Etymology

tribelet

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Today it means: 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. Full definition →

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The story

From 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.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.