.g., Yanomamo moving shabanos when they need a fresh garden
patch or when the shabano deteriorates significantly; see Chagnon text)
Members of a village work together in endeavors like trade, house
construction, warfare, and ceremonial activities
Group decisions are typically made by consensus, but
–  the opinions of headmen and elders are usually respected
–  And these ‘leaders’ may influence consensus through oratory or
demonstrated competence
–  Decisions enforced through
•  withdrawal of cooperation
•  gossip
•  criticism
•  beliefs that anti-social actions cause disease -- witchcraft
Band vs. Tribe II
•  Bands are relatively nomadic, staying in one place, a “camp,” for
roughly days to weeks at a time
•  A tribe is more sedentary, staying in more permanent structures for
roughly months to years
•  Bands rely mostly on wild hunted and gathered foods (though may
trade gathered foods for domesticated foods with neighbors, e.g.,
the Aka)
•  Tribes rely mostly on domesticated plants and animals, in some
cases they may maintain food-foraging techniques to balance out
their diet, e.g., Yanomamo hunting and fishing, and Nuer fishing
•  Examples…
Nuer
Nuer
Building
a
barn
Nuer
Nuer
Yanomamö
Nuer and Yanomamö are both tribes,
but they have different subsistence
practices.
Whereas the Nuer are pastoralists (domestic
cattle herders), the Yanomamö are hunterhorticulturalists (domesticated plants and some
wild plants and animals). However, both
sometimes rely on fish (from the Nile area and
Amazonian rivers, respectively)
Chiefdom
•  Robert L. Carneiro: "An autonomous political unit
comprising a NUMBER of villages or communities under
the permanent control of a paramount chief" (Carneiro
1981: 45)
•  A regional polity in which one or more local groups are
organized under a single ruling individual – the CHIEF –
who is at the head of a ranked hierarchy of people
Chiefdom
•  Chiefdoms are characterized by pervasive inequality of
people and centralization of authority: CLASSES (‘rulers’
and ‘ruled,’ which we do not see in tribes or bands).
•  At least two inherited social classes (elite and
commoner) are present (Ancient Hawaiian chiefdoms
had even more social classes), though social class can
often be changed by extraordinary behavior during an
individual's life.
•  Generally, a single lineage/family of the elite class will be
the ruling elite of the chiefdom, with the greatest
influence, power, and prestige.
•  Kinship is typically an organizing principle, while
marriage, age, and gender can affect one's social status
and role as well
Chiefdom
•  Nobles are clearly distinct from commoners and
do not usually engage in any form of agricultural
production: a clear ranked society
•  The higher members of society consume most of
the goods that are passed up the hierarchy as a
tribute.
•  Reciprocal obligations are fulfilled by the nobles
carrying out rituals that only they can perform.
•  Chiefs may also make symbolic redistributions of
food and other goods.
The Chief
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Chief is high-ranking
A true authority figure with a formal office
A semi-sacred position
Others’ statuses are determined by closeness to chief
Recognized hierarchy linked to chief--hierarchy means
people are ranked or graduated
•  Office of chief often hereditary (passed to son of sister’s
son)
•  Can be partially based on talents
Nana Osei Tutu II
The King of Ashanti
(Africa)
Sri
Sultan
Hamengkubuwono
X
(Indonesia)
Photo credit: G. F. Kojo Arthur
Centre for Indigenous Knowledge Systems
Copyright© PT Sangga Sarana Persada, 1997-2000
Designed by Sangga Web Team
The Chief
•  Chiefs must amass personal wealth to add to power
(tax), then redistribute it as well…
•  He collects and redistributes surplus and labor
•  How does he redistribute it?
–  To people who work for him politically and economically,
helping him maintain power
–  To those who work cooperatively to benefit the group, e.g.,
irrigations, a temple, a palace
–  To warfare/military (to benefit whom?…)
–  To those in need
–  Ultimately,…it’s entirely up to him
Potlatch
•  The potlatch is a festival or ceremony practiced among Indigenous
peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. At these gatherings a family
or hereditary leader hosts guests and hold a feast.
•  The main purpose of the potlatch is the re-distribution and
reciprocity of wealth; marked by distribution of wealth, dance
performances, and other ceremonies.
•  Before the arrival of the Europeans, gifts included storable food
(oolichan [candle fish] oil or dried food), canoes, and, among the
very wealthy, slaves. The influx of manufactured trade goods such
as blankets and sheet copper into the Pacific Northwest caused
inflation in the potlatch in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
•  Some groups used the potlatch as an arena in which highly
competitive contests of status took place.
•  In rare cases, goods were actually destroyed after being received
Potlatch
•  Potlatching was made illegal in Canada and US in the late 1800s,
largely at the urging of missionaries and government agents who
considered it a custom that was seen as wasteful, not part of
"civilized" values.
•  The potlatch was seen as a key target in assimilation policies and
agendas. Missionary William Duncan wrote in 1875 that the potlatch
was “by far the most formidable of all obstacles in the way of Indians
becoming Christians, or even civilized.”
•  Sustaining the customs and culture of their ancestors, indigenous
people now openly hold potlatch to commit to the restoring of their
ancestors' ways and reclaim their birthright.
•  In Papua New Guinea, a potlatch is called a MOKA (see the film
“Ongka’s Big Moka”)
Potlatch
Tlingit (Alaskan coast indigenous culture; matrilineal; hunter-gatherers)
Chiefdom
•  Chiefdoms have been shown by anthropologists and
archaeologists to be a relatively unstable form of social
organization; it is hard to keep these groups together
based, as they often are, on the personal qualities of the
chief.
