DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

2.2] TRIBAL STRUCTURE 21
built, like the greatest Egyptian pyramids, with stone tools, but copper
was known, gold refined and accumulated in great quantity; without
plough agriculture, the south American societies developed a complicated
ritual calendar, extensive human sacrifices, class division into nobility
and workers, wars for new territory. Thus, it is essential to grasp the
whole picture at any stage, rather than concentrate upon the tools of
what might have been a hamlet of shepherds or tribesmen surviving in
isolation when surrounding parts of the country had history in the textbook
sense. In fact, the Punjab had gone through a cycle of urban civilization
and decay, the Gangetic basin saw theological controversies and the rise of
great empires, when the most primitive societies were the rule in the
Indian peninsula. So, we have to consider what pre-class social
organization these early societies — early in the sense of means of
production — manifested, which still survive among the less developed
units, and have left their mark upon official ‘ Hinduism.’
Pre-class society was organised, when we can begin to speak of
society at all, into tribes. Birth alone did not qualify the individual for full
membership; some sort of initiation ceremony was necessary when
the person came of age. For the tribesman, society as such began and
ended with his tribe ; members of other tribes were hardly recognized
as human-; at least, killing a stranger or robbing him was often a duty,
not a crime as it would have been with a fellow-tribesman. However,
a foreigner could be adopted into the tribe, with full membership rights.
The tribe was subdivided into exogamous units, the clans which replaced
what we would now call a family; the clan was further divided, when
food was scarce, into groups of half a dozen households, or less, for
gathering food. Each clan originally specialized in some particular food
which was regarded as their very substance, and with which they had
a peculiar unity. This being an edible fruit, insect, or animal, we find
the tribal: totem generally a tree or a living creature. It is even possible
that tribes originated by the coalescence of several clans (though a tribe
could at times split into such units, the general trend was towards greater
collectives) , presumably on the basis of exchange of food products.