On Primitive Institutions

Excerpt from On Primitive Institutions

Two radically distinct methods of regimentation are found extant in the world and recorded in the history of the past; these may be known as the tribal system and the national sys tem. By the tribal system men are organized on the basis of kinship, real or artificial. By the national system men are organized on the basis of territory. Thus kinship groups are found in tribal society, territorial groups in national society. In history, transitional forms are found, the most important of which are feudal. Thus, feudal society exhibits both methods, and forms a connecting link in the evolution of tribal into national government. In savagery, families are organized into clans, and clans into tribes, and tribes into confederacies. Sometimes, intervening units are discovered, but the family, clan, tribe and confederacy are always discovered. In barbarism families, gentes, tribes.