Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site gloria.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!rochester!rocksanne!sunybcs!gloria!colonel
From: colonel@gloria.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman)
Newsgroups: net.nlang.africa
Subject: Re: tribes
Message-ID: <735@gloria.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 14-May-85 11:37:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: gloria.735
Posted: Tue May 14 11:37:50 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 16-May-85 21:03:07 EDT
References: <906@hou2h.UUCP> <729@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Organization: The Jack of Clubs Precision Instruments Co.
Lines: 20

> > Does anyone out there know why people talk about tribes only when referring
> > to African peoples?
> 
> It seems to me that one speaks about 'tribes' when talking about African
> people primarily because that is the method of organization that those people
> have chosen.  I'm not an anthropologist, but I think that there are segments
> of the Arabic and Semitic people that use the term tribe.  There are tribes
> in Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, and Borneo.  There are tribes in
> South and Central America.  There are even the remnants of once proud tribes
> in North America.  Perhaps we are all members of a tribe?  Certainly this is
> not unique to Africa, black or any other color.

A tribe is a social unit organized by direct communication--for example,
face-to-face speech.  The "nations" of the world have discarded tribalism
for central nationalism, which is organized by print communication.
Electronics is undoing this, and promises to organize the whole world into
one big "tribe."
-- 
Col. G. L. Sicherman
...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!colonel