Ethnic groups

Elementary ethnic units (micro-ethnic units) are the smallest constituent parts of the basic ethnic unit, representing the limit of its divisibility. These are ethnic groups, families.

Subethnic divisions are communities in which the basic ethnic properties are expressed with less intensity than in the basic ethnic units, and which are integral parts of these units. Such communities are considered ethnographic groups.

Interethnic communities, or macro-ethnic units, are entities that encompass several basic ethnic units, but are characterized by a lower intensity of ethnic characteristics than each of these units. These ethnic communities have similar cultural features. These are language families or groups (Slavs, Romance-Germans). In this regard, there may be such a phenomenon, when one person simultaneously enters into several ethnic communities of different levels. For example, Ukrainians (the main ethnographic element, ethnos), Hutsuls (ethnographic group, subethnos), Slavs (meta-ethnic community). Ethnic groups can be classified according to the corresponding types (clans, tribe, nations, nations).
Clans are groups that appear in various forms in many societies. In Europe, the most famous are the Scottish clans, representing clan alliances, politically institutionalized and playing a political role until the middle of the XVIII century. Attracting attention to the clans was the merit of L. Morgan, who documented their existence in other societies and documented the clans of the Native American tribes of North America. With a certain simplification, we can distinguish the clans as clan unions, which are the beginnings of political institutions, and clans of totemic, having the character of family unions on religious grounds.
Totemism is a religion based on the cult of animals or plants, considered to be the ancestors of the clan, on the faith in blood relationship between members of the clan and any animal or plant. Clan members recognize themselves as blood relatives. Exo- and endogamy phenomena are also associated with clans, that is, prohibitions on entering marriages inside or outside the clan. Clans are groups characteristic of primitive societies, but in some forms they can play an important role in modern societies, such as in Japan or China.
A tribe is a higher form of social organization, encompassing a large number of clans and clans. Already the totemic clan can be called a community singled out on the basis of cultural peculiarities and religious beliefs. First of all, the plemens are separated by virtue of their own language or dialect, their own customs, and characteristic names expressing their sense of isolation. The tribe has an already defined outline of the internal formal organization, a leader or a council of leaders, tribal councils designed to solve important issues for the whole tribe, to organize some joint actions.