•  Chiefdoms are prone to cycles of collapse and renewal,
in which tribal units band together, expand in power,
fragment through some form of social stress, and band
together again.
Chiefdom: Hawai’I (wiki it)
State
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•
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The most formal of
political organizations and
is one of the hallmarks of
“civilization”
There are rules and
people follow them
Political power is
centralized in a
government which may
legitimately use force to
regulate the affairs of its
citizens
Maya state map
The Inca
The Nacirema
Trends From Band to State
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more wealth (surplus)
more people (population density)
more sedentism
more inequality and ranking
less reliance on kinship
more internal conflict?
increased power and responsibility to leaders
increased burden to citizens to support political
organization
•  increased use of formal, legal structures for ruling
Warning
•  By the mid-19th century, many anthropologists and other scholars
were using the terms “band-tribe-chiefdom-state” to denote
particular stages in unilineal cultural evolution.
•  That is, younger cultures exist as bands, then change over time
(“evolve”) into more complex categories of sociopolitical complexity
•  Although unilineal cultural evolution is no longer a credible theory,
these terms continue to be used as a sort of technical shorthand in
college courses, documentaries, and popular reference works.
“Evolutionary” Perspectives
on Sociopolitical Categories
•  “Cultural Evolutionism” refers to ways in which cultures changs over
time (this is NOT biological evolution; 2 issues:
–  Is there a consistent pattern of change (i.e., stages of cultural evolution
from band to state)?
–  The derogatory interpretation that the smaller, “less-complex” cultures have
“failed” to “progress”; and, why did they “fail” to become “civilized?
•  Answer: maybe they WANT to live that way and civilization is NOT preferable to
their ways of life!!!
•  Early colonialists felt there was a progression from simple/nasty/brutish/primitive
ways of living, and that small-scale societies should, like them, prefer to be
civilized
•  But, is civilization really preferable? Many hunter-gatherers prefer their
lifestyle, and avoid domesticating plants and animals (e.g., the Aka vs.
the Ngandu)
“Evolutionary” Perspectives
on Sociopolitical Categories
•  “Cultural Evolutionism” refers to ways in which culture
changes over time (this is NOT biological evolution; 2
issues:
–  Is there a consistent pattern of change (i.e., stages of cultural
evolution from band to state)?
–  The derogatory interpretation that the smaller, “less-complex”
cultures have “failed” to “progress”; and, why did they “fail” to
become “civilized?
•  Answer: maybe they WANT to live that way and “civilization” is NOT
preferable to their ways of life!
•  Early colonialists felt there was a progression from simple/nasty/
brutish/primitive Hobbesian ways of living, and that small-scale
societies should, like them, prefer to be civilized
•  But, is civilization really preferable?
“Evolutionary” Perspectives
on Sociopolitical Categories
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But should we entirely throw out the idea that cultures change over time?
What is factual is that cultures do change over time; whether there is a
pattern to this change is still debated among academics,
We know states appeared more recently in time than bands; and we know
there are some associations between sociopolitical complexity and other
factors like subsistence pattern
Note: this is an *EMPIRICAL question: “Is there a pattern, or is it totally
random?” And, clearly, there are some patterns out there. (Empirical means
we can figure out whether something is true via observation, e.g.,
experience and/or experiment)
What anthropologists DO all agree on is that we cannot attach value
judgments to the patterns we see: Don’t be ethnocentric in the effort to
identify patterns!
“Evolutionary” Perspectives
on Sociopolitical Categories
•  One solution some anthropologists have
proposed to separate these issues:
Replace “evolutionary” or “sequential”
perspective with contrast between
uncentralized and centralized political
systems
Bands and Tribes:
Uncentralized political systems
•  Associated with:
–  subsistence level economies such as foraging
–  small, homogeneous populations
–  little social stratification
–  relatively autonomous groups
–  often relatively mobile without strict territorial
boundaries
–  formal leader or organization beyond kinship rare
Chiefdom & State:
Centralized political systems
•  Associated with:
–  intensive agricultural or industrialization
•  technology becomes more complicated
•  labor specialization increases
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large, diverse population
less mobility
opportunity for control of resources appears
appearance of coercive force
male leaders more frequent
political authority is concentrated in a single individual
(chiefdoms) or a body of individuals (the state)
B-T-C-S summary
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Band: no ‘official’ leader, though elders and skilled people are respected;
nomadic; hunting and gathering, egalitarian; move camps: Hadza, Aka; !Kung,
Inuit; very important for bioanthro (cross- and sub-disciplinary) because this is
probably the way we lived while for most of the past two million years.
Tribe: a “headman” (e.g., Didihewa in your text) with authority only within a
single community; horticulture/pastoral and hunting; sedentary; headman has to
work hard to earn his position, e.g., Yanomamö
Chiefdom: a clear “chief” with authority over multiple communities; leadership
can be earned but is often inherited; hierarchy/stratification; social classes
(important); inherited chiefdomship: Hawaiian, many central highland Papua
New Guinean groups; (CAN subsist via foraging--like indigenous North Americans of the Pacific on
acorns and shellfish--but generally tend to have farmed land--the surplus of which go to the chief, who
redistributes that surplus to his benefit); TAX ; politically unstable, in general
•
State: Highly stratified with multiple social CLASSES; multiple, often formalized,
social roles, including a bureaucracy to run it all; authority, including a monopoly
over the use of force (often for suppressing WITHIN-state conflict--civil wars),
over a large territory: Maya, Inca, and Nacirema are examples. Extra state
factor: industrialization