Tribes with rulers (chiefdoms)

Given that their social structure was almost identical with the extended family, lineage or clan, tribes without rulers were necessarily small and rarely numbered more than a few thousand people.

18

1 Samuel, 8, 11-19.

The way of life of these societies, regardless of whether it was based on hunting-gathering, cattle herding, temporary gardening, or some com­bination of these, demanded a low density of population, wide open spaces, and a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle. Since well-developed communications did not exist, the inbuilt tendency to split and disinteg­rate was strengthened. Disintegration must often have prevented feuds from going to the murderous extremes observed in societies with a more developed system of government. To this extent it constituted not only an affliction but a blessing as well.

Whether in war or peace, these societies were incapable of taking coordinated action on a scale larger than that of the sodality; the rare exceptions, such as the short-lived Iroquois League created in the Ameri­can Northeast, merely prove the rule. Small numbers, common owner­ship over the means of production such as land, forest, and water, and relative economic equality also precluded specialization and a division of labor other than that which, in all societies, is based on age and sex. Since every household was almost entirely self-reliant in looking after its econ­omic needs, standards of living and technological development remained at the subsistence level.

By contrast, tribes with rulers, also known as chiefdoms, may be found in many parts of the world. They include many societies in Southeast, West, and South Africa, as well as others all over Southeast Asia, Poly­nesia, Hawaii, and New Zealand. By way of further examples, history tells us of the tribes that destroyed the Mycenean civilization and ruled Greece during the Dark Ages between about 1000 and 750 BC; the various Gothic, Frankish, and other Germanic tribes, as they were from the later centuries of the Roman empire (i.e., not those of Tacitus' day, who probably corresponded more closely to tribes without rulers) to the rise of the Carolingian empire in the eighth century AD; and the Scandinavian tribes during the tenth century AD, in other words just before they became Christianized and turned toward more centralized forms of gov­ernment.

Chiefdoms were what their name implies: they had chiefs, i.e., in­dividuals who were elevated over other people and possessed the right to command them. That right was invariably based on the chief's alleged divine descent, which in turn dictated that the normal method of succes­sion should be from father to son. Still, a system whereby the eldest male descendant simply stepped into his predecessor's shoes seldom applied.

The natural result of polygyny was a large number of sons who, when the time came, might present themselves as candidates for the succession. The potential resulting conflict could be made worse because the women belonged to various different classes: some were the chief's legally wed­ded wives, others concubines, others perhaps domestics, captives, or slaves who had been put to breeding uses in addition to their other duties. While a few women might have their children as a result of a purely temporary liaison, the great majority probably conceived as a result of being part of the master's household in one capacity or another. Given these gradations, the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate off­spring was by no means always clear.

20

In practice, it made a great difference whether the individual in ques­tion was personally capable of providing leadership and, above all, who his mother was. Normally the chief's first, or principal, wife was descen­ded from an eminent family. Having been formally given away by her kin, she was ceremonially wedded and later saw her offspring enjoy preced­ence over the rest. As the old ruler died and was replaced by one of his sons, the heir's mother would be a person of some importance since he owed his position to her; it is in this limited sense that the societies in question can be said to have been matrilineal.

Next to the chief, society was generally divided in two different layers or classes. First came a privileged group, small in relation to the total population and consisting of the members of the chief's extended family, lineage, or clan. They enjoyed special rights such as access to the chief, much higher compensation to be paid in case of injury or death, and immunity from certain kinds of punishment which were considered deg­rading. Often they were distinguished by being allowed to wear special insignia and clothing or, in regions where the climate was favorable and clothes unimportant, tattoos. Considered as individuals, their position in society tended to be determined very exactly by their relationship with the chief, i.e., whether they were his sons, uncles, brothers, nephews, in-laws, and so on. Normally it was from among these people that the chief selected the provincial rulers. On the other hand, and precisely because they had some claim to the succession, they were rarely appointed to senior court positions such as majordomo or commander of the body­guard.

Below the royal lineage, clan, or tribe was a much more numerous class of commoners: such as the ancient Greek laborers or thetes (also known under a variety of other derogatory names, such as kakoi, ‘‘bad ones”), the Natchez ‘‘Stinkers,” and many others.

