What is tribal life like?

Question

I've always wondered what tribal life was like. I'm curious as to how relationships work within in a tribe. Obviously, it's a little more personal than living in a town or city.

Do tribal people have homes which consist of a father and a mother and their children? What do tribal people do when they're not out hunting and gathering?

What level of knowledge and understanding of the world do they have? What concerns them through life besides survival?

How do they compare to people who live modern lives?

Answer 1

It really depends on your definition of tribal. I grew up in a "tribal" community in Southeast Alaska. There are still modern day communities that operate under tribal rules and organization. They have tribal elders that operate a judicial system which rule of cases involving community members. If you do some research there was a high profile case which originated in Washington state involving two native boys that attacked a pizza delivery man. Washington's judicial system handed the trial over to a tribal court which ruled to banish the two boys for an allotted amount of time.

While many community members have jobs they also rely on subsistence hunting and gathering in order to make ends meet. However, they do have access to doctors, grocery stores, education, technology, and other modern day conveniences.

Historically the people lived in longhouses that housed more than one family. However, today they live in single family dwellings with a mother, father, and their children. Grandparents and other elders play a very strong role in child rearing and community organization. The community is moiety based and those rules are still followed to some extent.

I think it's important for you to take a second look at how you define tribal and it's presence in not only far away "exotic" lands but even in the United States.

Answer 2

They're pretty much the same as other people. Living conditions and how they provide for themselves and their families vary, but people are people.

Hunter/gatherer groups are, by necessity, tiny. Humans need a lot of land to roam on and live on. This varies with the fertility of the area. The areas along the northwestern coast of the US and the southwestern coast of Canada, where the salmon runs are, were able to support permanent settlements, while people living in jungles and deserts are almost always on the move. The groups tend to move in smaller bands of 10-60 people, and the bands will sometimes meet up for hunting trips or the season. The bands aren't always the same, either. Sometimes people move to a different band for whatever reason. The bands tend to be made up of family members.

Families are varied. Men and women generally form relationships that we'd recognize as marriage, but they can take very different forms. Marriages can last a lifetime, or for a night, depending on the group. Children generally stay with the mother, as most of these groups don't have baby formula. Older children may live at home or in a separate dwelling. Husbands and wives may not live together, either, as groups may have separate dwellings for men and for women.

Hunting and gathering doesn't take a lot of time. Some jungle groups take about twenty hours a week to secure their basic necessities, and these guys live in the jungle, which is not exactly a nurturing environment. This varies, of course. Some tribes practise agriculture, which takes a butt-ton of time. If they have domesticated animals, that also takes a lot of time. Surprised? There's a whole spectrum between a hunter/gatherer tribe and Perdue. A group may do the whole clearcutting and planting thing, but only enough to provide for the family and the family's pigs, or they may just encourage their favorite vegetables to grow, or something in between.

If they're not doing that, there's also storytelling, napping, making new houses, hangin' out, and making pretty things. Nomadic people don't have lots of room for extra stuff to haul about, but they can and will make jewelry, clothing, and decorate household items. They'll also decorate themselves. What do you do at your house when you're not working and you don't feel like watching tv or playing on the computer? Play cards, chat with your friends, get Grandma to tell more juicy gossip about family members? That's what everyone does (okay, maybe not _cards_, but everyone has games).

As for understanding of life and how they get through the day, it's the same as you or me. Most groups, though, have the bonus of feeling connected to their environment, which we don't get. They are a part of the world around them, and they can rely on it to feed and clothe them. They have friends, family. They may not have a Career, but they take pride in what they're good at, be it storytelling or making the straightest arrows or curing fevers.

I highly recommend you check out _The Forest People_ by Colin Turnbull. He was an anthropologist who lived among the MButi, and he wrote very sympathetically about their lifestyle. It's a nice difference from the usual sort of "nasty, brutish, and short" idea of hunter/gatherer life that people usually assume.

Answer 3

If you've ever belonged to a gang,you've already experienced'Tribal Mentality'.Now,if you can imagine the concept of your gang in a much broader realm,you may have some idea of what tribal life was like.A very close knit society whose very survival depends on the co-operation of each and every member.