(no subject)

[teddywolf]

Today I was in my Imperialism class. The discussion went around the pre-modern empires and the notion of tribe. Historical tribe, by my professor's definition, is bound by bonds of blood. He brought up the Jews as the first historical pre-modern empire and, among other things, said that this was based on Jewish tribal notions which had no conversions until the modern era.

I decided I had to speak up at this point. I mentioned we had a strong history of conversions, even though they were less common before the modern era. I brought up Ruth, I brought up the Khazars, and mentioned that a number of converts were notable in our history. He then said, "Then why are you a tribe? You can't be G-d's Chosen People by blood while allowing others to join your tribe, it's not logical." I mentioned the distinction between religiously Jewish and Jewish by birth; he said the notions were still incompatible.

Do bear in mind I like my professor. He makes me think and is academically rigorous.

His definition of tribe is as something immutable, you are born to it or not, or might get forced into it by conflict.

I want to present to him examples of tribes that accepted in outsiders to become "of the tribe". I will be doing some research into this because I want to present it to him - yes, I have been looking. If any of you know of an historical example, off the top of your head, something not involving a marriage or slavery, I would appreciate a pointer. It could be somebody joining a Native American tribe, or brought into a particular African tribe, or a Chinese family, a Germanic village, what-have-you - in fact, the more diverse the better. I want to show that a tribe may have been primarily about blood but also could be something a person chose and, under exceptional circumstances, be accepted into.

Please feel free to signal boost this.

Comments

[sethg]

Well, obviously, if your professor wants to define “tribe” in a way that excludes anything that you can convert or be adopted into, his statements are true as tautologies. I don’t see the sociological value in doing so, of course. I would even hazard to guess that an exclusive focus on family membership “by blood” is, itself, a modern idea.

Aside from the conversion narrative of Ruth in the Bible itself, references to conversion in Jewish legal documents go back to the Mishnah (see, for example, Kiddushin 4:1), which dates to the first or second century. When does this professor consider the “modern” period to have begun?

Among the American Indians of the Northeast (possibly elsewhere as well), children captured in wartime were adopted into families of the tribe that captured them, often to make up for the adoptive parents’ dead or missing children. In wars with English settlers, some white children were adopted into Indian tribes into this fashion. I recall from my undergrad days that one girl who was adopted in this way remained part of the tribe and later wrote a memoir (which, with each revised edition, became more anti-Indian), but I can’t remember her name and Wikipedia/Google/Amazon are not helping.

There is also the case of William Adams a.k.a. Miura Anjin, the Englishman who became a samurai and retainer to the shogun Togukawa Ieyasu in the 17th century; Adams was the model for the main character in James Clavell’s novel Shōgun.

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

He wanted to demarcate between a more original definition of tribe and what consider tribes to be today in casual usage of the term. He describes it as a subconscious/unconscious state of being, belonging to a tribe.

Thank you for the citations; those will be useful for talking with him.

[sethg]

But I can have a “subconscious/unconscious” sense of belonging to a tribe without actually being genetically related to another member. It all depends on the definition of membership used within the tribe.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Not just children, and not just captives -- adults including escaped slaves and settlers who married into tribes and took up their ways were adopted at times, too.

And that one captivity narrative you're trying to recall sounds like Mary Jemison (http://womenshistory.about.com/library/etext/bl_nlmj00.htm), as mentioned above -- she was initially captured as a teen by a French/Shawnee raiding party, then traded to and adopted by the Seneca. Her first husband was a Delaware, but after his death she remarried, this time to a Seneca man, and lived out the remainder of her long life with her adoptive kin; there are still tribal members who can trace their direct maternal line (the one that we mark descent and determine identity by) to her and her daughters. Most of the other famous women's captivity narratives, like Mary Rowlandson, don't fit because they focus on captives who were redeemed or escaped, not one like Deh-he-wä-mis who saw no need to leave her new life and identity; Cynthia Ann Parker's the next closest famous case I can think of, and the details, location, and time period don't fit as well.

[sethg]

Jemison! Right. Thank you.