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A band society, sometimes called a camp, or in older usage, a horde, is the simplest form of human
society A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Soc ...
. A band generally consists of a small kin group, no larger than an extended family or clan. The general consensus of modern anthropology sees the average number of members of a social band at the simplest level of foraging societies with generally a maximum size of 30 to 50 people.


Origins of usage in anthropology

Band was one of a set of three terms employed by early modern ethnography to analyse aspects of
hunter-gatherer A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fung ...
foraging societies. The three were respectively 'horde,' 'band', and 'tribe'. The term 'horde', formed on the basis of a Turkish/Tatar word ''úrdú'' (meaning 'camp'), was inducted from its use in the works of J. F. McLennan by Alfred William Howitt and Lorimer Fison in the mid-1880s to describe a geographically or locally defined division within a larger tribal aggregation, the latter being defined in terms of social divisions categorized in terms of descent. Their idea was then developed by A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, as a model for all Australian indigenous societies, the horde being defined as a group of parental families whose married males all belonged to the one patrilineal clan. 'Horde' from the outset bore stereotypical connotations of Australian Aboriginal societies as primitive, closed, rigid and simple, and came to be discarded not only for its implication of 'swarming savages' but also because it suggested a fixed tribal-territorial entity which compromised the actual field data, the field data allowing for a far more fluid concept of the group. In 1936, Julian Steward reformulated Radcliffe Brown's highly restrictive definition, by proposing the idea of a band society at the hunter-gatherer level which could be patrilineal, matrilineal or a composite of both. Over time, 'band' has tended to replace the earlier word 'horde' as more extensive comparative work on hunter-gatherer societies shows they are not classifiable as simply closed patrilineal groups, and better approached in terms of a notion of a flexible, non-exclusive social band, having bilateral relations for marriage and other purposes with similar groups in a circumscribed territory. In 1962, Les Hiatt invalidated Radcliffe-Brown's theory of the horde, demonstrating that the empirical evidence from Aboriginal societies contradicted Radcliffe-Brown's generalisations. The word "band" is also used in North America, for example among the
indigenous peoples of the Great Basin The Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin are Native Americans of the northern Great Basin, Snake River Plain, and upper Colorado River basin. The "Great Basin" is a cultural classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas and a cultural r ...
. With African hunter-gatherers, for instance among the Hadza, the term "camp" tends to be used.


Characteristics

Bands have a loose organization. They can split up (in spring/summer) or group (in winter camps), as the
Inuit Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territorie ...
, depending on the season, or member families can disperse to join other bands. Their power structure is often egalitarian. The best hunters would have their abilities recognized, but such recognition did not lead to the assumption of authority, as pretensions to control others would be met by disobedience. Judgments determined by collective discussion among the elders were formulated in terms of custom, as opposed to the law-governed and coercive agency of a specialized body, as occurred with the rise of the more
complex societies A complex society is a concept that is shared by a range of disciplines including anthropology, archaeology, history and sociology to describe a stage of social formation. The concept was formulated by scholars attempting to understand how modern ...
that arose upon the establishment of agriculture.


Definitions and distinctions

A. R. Radcliffe-Brown defined the horde as a fundamental unit of Australian social organizations according to the following five criteria: # It denotes people who customarily share the same camp and lifestyle. # It is the primary landowner of a given territory. # Each horde was independent and autonomous, regulating its social life by a camp-council, generally under the direction of a headman. # Children pertained to the father's horde # A unified horde identity was affirmed in all relations with external tribes. In his 1975 study, ''The Notion of the Tribe'', Morton Fried defined bands as small, mobile, and fluid social formations with weak
leadership Leadership, both as a research area and as a practical skill, encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organization to "lead", influence or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations. The word "leadership" often gets v ...
that do not generate surpluses, pay taxes or support a standing
army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...
. Bands are distinguished from
tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confl ...
s in that tribes are generally larger, consisting of many families. Tribes have more social institutions, such as a
chief Chief may refer to: Title or rank Military and law enforcement * Chief master sergeant, the ninth, and highest, enlisted rank in the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force * Chief of police, the head of a police department * Chief of the bo ...
, big man, or elders. Tribes are also more permanent than bands; a band can cease to exist if only a small group splits off or dies. Many tribes are subdivided into bands. On occasion hordes or bands with common backgrounds and interests could unite as a tribal aggregate in order to wage war, as with the San, or they might convene for collective religious ceremonies, such as initiation rites or to feast together seasonally on an abundant resource as was common in Australian aboriginal societies. Among the Native Americans of the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
and the First Nations of
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, some tribes are made up of official bands that live in specific locations, such as the various bands of the Ojibwa tribe.


Examples

Band societies historically were found throughout the world, in a variety of climates, but generally, as civilisations arose, were restricted to sparsely populated areas,
tropical rainforest Tropical rainforests are rainforests that occur in areas of tropical rainforest climate in which there is no dry season – all months have an average precipitation of at least 60 mm – and may also be referred to as ''lowland equator ...
s, tundras and deserts. With the spread of the modern nation-state around the globe there are few true band societies left. Some historical examples include the Shoshone of the
Great Basin The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja California. It is noted fo ...
in the United States, the
San people The San peoples (also Saan), or Bushmen, are members of various Khoe, Tuu, or Kxʼa-speaking indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures that are the first cultures of Southern Africa, and whose territories span Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zam ...
of
Southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost subregion of the African continent, south of the Congo and Tanzania. The physical location is the large part of Africa to the south of the extensive Congo River basin. Southern Africa is home to a number o ...
, the Mbuti of the
Ituri Rainforest The Ituri Rainforest is a rainforest located in the Ituri Province of northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The forest's name derives from the nearby Ituri River which flows through the rainforest, connecting firstly to the Aruwimi Ri ...
in
Central Africa Central Africa is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Co ...
, and many groups of
indigenous Australians Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...
, such as the
Pitjantjatjara The Pitjantjatjara (; or ) are an Aboriginal people of the Central Australian desert near Uluru. They are closely related to the Yankunytjatjara and Ngaanyatjarra and their languages are, to a large extent, mutually intelligible (all are vari ...
from Central Australia and the Palawa from
Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...
.


See also

* Chiefdom, hierarchical political organizations in non-industrial societies. * Lineage-bonded societies, acephalous societies predicated on claims of a common ancestor. * Band government, in which a "band" forms a fundamental component.


Notes


Citations


Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * {{refend Hunter-gatherers Anthropological categories of peoples Ethnology Political anthropology