primitive – this is not the authors’ intention. Many of the groups
concerned have sophisticated cultures, high levels of artistic
achievement and admirable ways of life. ‘Tribal’ is used here as an
easily intelligible synonym for what anthropologists frequently term
‘simple societies’ – those having common cultures (e.g. one religion
and language), undifferentiated role structures (most people do a
small range of similar jobs), with strong emphasis on kinship and
custom (Mitchell, 1959). Following Weber, the defining characteristic
of such societies may be taken to be a claim to common ancestry.
One way in which these groups differ from the state model of
government is in terms of territory. Whilst many such groups do
have what they regard as their own territory, some are so nomadic
that they can make no such claim. Groups like the Fulani of northern
Nigeria herd cattle through lands partially cultivated by others. The
Kalahari Bushmen and similar groups range broadly over deserts or
forests which may also be used by other groups. Such groups think of
government as a property of what sociologists describe as the kin
group – all those people descended from a common ancestor or
married to such persons. Hence the idea of the ‘blood brother’ – to
become a member of the group it is necessary either to marry into it
or to be adopted as a member of a particular small family group.
Still more startling to the modern Western citizen than such
groups’ relative indifference to the idea of a territory being subject to
a particular code of law, is the absence in some of them of anything
resembling a fixed governmental organisation. Whilst the absence of
a chief or council might not be regarded as so strange in tiny groups
such as the !Kung bushmen of the Kalahari desert (Marshall, 1961), it
seems almost incredible in groups numbering as many as a million or
more such as the pre-colonial Tiv of Nigeria (Bohannan, 1965).
How can centralised political institutions be avoided in such
societies? One explanation lies in the attitude to law found in most
tribal societies. Western societies (following the nineteenth-century
English jurist, Austin) tend to see law as the creation of a sovereign
representative legislature. Tribal societies see law as a part of the way
of life inherited from their ancestors. Thus living human beings only
interpret and enforce the authority of the ancestors and no legislature
is necessary. Such a view is clearly only tenable in relatively stable
societies – although, as Gluckman (1965) points out, rebellion against
those interpreting the law is perfectly possible in such a system.28 SYSTEMS