What is and isn t a tribe I think this article needs to better describe what a tribe actually means and in particular what sorts of groups or societies are or are not tribes It also needs to better explain what the objections to using the word tribe are I have a dictionary that defines the word tribe but gives a caveat on the usage that In historical contexts the word tribe is broadly accepted the area was inhabited by Slavic tribes but in contemporary contexts it is problematic when used to refer to a community living within a traditional society It is strongly associated with past attitudes of white colonialists towards so called primitive or uncivilized peoples living in remote undeveloped places For this reason it is generally preferable to use alternative terms such as community or people However I ve also seen people object to the use of tribe do describe such ancient societies claiming they weren t tribes they were kingdoms this was in reference to Germanic rather than Slavic tribes I think I don t know if that makes any difference In summary I m unclear of the meaning of the word if tribe and the objections to it are because a It is a meaningful word but not considered politically correct due to association with colonialist attitudes b It is a meaningful word but often gets misused to describe things that are not tribes c It has no consistent meaning and doesn t tell you anything useful about groups so described d Something else e Some or all of the above