tribe

nation, people, peoples. Or, use specific designation (Cheyenne, Ibo, San). Ward Churchill (in Global Justice) says, "Words such as 'nation' and 'tribe' are not, all protestations of government officials and 'responsible tribal leaders' notwithstanding, 'interchangeable' in either political or legal contexts. To the contrary, phrases such as 'tribal sovereignty' add up to near-perfect politicojudicial oxymorons.... No native language in North America ... contains a word which translates accurately as 'tribe.' The literal translation of most American Indian people's names for themselves was, traditionally, exactly that: 'people.'" Originally, Indian peoples were treated as nations, complete with ambassadors and treaties. In the 1860s and 1870s, "tribe" began completely displacing "nation" in the legal discourse leading to congressional termination of treaty-making with Indians and full and absolute power over Indians' property and affairs. The use of "tribe" for African peoples is also rejected. "How an ethnic group with two or ten million people in East or West Africa, with a parliamentary government, can be described as a tribe and not the Irish, the Scot, the Welsh, the French or the English, still baffles the non-European" (Sanford Berman, Prejudices and Antipathies). "It's easy to say the Yoruba of Nigeria, the Hausa people, the Makah of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, or the Iroquois nation. When using specific name and locale, we are conveying information and knowledge" (Zoë Anglesey, in MultiCultural Review). See also American Indian, tribal warfare, tribesman.