The gap that separated them from the elite notwithstanding, the com­moners were considered - and, so long as the community remained intact, considered themselves - subjects of the chief. They owed him their allegiance and, indeed, ‘‘belonged” to him in the sense that, directly or indirectly by way of the sub-chiefs of whom I shall speak in a moment, they were ‘‘his” people. In this way chiefdoms introduced a new and revolutionary principle of government. Blood ties continued to play an important role in determining who possessed what rights in respect to whom. This was true at the upper level, i.e., among the members of the chief's own clan, but it was also true at lower levels where, modified only by more or less strict supervision from above, the extended family group remained the basic entity in which most people spent their lives. The fact that chiefdoms were not based exclusively on such ties enabled the stronger among them to establish impersonal rule and achieve consider­able numerical growth. With growth came at least some division of labor among various groups of the population: such as agriculturists, cattle­herders, fishermen, and even a few nonproducing specialists such as traders, artisans, and priests.

The chief's authority varied greatly. He might be little more than a head priest as described in the previous section: performing religious ceremonies, demanding presents, using those presents to maintain a few assistants, and lording it over his people by exercising his magic powers to reward or to punish. A critical turning point came when the members of the upper class, or some of them, became sufficiently elevated to cease working with their hands. This stage had not yet been reached in the Greek world around 1200 BC: legend has it that when King Agamem­non’s messenger, sent to announce summons for the Trojan War, arrived he found Odysseus plowing his field. It had been reached among the Germanic tribes of Tacitus’ time and also in Scandinavia before AD 1000.

Among the most powerful chiefdoms known to us were the nineteenth­century ones of Angkole, Bunyoro, and Buganda (East Africa), Dahomey (West Africa), and Zulu (South Africa), whose chiefs had developed into veritable monarchs. They owed part of their power to supernatural fac­tors. They were considered sacred and tended to live in seclusion; the longer established the chiefdom, the more true this became. Often there were taboos which prohibited them from eating certain foods, taking certain postures such as kneeling, touching certain substances, or even walking on the ground. Similar taboos surrounded the regalia, such as umbilical cords, staffs, headgear, stools, and drums. All of these sup­posedly possessed magic powers, which were beneficent if properly used - for example, in bringing rain or curing disease - but otherwise dangerous to touch or even look at. Often they had to be guarded by a special college of priests and were taken care of by being offered sacrifices and the like.

The most powerful chiefs possessed life-and-death power over their subjects. The latter were bidden to approach them flat on their stomachs, if indeed they were allowed to do so at all; as a chief traveled or was carried from one place to another in his litter, speaking to him without permission or looking him in the face might constitute a capital offense. Insofar as chiefs were expected to follow religiously dictated custom, they cannot be said to have stood above the law, let alone to have created it in the manner of absolute monarchs. On the other hand it is true that their orders, decrees, and prohibitions represented the sole source of positive legis­lation inside the community. They also acted as head justice and chief executive, rolled into one.

Whenever the territory he commanded was at all extensive, the chief stood at the apex of a pyramid consisting of regional sub-chiefs. Except when he deposed them, which might happen if they had given offense or appeared to present a threat, the position of sub-chief was passed from father to son; at this point the resemblance to feudalism becomes evident. Far from being specialized, they were small-scale copies of the chief. They maintained their own courts, lorded it over their own peoples, and, subject to some supervision from above, performed duties similar to his. From time to time they would also be called to their superior’s court to pay him homage and sit on his council.

A genealogical investigation of the sub-chiefs would probably show that most of them were related to the chief; where this was not the case, it was usually an indication that conquest and subjugation were of recent origin. Typically, indeed, chiefs engaged in a deliberate policy of reinfor­cing the structure of government by creating family ties. They sent out junior relatives to rule outlying provinces and presented their subor­dinates with women from the royal household to marry, thus building a ruling stratum whose members were linked to each other both by blood and interest. Representing another step in the same direction, the sub­chiefs' male offspring were often taken away when they reached an age of between six and nine and educated at court. In time, it was hoped, this practice would turn them into loyal supporters of the chief, useful either as provincial rulers or else as palace officials. Conversely, and, as was also the case in other societies such as early imperial Rome or feudal Japan, they served as hostages for their fathers' good behavior.

These types of personnel apart, both chief and sub-chiefs had retainers at their disposal. Though they were not close relatives, retainers were considered members of the household (the Anglo-Saxon term huyscarls, ‘‘house-braves,'' clearly indicates this status) and served the chief in various capacities. To make them easier to control they were often of foreign birth - in other words, either those who had been captured as children or else who were refugees from other tribes. In some cases they literally ate at his table, as did Scandinavian warriors before the introduc­tion of more hierarchical forms of government under St. Olaf shortly after AD 1000 caused ‘‘kings'' (best translated as ‘‘men of notable kin'') to withdraw first to an elevated dais and them to their own quarters in quest of greater privacy.²² Alternatively, as in many African, Asian, and Poly­nesian societies, they might be assigned some of the royal cattle to herd and/or a plot of land for the members of their families to cultivate.

