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Chiefdom
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A chiefdom is a type of complex society of varying degrees of centralization that is led by an individual known as a chief.
In anthropological theory, one model of human social development rooted in ideas of cultural evolution describes a chiefdom as a form of social organization more complex than a tribe or a band society, and less complex than a state or a civilization. The most succinct (but still working) definition of a chiefdom in anthropology belongs to 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).
Chiefdoms are characterized by pervasive inequality of people and centralization of authority.
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A chiefdom is a type of complex society of varying degrees of centralization that is led by an individual known as a chief.
In anthropological theory, one model of human social development rooted in ideas of cultural evolution describes a chiefdom as a form of social organization more complex than a tribe or a band society, and less complex than a state or a civilization. The most succinct (but still working) definition of a chiefdom in anthropology belongs to 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).
Chiefdoms are characterized by pervasive inequality of people and centralization of authority. At least two inherited social classes (elite and commoner) are present (Ancient hawaiian chiefdoms had as many as four social classes), although social class can often be changed by extraordinary behavior during an individual's life. 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.
A single simple chiefdom is generally composed of a central community surrounded by or near a number of smaller subsidiary communities. All of these communities recognize the authority of a single kin group or individual with hereditary centralized power, dwelling in the primary community. Each community will have its own leaders, which are usually in a tributary and/or subservient relationship with the ruling elite of the primary community.
A complex chiefdom is a group of simple chiefdoms controlled by a single paramount center, and ruled by a paramount chief. Complex chiefdoms have two or even three tiers of political hierarchy. Nobles are clearly distinct from commoners and do not usually engage in any form of agricultural production. 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 ritual that only they can perform. They may also make token, symbolic redistributions of food and other goods. In two or three tiered chiefdoms, higher ranking chiefs have control over a number of lesser-ranking individuals, each of whom controls specific territory or social units. Political control rests on the chief's ability to maintain access to a sufficiently large body of tribute, passed up the line by lesser chiefs. These lesser chiefs in turn collect from those below them, from communities close to their own center. At the apex of the status hierarchy sits the paramount.
Chiefdoms have been shown by anthropologists and archaeologists to be a relatively unstable form of social organization. They 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.
An example of this kind of social organization would be the Germanic Peoples who conquered the western Roman Empire in the 5th century A.D. Although commonly referred to as tribes, the Germanic Peoples were by anthropological definition not tribes, but chiefdoms. They had a complex social hierarchy consisting of kings, a warrior aristocracy, common freemen, serfs and slaves.
Nikolay Kradin has demonstrated that an alternative to the state seems to be represented by the supercomplex chiefdoms created by some nomads of Eurasia – the number of the structural levels within such chiefdoms appear to be equal, or even to exceed those within the average state, but they have an entirely different type of political organization and political leadership; such type of political entities do not appear to have been ever created by the agriculturists (e.g., Kradin 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004).
The possible alternatives to the chiefdoms in the prehistoric South-West Asia are the nonhierarchical systems of complex acephalous communities with a pronounced autonomy of single family households. These communities have been analyzed recently by Berezkin who suggests reasonably the Apa Tanis as their ethnographic parallel (Berezkin 1995). Frantsouzoff (2000) finds an even more developed example of such type of polities in ancient South Arabia in the Wadi Hadhramawt of the 1st millennium BC.
Chiefdom of Khitan(AD 300-AD 1211)
References to the Khitan in Chinese sources date back to the fourth century. Ancestors of the Khitan were the Yuwen clan of the Xianbei, an ethnic group situated in the area covered by the modern Liaoning province. After their regime was conquered by the Murong clan, the remnants scattered in the modern-day Inner Mongolia and mixed there with the original Mongolic population.
Chiefdom of Jin(1115-1234)
The Jin Dynasty (Jurchen: Anchu, Aisin Gurun; Chinese: ??; pinyin: Jin Cháo), also known as the Jurchen Dynasty, was founded by the Wanyan (Chinese:?? pinyin:Wányán) clan of the Jurchens, the ancestors of the Manchus who established the Qing Dynasty some 500 years late.
The name Jurchen dates back to at least the beginning of the tenth century, when the Balhae kingdom was destroyed by the Khitans. However, cognate ethnonyms like Sushen have been recorded in pre-Christian Era geographical works like the Shan Hai Jing and Book of Wei. It comes from the Jurchen word jušen, the original meaning of which is unclear. It is a curious fact that in Manchu, the linear descendant of Jurchen, jušen occurs in many compounds denoting "slaves" and "serfs", such as jušen halangga niyalma "a serf of the Manchus" (literally, "a person of the Jušen clan"). The standard English version of the name, "Jurchen," is an Anglicized transliteration of the Mongolian equivalent of the Jurchen term jušen (Mongolian: Jürchen, plural form Jürched), and may have made it to the West via Mongolian texts. A less common English transliteration is "Jurched".
Chiefdom of Mongol tribes
The qualifier Mongol Tribes was established as an umbrella term in the early 13th century, when Temüjin (later Genghis Khan) united the different tribes into the Mongol Nation, the precursor of the Mongol Empire. There were 19 Nirun tribes that descended from Bodonchar and 18 Darligin tribes, which were also core Mongolic tribes but not descending from Bodonchar. Besides the original Mongols, many of those clans and tribes were of Turkic, and some of Tungusic or other origin.
The forming of kinship between Manchus and Mongols
Chiefdom in India
See also
Bibliography
- Berezkin, Yu. E. 1995. Alternative Models of Middle Range Society. "Individualistic" Asia vs. "Collectivistic" America?. Alternative Pathways to Early State. Ed. by N. N. Kradin & V. A. Lynsha. Vladivostok: Dal'nauka: 75–83.
- Carneiro, R. L. 1981. The Chiefdom: Precursor of the State. The Transition to Statehood in the New World / Ed. by G. D. Jones and R. R. Kautz, pp. 37–79. Cambridge, UK – New York, NY: Cam-bridge University Press.
- Carneiro, R. L. 1991. The Nature of the Chiefdom as Revealed by Evidence from the Cauca Valley of Colombia. Profiles in Cultural Evolution / Ed. by A.T. Rambo and K. Gillogly, pp. 167–90. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
- Earle, T. K. 1997. How Chiefs Came to Power: The Political Economy of Prehistory. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
- Frantsouzoff S. A. 2000. The Society of Raybun. In Alternatives of Social Evolution. Ed. by N.N. Kradin, A.V. Korotayev, Dmitri Bondarenko, V. de Munck, and P.K. Wason (p. 258-265). Vladivostok: Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
- Kradin, Nikolay N. 2000. Nomadic Empires in Evolutionary Perspective. In Alternatives of Social Evolution. Ed. by N.N. Kradin, A.V. Korotayev, Dmitri Bondarenko, V. de Munck, and P.K. Wason (p. 274-288). Vladivostok: Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences; reprinted in: The Early State, its Alternatives and Analogues. Ed. by Leonid Grinin et al. (?. 501-524). Volgograd: Uchitel', 2004.
- Kradin, Nikolay N. 2002. Nomadism, Evolution, and World-Systems: Pastoral Societies in Theories of Historical Development. Journal of World-System Research 8: 368-388.
- Kradin, Nikolay N. 2003. Nomadic Empires: Origins, Rise, Decline. In Nomadic Pathways in Social Evolution. Ed. by N.N. Kradin, Dmitri Bondarenko, and T. Barfield (p. 73-87). Moscow: Center for Civilizational Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences.
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