Clan

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Anthropology of kinship
Basic concepts Kinship Affinity Consanguinity Incest taboo Endogamy Exogamy Polyandry Bride service Bride price Dowry Parallel & cross cousins Cousin marriage Joking relationship Lineage Clan Fictive kinship Milk kinship Descent Cognatic / Bilateral descent Matrilateral / Patrilateral descent Ambi-, Uni-, Matri-, Patrilineality Avunculate Household forms Nuclear family Extended family Gender Third gender
Kinship terminology Kinship terminology Classificatory terminologies Iroquois kinship Crow kinship Omaha kinship Eskimo kinship Hawaiian kinship Sudanese kinship Dravidian kinship
Case studies Kinship Australian Aboriginal kinship Chinese kinship Philippine kinship Polyandry in Tibet/Polyandry in India Gender Mosuo matrilineality Chambri - female dominance Hijra - Third gender Sexuality Coming of Age in Samoa
Related articles Alliance theory List of matrilineal/matrilocal societies Feminist anthropology Sex and Repression in Savage Society
Major theorists Diane Bell Tom Boellstorff Jack Goody Gilbert Herdt Don Kulick Roger Lancaster Louise Lamphere Eleanor Leacock Claude Lévi-Strauss Bronisław Malinowski Margaret Mead Henrietta Moore Lewis H. Morgan Stephen O. Murray Michelle Rosaldo David M. Schneider Marilyn Strathern
Social and cultural anthropology

For other uses, see Clan (disambiguation).

A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clan members may be organized around a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be symbolical, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a symbol of the clan's unity. When this ancestor is not human, it is referred to as an animalian totem. Clans can be most easily described as tribes or sub-groups of tribes. The word clan is derived from 'clann' meaning 'family' in the Irish and Scottish Gaelic languages. The word was taken into English about 1425 as a label for the tribal nature of Irish and Scottish Gaelic society. Clans in indigenous societies are likely to be exogamous, meaning that their members cannot marry one another. Clans preceded more centralized forms of community organization and government; they are located in every country. Members may identify with a coat of arms or other symbol to show they are an independent clan.

Clans as political units

In different cultures and situations, a clan may mean the same thing as other kin-based groups, such as tribes, castes, and bands. Often, the distinguishing factor is that a clan is a smaller part of a larger society such as a tribe, a chiefdom, or a state. In some societies, clans may have an official leader such as a chieftain or patriarch; in others, leadership positions may have to be achieved, or people may say that 'elders' make decisions.

Examples include Irish, Scottish, Chinese, Japanese clans, Rajput clans, Nair Clan or Malayala Kshatriya Clan in India and Pakistan, which exist as kin groups within their respective nations. Note, however, that tribes and bands can also be components of larger societies. However, the early Norse clans, the ætter, cannot be translated with tribe or band, and consequently they are often translated as house or line. The Biblical tribes of Israel were composed of many clans, Arab clans are small groups within Arab society. Ojibwa bands are smaller parts of the Ojibwa tribe or people in North America, as one example of the many Native American peoples distinguished by language and culture, most having clans and bands as the basic kinship organizations. In some cases more than one tribe recognized each other's clans; for instance, both the Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes had fox and bear clans whose membership could supersede the tribe.^{[citation needed]}

Apart from these different historical traditions of kinship, conceptual confusion arises from colloquial usages of the term. In post-Soviet countries, for example, it is quite common to speak of "clans" in reference to informal networks within the economic and political sphere. This usage reflects the assumption that their members act towards each other in a particularly close and mutually supportive way approximating the solidarity among kinsmen. Polish clans differ from most others as they are a collection of families who bear the same coat of arms, as opposed to claiming a common descent. This is discussed under the topic of Polish Heraldry. There are multiple closely related clans in the Indian sub-continent, especially south India.

Large families or clans wandering in the lush woodlands have continued to be the most common form of life through human history. Axes to fell trees and sickles for harvesting of the grain were the only tools people might bring with them. All other devices were made from materials they found at the site, such as fire stakes of birch, long rods (vanko), and harrows made of spruce tops. The extended family conquered the lush virgin forest, burned and cultivated their carefully selected swidden plots, powered one or a few crops, and then proceeded on to forests they had registered before. In the temperate zone the forest regenerated in the course of a lifetime. So swidden was repeated several times in the same area over the years. But in the tropics the forest floor gradually depleted. It was not only to the moors, as in Northern Europe, but also in the steppe, savannah, prairie, pampas and barren desert in tropical areas where shifting cultivation is the oldest (Clark 1952 91-107).

Clans by region

• The Gaelic term for clan is fine [finɨ].
• Ahir clans
• Arab tribes
• Armenian clans
• Azerbaijan
  • Nakhchivani
  • Yeraz
• Baloch tribes
• Burundian clans
• Chechen clans
• Ngoche clan
• Central Asian clans
• Chinese clan, family name and consort clans
• Chinese (Hong Kong) five Great Han Chinese Punti clans: Tang, Hau, Pang, Man, Liu
• Germanic clans
• Indian subcontinent:
  • Kshatriya Clans
  • Bhuiyar clans
  • Bunt clans
  • Gakhar clans
  • Arain Clans
  • Gujjar clans
  • Jat clans
  • Khatri clans
  • Maratha clans
  • Meenas clan
  • Mukkulathor clan
  • Vellalar clan
  • Rajput clans
  • Tarkhan clans
  • Yadav clan
  • Nai Clan
  • Nair Clan
  • Malayala Kshatriya
• Iranian clans
• Silver Chain Clan
• Irish clans and septs (also: Chiefs of the Name)
• Israelites
• Japanese clans
• Korean clans and names
• Manchu clans and names
• Mongolian clans and tribes
• Norse clans
• Pashtun tribes
• Polish clans
• Rwandan clans
• Scottish clans
  • Armigerous clan
  • Scottish clan chief
• Senegambia (the Gambian and Senegal)
  • Serer clans
    • Njuufeen
    • Joos
    • Serer maternal clans
• Serb clans
• Somali clans
• Tanzanian clans
• Turkish clans
• Ugandan clan

See also

• Clan of a matrix