Document Type

Article

Department

Anthropology

Abstract

In 1974 we authored an essay entitled "Tribe and Tribalism" which recommended that the term "tribe" be dropped from scientific usage by anthropologists because of its pejorative connotations associated with non-European peoples and because the term is arbitrarily, rather than systematically applied.

Increasing numbers of scholars are putting quotation marks around the word "tribe" or are using the phrase "the so-called tribal societies." Still others are presenting a critical review of the term "tribe" before abandoning it or using it in the text in modified or altered form. The term "primitive" has undergone a similar evolution in recent years.

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