Chiefs, Chieftaincies, Chiefdoms, and Chiefly Confederacies: Power in the Evolution of Political Systems

Chiefdom is a social category, continuous with non-stratified social groups and states. The defining process of chiefdoms is an emergent political economy that mobilized resources used to finance institutions of rule and social stratification. Chiefdoms are highly variable, but they are all about power. This article reviews concepts of chiefs, chiefdoms and chiefly confederacies, and illustrates how Polynesian chiefdoms operated prior to state formation. The chief is a political actor seeking to control rather opportunistically the elemental powers of economy, warrior might, and ideology. The history of Kamehameha, first King of the Hawaiian Islands, illustrates how a chief fashioned a state superstructure. Following the formation of states, chiefs continue to operate as substate actors controlling interstitial spaces (illegal operations, rural areas, and the like) in competition and collaboration with an overarching state. This personal essay summarizes my understanding of chiefdoms and their related concepts in evolutionary perspective. Since the 1970s, I have built on ideas developed and long abandoned by Marshall Sahlins (1958 vs. 1976). Those interested in social evolution know what I have written, and I will not repeat that long history (Earle 1987, 1997, 2002a). This is what I believe after forty years of research on chiefdoms. They should be considered tied to particular political processes by which power becomes centralized. Typological exercises in evolutionary studies are arbitrary divisions of human organizations, and the focus should shift toward