tribelet

Meaning

Noun

• A small tribe of Native Americans, especially a small independent group of Native California people who shared a language and usually comprised one principal village, or several in close proximity, plus smaller resource-gathering camps and territories.
• A small tribal society in another part of the world.

Origin

• tribe + -let. In use since at least 1925, the term was coined by anthropologist Alfred L. Kroeber to refer to hundreds of groups of Native Americans in Central California, and has since been employed by many anthropologists to denote California groups of native people.