As the Scandinavian chronicles and sagas in particular make clear, keeping the loyalty of subordinates - whether kinsmen, sub-chiefs, or retainers - depended in large part on the chief's ability to distribute wealth; this might take the form of food, clothing, cattle, land, and, in some societies, treasure as well as marriageable women. Some of this wealth originated as the spoils of war, while another part of it was owned directly by the chief. However, most of it derived from the idea that it was he who, by performing the proper rituals and making the proper sac­rifices, was responsible for maintaining the land's fertility and ensuring that the harvest was good; it was also up to him to assign vacant land to people who had none. Hence anyone who cultivated land, grazed cattle

²² For a step-by-step account of the withdrawal of Scandinavian kings into privacy, see Snorre Strualson, Heimskringla, or the Lives of the Norse Kings, E. Monsen, ed. (New York: Dover Publications, 1990), pp. 520-1. on it, hunted on it, or exploited its resources in any other way owed part of the produce of his labor to the chief.

Thus chiefdoms became the first political entities to institute rent, tribute, or taxation (it is typical of most pre-state societies, classical city-states alone excepted, that the three could not be clearly told apart) - in other words compulsory, unilateral payments that would take goods out of the hands of the many ruled and concentrate them in those of the ruling few.²³ The precise nature of the wealth paid depended on the resources that the environment afforded and also on custom. Everywhere it consisted of a share of the staple crop, be it grain, rice, taro, or manioc. Then there would be prestige objects such as fine domestic animals and fish; choice parts of big game, such as the head, skin, or tail, which were often used to decorate a chief's person and mark his rank; cloth in its various forms; and, in some societies, women.²⁴ Some chiefdoms, an­cient as well as modern, made use of a primitive form of currency consisting of items which were not meant for immediate consumption but were easy to store and preserve. Among them were whales' teeth (the Pacific), tigers' claws (Africa), wampum beads (North America), and cowry shells (many different regions). All of these could be used to make payments to the chief, whose stores were normally the largest, as well as for other commercial purposes. Finally, chiefdoms that came into contact with more complex, urban civilizations were often familiar with metal money. It might be obtained by trade, as were the manila bracelets which the Portuguese introduced to West Africa and which as late as the 1940s were being used to carry out minor transactions. However, there were also cases when they created their own currency, as did eleventh-century Scandinavian chiefs in imitation of Byzantium.²⁵

Some of the tribute was paid into the chief's storehouses directly by his own tenants. The rest of the population made payments to the sub-chiefs who, having collected them, took their cut - generally as much as they thought they could get away with, so long as it did not bring the chief's wrath down on them - and passed the rest on. Both chiefs and sub-chiefs possessed additional sources of revenue originating in their right to exer­cise justice, such as fees, fines, the belongings of condemned persons, and often bribes as well. Very often there existed a sort of licensing system under which chiefs of all ranks might demand and receive payment for granting their subjects certain privileges. These included the right to hold

²³ See A. I. Pershits, ‘‘Tribute Relations,” in S. L. Seaton and H. J. M. Claessen, eds.,

Political Anthropology: The State of the Art (The Hague: Mouton, 1979), pp. 149-56.

²⁴ Fora good description of a tribute system while it was still in operations, seeW. Mariner, Natives of the Tonga Islands (New York: AMS Press, 1979 [1818]), vol. II, pp. 230ff.

²⁵ See P. Einzig, Primitive Money in Its Ethnological, Historical and Economic Aspects (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1949). markets, engage in long-distance trade, go on raiding expeditions against other tribes (in which case the chief would most likely demand part of the booty), and so on. In short, scarcely any economic activity took place in which the chief was not involved and of which he did not take his share.

Part of the wealth that was gathered by such methods was consumed by the chief and the members of his household; from beautiful women to expensive riding animals, being able to engage in wasteful expenditure has always been one of the signs of government as well as one of its privileges. The rest would be saved and kept in storage in special struc­tures that either formed part of the chief's own residence or else were scattered at strategic points throughout his domain. On certain festive occasions, as well as during an emergency such as famine or flooding or drought, the doors of the storehouses would be thrown open and the contents displayed - sometimes by way of potlatching - and used to feed the people. Such largesse could help reinforce the ties binding ruler and subjects. Alternatively one might regard it as a precaution because, under extreme circumstances, what was not readily distributed might be taken by force. There thus existed a sense in which the transfer of wealth was not unilateral but reciprocal. From Polynesia to Africa, its use for this purpose was one of the principal ways in which the entire system could be justified.

