Village head

The village head of Kabanjahe in the Dutch East Indies in the 1930s

A village head, village headman or village chief is the community leader of a village or a small town.[1]

Usage

Brunei

In Brunei, village head is called ketua kampung or ketua kampong in the Malay language. It is an administrative post which leads the community of a village administrative division, the third and lowest subdivision of the country.

China

In China, village head (simplified Chinese: 村长; traditional Chinese: 村長; pinyin: cūn zhǎng) is a local government or tribal post. The village headman is the person appointed to administer an area that is often a single village.

Duties and functions

The headman has several official duties in the village, and is sometimes seen as a mediator in disputes and a general “fixer” of village or individuals problems.

Examples of headmanship have been observed among the Zuni,[2] !Kung, and Mehinacu,[3] among others. Nearby tribal leaders recognized or appointed by the Chinese were known as tusi (tu-szu; Chinese: 土司; pinyin: tǔsī; Wade–Giles: t'u3-szu1), although they could command larger areas than a single village.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "What does a Village Head do? (with picture)". wiseGEEK. Retrieved 2018-02-19.
  2. ↑ Ruth Benedict. Patterns of Culture, New American Library, 1934
  3. ↑ Marvin Harris. Our Kind, Harper Perennial, 1989
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