Tribelet

Origin

Coined by anthropologist to refer to many groups of Native Americans in Central California. The word stems from the word tribe, and suffix -let. It has been in use since at least 1925. Kroeber maintained he had identified over 500 tribelets in California. The term has been employed by many anthropologists since to denote California groups of native people.

Full definition of tribelet

Noun

1. A small tribe of Native Americans (diminutive of tribe); specifically; small independent groups of Native California people which shared a language and usually comprised of one principal village - larger groups possibly having several villages all in close proximity.
• 1994, Leventhal et. al., Back from Extinction, "The Ohlone: Past and Present Native Americans of the San Francisco Bay Region." Ballena Press Publication, page 299-300:Kroeber’s emphasis on the small scale of indigenous California social organizations led him to attach the diminutive "-let" to the anthropologically normative term "tribe".
• 1925, Kroeber, Alfred L. Handbook of the Indians of California. Washington, D.C: Bureau of American Ethnology: Bulletin No. 78, page 474:The second feature, dialectic separateness, of course is an old story for California, but elsewhere in the state each idiom is usually common to a considerable number of tribelets or "village communities."
• 1978, Levy, Richard. Costanoan, in Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 8 (California):The larger tribelets usually had several permanent villages.
• 1994, Leventhal et. al., ‘’Back from Extinction’’, ibid., page 299-300:Tribelet...defined a political and geographical unit comprising several units, usually including a principal and most powerful central village, tied by relations of kinship.

Usage notes

Tribelet is considered pejorative to the Californian natives. Per Leventhal, (1994:299-300), "this term, almost universally accepted by anthropologists, historians, educators, and cultural resource management (CRM) archaeologists, is considered demeaning by Ohlone, Esselen and other California Indian people. Tribelet has been employed by many influential anthropologists and authors who have followed Kroeber (Heizier 1974, 1978; Levy 1978, Margolin 1978, Milliken 1983, 1990) maintaining an impression of extremely small and provincial cultures that lacked forms of large-scale organization."

Milliken (1995:13n) has suggested the word is not used outside of California for comparable people groups and may fall out of favor in academic circles: "Most California anthropologists refer to the contact-period political groups of west Central Coast California as 'tribelets', following Kroeber (1932). Yet 'tribelet' has not taken hold as a term to describe similar multifamily landholding groups in other hunter-gathering and agricultural societies."