I really dont understand why non Africans do not have tribes. For example, in Europe, we have the French, Germans, Spanish, Portugese etc, but they are not referred to as 'tribes' either by themselves or by outsiders. If we want to narrow it down to individual nations, we can take say, Britain. They have the English, the Scots, the Welsh, the Irish... each with a distinctive language and culture, but they do not identify as tribes. India must have hundreds of languages, but no tribes.
Why is it that only Africans divide themselves into tribes? Just curious. Any theories anyone?

India nko?

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This topic

Go and Read about Mexico and Brazil.

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Stupi.d question. The whole world has tribes . West europe has lost hers due to forced intermarriage as ordained by the catholic church in the past and the oropagation of nuclear families to destroy Paganism

some ppl like the Gulf Arabs and orthodox caste/tribal Hindus are extremely tribalistic

PAGAN9JA:
Stupi.d question. The whole world has tribes . West europe has lost hers due to forced intermarriage as ordained by the catholic church in the past and the oropagation of nuclear families to destroy Paganism

some ppl like the Gulf Arabs and orthodox caste/tribal Hindus are extremely tribalistic

I am not talking about your pagan religion here. I am talking about different ethnic groups only being divided along tribal lines in Africa.
Gulf Arabs segregate according to their family lineages or Religion, not tribe. They all speak more or less the same language. Hindus are segregated based on the caste system; sort of like the osu caste system among the igbos, but more complex; not a tribal system.
Only Africans are segregated according to tribes in modern times. Although, we do hear occasionally of some undiscovered primitive jungle tribe in the Amazon jungle etc., but there is no emphasis on tribalism in other continents.

Perhaps delineation according to tribe in Africa, was a divide and rule tactic used by the colonialists. Sort of like the Hutu/ Tutsi divide encouraged by the Belgians.

BTW, there is no evidence of the Catholic church enforcing inter-ethnic marriages anywhere.

Abuamam:
I really dont understand why non Africans do not have tribes. For example, in Europe, we have the French, Germans, Spanish, Portugese etc, but they are not referred to as 'tribes' either by themselves or by outsiders. If we want to narrow it down to individual nations, we can take say, Britain. They have the English, the Scots, the Welsh, the Irish... each with a distinctive language and culture, but they do not identify as tribes. India must have hundreds of languages, but no tribes.
Why is it that only Africans divide themselves into tribes? Just curious. Any theories anyone?

Arabs too have tribes, Amerindians. Caucassians are equally tribal. Its just called racism, and they are also in denial about themselves.

The ignorance(on multiple levels) of this entire question is maddening.

That said I think the OP has something in mind but doesn't have the words to express it. I question if the mere existence of "tribes"(which isn't even an African word *like I said sad on multiple levels* ) is his concern it's just the only fraise he has to express it.

RandomAfricanAm:
The ignorance(on multiple levels) of this entire question is maddening.

That said I think the OP has something in mind but doesn't have the words to express it. I question if the mere existence of "tribes"(which isn't even an African word *like I said sad on multiple levels* ) is his concern it's just the only fraise he has to express it.

Sorry sir.

Somalis only have one Tribe. We are All Somali, but we have many clans. Clans make up a tribe. Since we are one tribe as Somalis, we don't really use the word tribe but rather just the word Somali.

It's because our peoples were called 'tribes' by our conquerors, who deemed us an inferior class of subhuman beings who (according to them) indulged in nothing more than unclothedness and human-sacrifice, all whilst dwelling in simple mud huts. Personally, that's what comes to mind when I hear the word 'tribe'. It's very unfortunate that we've lost this ideological war, as Africans even use it to describe themselves. It's a huge pity.

odumchi:
It's because our peoples were called 'tribes' by our conquerors, who deemed us an inferior class of subhuman beings who (according to them) indulged in nothing more than unclothedness and human-sacrifice, all whilst dwelling in simple mud huts. Personally, that's what comes to mind when I hear the word 'tribe'. It's very unfortunate that we've lost this **ideological war**, as Africans even use it to describe themselves. It's a huge pity.

Exactly what I'm saying, that's why I'm not really having as big an issue with the OP as I might otherwise because I understand the conditions that would cause him to state it in that way(even though it's still "wrong" ).

I've been fighting myself to go ahead and make a post on the foundational issue(to all the culture section) of **semantic & epistemological traps** that people so often fall in, as shown by this topic. It really hinders our ability to see & discuss the real issue when people fall into these common traps.

@odumchi:

This is also the reason people so often speak of the past. It's not some empty rhetoric, it's a useful means to clarify contemporary issues.