Above all, wealth could be used to engage and maintain followers; in this way it formed a basis for establishing, exercising, and increasing power of every kind. The entities that resulted tended to be much more centralized and more cohesive than tribes without rulers. They were also larger, starting in the hundreds but sometimes counting their populations in the tens and - though this was rare - hundreds of thousands; indeed it has been suggested that the pressure of population on resources was itself the most important factor that led to the establishment of chiefdoms and, with them, government proper.^[17] Under such circumstances it might become necessary to divide the country into provinces and to build or clear at least some roads that would connect those provinces to the center. The latter assumed the form of a village larger than the rest. It contained, besides the chief's own residence, living quarters for his relatives and retainers as well as a temple for the deity from which he was descended.

Some chiefdoms, notably the prehistoric ones which probably erected the megaliths that dot the British countryside,^[18] engaged in large-scale building enterprises, primarily for religious and military purposes. Mes­senger systems might be established and the chief's envoys provided with special insignia, such as palm leaves or staffs, that made their bearers inviolable and entitled them to receive food and other services from the local population. The core of the necessary labor force was probably provided by the chief's personal retainers. However, some of the more powerful African chiefdoms - such as the South African Zulu under their greatest ‘‘king,'' Shaka - also had available another and potentially much larger pool of manpower. This took the form of the members of certain age groups who, as a condition for being assigned land and allowed to marry, had to serve for a stipulated period - not that the chief was always scrupulous in releasing them after their obligation to him had been fulfilled.²⁸

Whatever the source of the personnel, they could also be used for police work and war. Thus we find not only warriors but armed forces in the sense of a class of people who, by virtue of their status or age, were organized for engaging in violence, and at least some of whom were always at a chief's disposal. As far as we can follow them, e.g., in the case of the Zulu, the founders of chiefdoms were warlords who commanded their own forces. Trusting more to religion and less to force as a means of maintaining their power, their successors either appointed sub-chiefs to command or else selected other individuals from among their immediate collaborators. Sometimes there was a hierarchy of units, ranging from the royal guard through conscripted age groups all the way down to local forces. The latter, like the early medieval peasant-levy or fyrd, were made up of untrained or semi-trained personnel and mobilized only in an emergency.

Supported by force or the threat of force, chiefdoms were able to introduce hierarchy instead of equality; permanent authority instead of temporary leadership; tribute instead of more or less voluntary presents; and judgment, often reinforced by savage punishment, instead of the simple restitution and compensation that were the result of mediation by the village council. On top of engaging - or allowing their subordinates to engage - in the usual feuding, raiding, and booty-taking expeditions, they introduced conquest, subjugation, and domination of one group over another.²⁹ All these factors meant that boundaries between those who did and did not belong grew clearer, the more so because a settled way of life

²⁸ For Shaka and his cohorts, see most recently J. Taylor, Shako’s Children: A History of the

Zulu People (London: HarperCollins, 1994), part I.

²⁹ The idea that government originated in conquest was particularly fashionable at the turn of the twentieth century. See L. Gumplowicz, The Outlines of Sociology (Philadelphia: American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 1899), and F. Oppenheimer, The State (New York: Free Life, 1975 [1911]).

‘‘caged” individuals and groups, by making it harder for them to move from the protection of one chief to that of another.

Stronger organization, larger numbers, and a greater capacity for coor­dinated action constituted the advantages which chiefdoms enjoyed over tribes without rulers. However, the fact that they were often able to expel or conquer the latter should not blind us to their limitations. The most important one was the tendency toward fission inherent in the system of government by hereditary sub-chiefs as well as the methods of succession. From biblical times through eleventh-century Scandinavia to nineteenth­century Africa, Asia, and Polynesia, the death of a chief often gave the signal for the start of a civil war. Rival candidates fought each other with every available means from assassination to full-scale battle; so did their mothers who, in case of defeat, might be put to death or, in some societies, suffer degradation by being assigned to the victor's harem. Sub-chiefs might use the opportunity to break away by ceasing to pay tribute, usurping their superior's rights, and establishing their indepen­dence. Neighboring chiefs might also intervene, seeking to increase their own power.

These factors explain why few chiefdoms, ancient or modern, lasted longer than a few generations. In those that did, most rulers came to power after winning a civil war and slaughtering the loser's relatives;³⁰ this ‘‘system,'' if resorted to often enough and taken far enough, was quite capable of causing development to be arrested and chiefdoms to be turned back into decentralized tribes without rulers.³¹ To build stable, longer-lasting political organizations and avoid the repeated decimation of the social elite, new principles of government had to be introduced. It was necessary to regularize the succession to the chieftainship on the one hand, and prevent sub-chiefs from leaving their positions to their off­spring on the other.