Inner workings of a human tribe

In the previous post on human tribes, I talked about their food source, boats, houses, and a few other things, mostly visible when you first meet them.  This post is about how the tribe actually functions.

Leadership

Some tribes aren't organized at all, being just a handy way to describe the culture of the local humans.  Each settlement in a such a tribe governs itself independently.

Chiefs rule some human tribes, kings that come from the upper class of the people.  Their towns send some kind of tribute, food, laborers, or warriors.  Chiefs tend to inherit their position or seize it through war.

Many tribes are more democratic, decisions being made by a council of delegates or by a popular assembly of as many as can gather.

Tribal Leadership (d10)
1-3	no central leadership	Each town is independent. There is no tribal leadership. Roll again to see how towns are typically governed.
4-5	chief	A high-ranking person rules the tribe, receiving tribute/labor/warriors from the various towns. The position is likely inherited or seized in conflict.
6-7	council of chiefs	A council of the most important high-caste people makes decisions for the tribe.
8-9	assembly	Each family/clan/town sends a representative to speak at the ruling assembly.
10	popular consensus	A large portion of the people gather together in one place to argue and come to decisions.

Some tribes use a mix of these, with a chief who chooses the clans to be represented, or a popular assembly that elects a council, or a pair of chiefs with different areas of responsibility, etc.

Men and Women

Of all the talking species, humans have the most rigid gender roles.  They tend to divide up tasks and areas of expertise into men's things and women's things.

(Goblins have gender roles but are more flexible on them, giants are too independent to worry about such things, and elves are basically all the same gender, biologically, so they don't really understand the concept.)

Most tribes follow the gender roles handed down to them by their ancestors (so related tribes tend to follow the same rules) or they've adopted the practices of their neighbors.

(d10)	men	women
1-2	warfare, hunting, woodcarving	farming, weaving, settling disputes
3-4	dealings with outsiders	dealings within the tribe
5	animals, stone and metal working, settling disputes	plants, water and settlement rights, death rituals
6	farming, construction	fishing, hunting
7	only men eat potatoes, salmon, turkeys	only women eat corn, wild rice, deer
8	warding off dangerous creatures	interpreting dreams and signs
9	trade, searching for things	making and using fire, keeping the history of the people
10	roll again, but switch the results

Religion

The Starving Time broke many people's understanding of the world, forcing them to resort to new ways of thinking.  New religious movements have cropped up (all with something to say about the apocalypse of our parents' day) and they've been spreading across the land.

I'll be doing a post about how human religions work later on (and how to roll up a random religion of your own) but for now let's look at how this tribe relates to religious practice.

Religion (d6)
1-2	Holding to tradition in the face of all these strange new religions. Some have secretly converted.
3	Enthusiastic converts to a new religious movement. A few are quietly keeping to the old ways.
4	Most of the (d4) 1: men, 2: women, 3: youths, 4: common people; have joined a new religion while the rest follow the old ways.
5	Most people have fallen away from their ancestors' religion and are eager to listen to preaching.
6	Deeply divided between two different faiths.

Roll up a random tribe's workings with the table below.  (Sorry, I still haven't figured out how to get it to work on mobile.)  I've copied over the entries from the first post in this series, head back there for more explanation about what they mean.

random human tribe
reputation
what they lost
food
boats
captives
leadership
men and women
religion

Coming up: who the tribe's rivals and allies are, and how they came to be that way.