If rainfall dries up for 10 years you can't properly recover from those years of drought and famine when the rains come back if you let someone manipulate you into thinking the issue is really about your people being lazy & not knowing how to farm instead of the real issue of drought. Yes we can talk about ways to mitigate the effects in the future but lets not be led astray from the primary issue.

Claiming that someone cataloging the variety of food stuff, farming locations, water sources, etc as "living in the past" as opposed to praising them for noting what our collective ancestors left us to help in the current rebuilding/recovery effort is ridiculous but far to often is expressed by people who pat themselves on the back while thinking they are being "realistic"

We have "tribes" in America. The Choctaw, Cherokee, Lumbee, Seminole Sioux, Cheyenne, Hopi, Apache and Eskimo are few of the Native American "tribes" that still exist today. They speak different languages and have different culture practices. I'm putting tribes in quotation marks because, as someone pointed out, it was the white people who started referring to these people as tribes.

Tribes are used to refer to people who are colonized.


Its not necessarily derogatory, but used more as an identifier to know which ethnicity, ideology or country they identify with more.

itstpia8:
Tribes are used to refer to people who are colonized.


Its not necessarily derogatory, but used more as an identifier to know which ethnicity, ideology or country they identify with more.

Personally my issue isn't about the extent to which the term is derogatory or not, it's the extent to which it distorts the issue at hand.

To piggyback off of axum...

axum:
Somalis only have one Tribe. We are All Somali, but we have many clans. Clans make up a tribe. Since we are one tribe as Somalis, we don't really use the word tribe but rather just the word Somali.

Most African people were lineages who communicated with other lineages through family heads(representatives) and common trading markets. Europeans would say all these people who may ordinarily not be seen as "one people" as a tribe because they shared words & interacted together or had the same "material culture" some times even if they spoke different dialects.

One lineage could also serve as the central nexus point for the other 8-12 lineages who again might not consider themselves "one people" but interact together for mutual benefit**politics**. Europeans would come down and say these people are all the "tribe" of that central nexus lineage reguardless of how they saw themselves.


Sidenote:
If those same Europeans come down and blowup the political balance that those lineages made for themselves, then calling that tribalism is missing the larger point.

axum:
Somalis only have one Tribe. We are All Somali, but we have many clans. Clans make up a tribe. Since we are one tribe as Somalis, we don't really use the word tribe but rather just the word Somali.

Perhaps the Italians who colonised Somaliland had less interest in the divide and rule tactic; if indeed it was such. In pre-colonial Rwanda, Hutus and Tutsis were delineated mostly on the basis of cattle ownership and hierarchy. It took the Belgians to differentiate them based on nose lengths and lip thickness... leading ultimately to a bloody genocide.

odumchi:
It's because our peoples were called 'tribes' by our conquerors, who deemed us an inferior class of subhuman beings who (according to them) indulged in nothing more than unclothedness and human-sacrifice, all whilst dwelling in simple mud huts. Personally, that's what comes to mind when I hear the word 'tribe'. It's very unfortunate that we've lost this ideological war, as Africans even use it to describe themselves. It's a huge pity.

I guess yours is a better way of putting it. Africans are so fiercely tribalistic, it's mind boggling. Logically, a person's ancestory or location of birth, should not be a criterium for judging his/ her character. Yet, most Africans can't seem to shake the habit. It keeps us Africans backward.

For example, in the UK, no one cares whether the UK prime minister is Scottish, Welsh or English. In Nigeria, for example, that is the first issue everyone looks at.

Asians and native american have tribes too... and the Samoans, Hawaiians...

AABeauty:
We have "tribes" in America. The Choctaw, Cherokee, Lumbee, Seminole Sioux, Cheyenne, Hopi, Apache and Eskimo are few of the Native American "tribes" that still exist today. They speak different languages and have different culture practices. I'm putting tribes in quotation marks because, as someone pointed out, it was the white people who started referring to these people as tribes.

Those groups qualify more as 'tribes' than African ethnic groups, some of whom number several tens of millions. Referring to say Yorubas, who number perhaps 50 million, as a 'tribe' is more a sign of ignorance and colonial conditioning than anything else. Likewise it's ludicrous to refer to ethnic groups like Igbos, Hausas etc as ''tribes''. It makes absolutely no sense.

I would like the MODS to unban my post.

ROSSIKE:


Those groups qualify more as 'tribes' than African ethnic groups, some of whom number several tens of millions. Referring to say Yorubas, who number perhaps 50 million, as a 'tribe' is more a sign of ignorance and colonial conditioning than anything else. Likewise it's ludicrous to refer to ethnic groups like Igbos, Hausas etc as ''tribes''. It makes absolutely no sense.

