A tribal chief or chieftain is the leader of a tribal society or chiefdom.
Tribe
The concept of tribe is a broadly applied concept, based on tribal concepts of societies of western Afroeurasia.
Tribal societies are sometimes categorized as an intermediate stage between the band society of the Paleolithic stage and civilization with centralized, super-regional government based in cities. Anthropologist Elman Service distinguishes two stages of tribal societies: simple societies organized by limited instances of social rank and prestige, and more stratified societies led by chieftains or tribal kings (chiefdoms). Stratified tribal societies led by tribal kings are thought to have flourished from the Neolithic stage into the Iron Age, albeit in competition with urban civilisations and empires beginning in the Bronze Age.
In the case of tribal societies of indigenous peoples existing within larger colonial and post-colonial states, tribal chiefs may represent their tribe or ethnicity in a form of self-government.
Chieftain
The most common types are the chairman of a council (usually of "elders") and/or a broader popular assembly in "parliamentary" cultures, the war chief (may be an alternative or additional post in war time), the hereditary chief, and the politically dominant medicineman.
The term is usually distinct from chiefs at lower levels, such as village chief (geographically defined) or clan chief (an essentially genealogical notion). The descriptive "tribal" requires an ethno-cultural identity (racial, linguistic, religious etc.) as well as some political (representative, legislative, executive and/or judicial) expression. In certain situations, and especially in a colonial context, the most powerful member of either a confederation or a federation of such tribal, clan or village chiefs would be referred to as a paramount chief.
History
Classical sources of information about tribal societies are external descriptions such as from Greco-Roman ethnography, which identified societies, surrounding the societies of the ethnographers, as tribal.
States and colonialism, particularly in the last centuries, forced their central governments onto many remaining tribal societies.
In some instances tribes have retained or regained partial self-government and their lifestyles, with Indigenous peoples rights having been fought for and some being secured on state or international levels.
Terms of specific tribal chiefdoms
Americas
Lonco (mapudungun: longko, "head") among the Mapuche
Morubixaba — tribal Cacique (chief) of the Tupi people
Oubutu (among the Kalinago people of the southern Caribbean) Rajiv (among the central Trinidadian people of Freeport) Tyee, a tribal chief of the Chinookan peoples in the Pacific Northwest of the present-day United States Cacique, a term used among the Taino Nation of the Caribbean islands, later adopted by the Spanish to refer to all heads of chiefdoms whom they encountered: Cuauhtémoc, Tecun Uman, Tenamaxtli, Atlácatl, Lempira, Nicarao (cacique), Tupac Amaru II Sachem, term of chiefdom of the Algonquian nations of present-day New England in the United States Afro Bolivian king
Africa
Ishe or She for male chiefs and Shekadzi for a woman (Shona people of Zimbabwe) Agwam (Atyap and Bajju people of central Nigeria) Eze (Igbo people of Nigeria) Gbong Gwom Jos (of the Berom people of Nigeria) Ker (Luo people) Kgosi (amongst the Tswana people of Botswana and South Africa) Lamido (in the Hausaland region of Niger and Nigeria) Mogho Naba (in the Ouagadougou region of Burkina Faso) Nkosi (Zulu, Ndebele and Xhosa peoples, South Africa and Zimbabwe) Oba and Oloye (also in Nigeria, with various Yoruba and Bini holders). Obai (Temne people of Sierra Leone) Omanhene (amongst the Akan peoples of Ghana) Orkoiyot (Nandi people in Kenya) Obong (of the Efik people of Calabar in Southern Nigeria) Tor Tiv of the Tiv people of Central Nigeria Uyini (meaning 'lord') of the Ukelle of Southern Nigeria
Oceania and Southeast Asia
Aliʻi and Aliʻi nui were the chiefs and high chiefs of the islands of Hawaii Islands Ariki, 'ariki henua Grade-taking systems of northern Vanuatu Ibedul Meena means Chief of tribals in South Asia. Iroijlaplap Maga'låhi and maga'håga, the first-borne male and female, respectively, joint heads of a Chamorro clan, through the maternal line, of the Mariana Islands Matai, in the Samoan fa'amatai system Nahnmwarki (Pohnpei), Lepen Palikir Pilung, a title for village, municipal and paramount chiefs and rulers of the Yap Islands Rangatira, a chief of Māori in New Zealand Ratu, Fijian Chief, Malay for Queen Datu, Malay and Filipino Chief