I completely agree. I personally never use the word tribe regardless of an ethnic group's place of origin.

ROSSIKE:


Those groups qualify more as 'tribes' than African ethnic groups, some of whom number several tens of millions. Referring to say Yorubas, who number perhaps 50 million, as a 'tribe' is more a sign of ignorance and colonial conditioning than anything else. Likewise it's ludicrous to refer to ethnic groups like Igbos, Hausas etc as ''tribes''. It makes absolutely no sense.

tribes are not defined by numbers but rather by the fact of colonization.

it is futile to take offence at a depiction when you know the reality remains what it is.

itstpia100:


tribes are not defined by numbers but rather by the fact of colonization.

it is futile to take offence at a depiction when you know the reality remains what it is.

Oh this going to be real good....!
1.So, what is this reality that is?
2.Defined by whom?
3.Why should anyone here abide by this defined reality?
4.In the event that anyone refuses to abide by this "definition" who's going to enforce their abdication?

Abuamam:


Perhaps the Italians who colonised Somaliland had less interest in the divide and rule tactic; if indeed it was such. In pre-colonial Rwanda, Hutus and Tutsis were delineated mostly on the basis of cattle ownership and hierarchy. It took the Belgians to differentiate them based on nose lengths and lip thickness... leading ultimately to a bloody genocide.



I guess yours is a better way of putting it. Africans are so fiercely tribalistic, it's mind boggling. Logically, a person's ancestory or location of birth, should not be a criterium for judging his/ her character. Yet, most Africans can't seem to shake the habit. It keeps us Africans backward.

For example, in the UK, no one cares whether the UK prime minister is Scottish, Welsh or English. In Nigeria, for example, that is the first issue everyone looks at.

The presence of Europeans in Somalia was for only a couple of decades, and that the was spent fighting them, so they never really had an opportunity to govern Somalis, as we had the longest colonial war with europeans in Africa, to the point that we were the first African City (tale) to be bombed by planes.

Somali culture is very intolerant of outsiders, thus the reason why our national language is Somali, and we still have our customs and culture, despite being in the horn of Africa, a very strategic locations, and we have been trading with foreigners for thousands of years. We still speak our own language and have our customs and culture.


As for the divide and conquer, thats impossible in Somalia for outsiders to do, as we are all ethnically Somali and look the same, have the same religion, language. each clan controls their own land, clans make up the Somali ethnicity.

RandomAfricanAm:



Oh this going to be real good....!
1.So, what is this reality that is?
2.Defined by whom?
3.Why should anyone here abide by this defined reality?
4.In the event that anyone refuses to abide by this "definition" who's going to enforce their abdication?

I do not see any problem with "tribe." The word was in use well before colonization of Africa. Iignore the very recent oxford definition. There are indegenous African names in refference to tribe.

I have a tribe, we all share a commmon ancestry. The tribe is further divided into clans, again, based on lineage, and the divisions go further down till the family unit.

Pre-colonial, we were a political, social and economic unit. We often vote on tribal lines and oh, we are phenotypically the same, we are related after all. I love my tribe(we're over 10 mil).

^ I'm having difficulties understanding what you meant when you said the word 'tribe' was used in Africa in pre-colonial times.

In any case, every modern anthropologist knows the word 'tribe' is an imprecise, loaded term Europeans applied to societies they encountered in the Americas, Africa and Asia, whom they considered to be primitive. 'Tribe' connotes 'small group', 'savage', 'simple', 'unadvanced'. Modern scholarship has revealed how complex these so-called primitive societies were, and as a result, the word tribe has fallen into disuse in scholarly circles. 'Ethnicity' or 'ethnic group' is used instead. Some of us haven't gotten it yet and continue to refer to ourselves as 'tribes' and 'tribesmen'.

I belong to a group that is over 30 million strong, speak a multiplicity of dialects some of which are not mutually intelligible with mine, practise a multiplicity of customs some of which are foreign to my own immediate community within that group. Two cities within that 'tribal' homeland number over 1 million people; several other towns number over 100,000 people. That is not a tribe. (Tribe, in the sense meant by European writers from about the 18th century on, being a small homogenous/simple group with an unsophisticated social structure.)

@Radoillo
My point is that "tribe," though ill intended, was a reference to a pre-existing, very real social structure that we do not need to deny. There is reference to tribes in old books like the bible.

In pre-colonial Africa, reference to such communities was by specific names like "people of **" refering to their custom or lineage.

Abuamam:

Perhaps the Italians who colonised Somaliland had less interest in the divide and rule tactic; if indeed it was such. In pre-colonial Rwanda, Hutus and Tutsis were delineated mostly on the basis of cattle ownership and hierarchy. It took the Belgians to differentiate them based on nose lengths and lip thickness... leading ultimately to a bloody genocide.

It's not that they didn't have any interest in dividing the Somali clans, it was because they couldn't. The Italians, French and the British were allowed to roam the vast Somali territories in the horn by the Somali clans. In Djibouti, the French were granted naval bases by the Somali Issa clan and the Afars. In British and Italian Somaliland, the British signed treaties with the coastal clans and they never entered the mainland. People in south Somalia made sure that the Italians knew that if a Somali person were to get whipped or mistreated, an Italian soldier would pay the price.

ArtanK:


It's not that they didn't have any interest in dividing the Somali clans, it was because they couldn't. The Italians, French and the British were allowed to roam the vast Somali territories in the horn by the Somali clans. In Djibouti, the French were granted naval bases by the Somali Issa clan and the Afars. In British and Italian Somaliland, the British signed treaties with the coastal clans and they never entered the mainland. People in south Somalia made sure that the Italians knew that if a Somali person were to get whipped or mistreated, an Italian soldier would pay the price.

Gerald Hanley is an old Colonial hand who lived with Somalis. This is from his book Warriors: Life and Death Among the Somalis

"A Somali always felt himself to be twice as good as any white man, or
any other kind of man at all, and still does, even when he is wrong.
Islam does wonders for the self respect of non-white people and
Christianity is right to worry about the spread of Islam in Africa, and
must honestly face the question of why it has happened - "


"Of all the desiccated, bitter, cruel, sunbeaten wildernesses which
starve and thirst beyond the edges of Africa's luscious, jungled centre,
there cannot be one more Christless than the one which begins at the
northern foot of Mount Kenya and stretches to the foothills of Abyssinia,
and from there to the dried-out glittering tip of Cape Gardafui where the
hot karif winds blow in from where the long sharks race under the thin
blue skin of the ocean. You can never think of those wildernesses without
thinking of daggers and spears, rolling fierce eyes under mops of dusty
black crinkly hair, of mad stubborn camels, rocks too hot to touch, and
blood feuds whose origins cannot be remembered, only honoured in the
stabbing. But of all the races of Africa there cannot be one better to
live among than the most difficult, the proudest, the bravest, the
vainest, the most merciless, the friendliest; the Somalis."

"I knew an Italian priest who had spent over thirty years among the
Somalis and he made two converts, and it amazed me that he got even those
two. The Prophet has no more fervent, and ignorant, followers, but that
is not their fault that they are ignorant.Their natural intelligence is
second to none and when the education factories start work among them
they should surprise Africa, and themselves."


"I never saw a Somali who showed any fear of death, which, impressive
though it sounds, carries within it the chill of pitilessness and
ferocity as well. If you have no fear of death you have none for anybody
else's either, but that fearlessness has always been essential to the
Somalis who have had to try and survive hunger, disease and thirst while
prepared to fight and die against their enemies, their fellow Somalis for
pleasure in the blood feud, or the Ethiopians who would like to rule
them, or the white men who got in the way for a while."

"Everytime a Somali got whipped, an Italian soldier was killed"

"Wandering in The Shag (desert) were Somalis with some of the sharpest
intelligences in the continent, nomads who had been forced into being
parasites of the camel, for centuries, and could anyone ever find a way
of using all that courage and intelligence?"

"There is no one alive as tough as the Somali nomad. No one.
An askari wounded in a fight in the Haud country walked 14 miles holding
his guts in his hand, was sewn up and lived to soldier again. And the
women are as spiritually strong as their men."

"....You get into that way of thinking in the Somali waste. You think
that way because the Somalis bitterly resent the white man, and struggle
continually, and admirably, by lies and intrigue, to fight off his
influence which spells the end of their peculiar world. You cannot beat
them. They have no inferiority complexes, no wide-eyed worship of the
white man's ways, and no fear of him, of his guns or of his official
anger. They are a race to be admired, if hard to love."

Somalis are actually a peculiar people, having been exposed to them a bit. I believe that strengh derives from the fact that Somali family structures remain unscathed by both colonialism and urbanisation. There is a Somali social, economic system that works for the Somalis independent of the Western market. The rest of Africa should learn this independence and break free of the indirect control by the West through its imposed systems.

Somalis do not care so much for government or anybody for that matter. Trust the Black Hawk down to happen in Somalia. I think the movie was the CIA trying to save face by the way.