The Tribe v. Individuals

I’m diving back in to my novel, Ravening. I got kind of lost in the plotting when I was working on it.  My outline had a lot of holes that really came back to bite me when I decided to try to write around them. I ended up putting it aside in favor of a much more linear non-fiction project.

It took me a long time to figure out what the story was really about. To me, the main theme is belonging. How does some one find their tribe?

I come from an immigrant background. I was born in Panama, my parents brought me to the US when I was a little girl. The funny thing is, that looking back in my own family history, we seem to have been on a generations long journey. My grandparents on both sides immigrated to Panama from other places. Then, a generation later, my parents came to the US.

The search for belonging forces us to make choices. There’s always pressure to join or reject the various tribes that we meet in order to define ourselves. We are all members of multiple tribes, some are more hermetic than others, but all tribes have initiations, markings, and codes of conduct for their members.

Tribes can be based on ethnicity, occupation, religion, location, or any combination of arbitrary criteria we can come up with. The power of the tribe, I think, is their ability to control the behavior of the membership.

 Although most of us try to fit into our tribes as best we can, there are always those who, for what ever reason, never quite fit in. I’ve always been fascinated by the outsiders. Outsiders shake up the established order and by their very existence threaten the power of tribes. If the tribe maintains that their way of life is the only valid one then how do outsiders not just survive, but go on to live long and happy lives.

I think that’s the root of why some groups are so tightly closed against outsiders. They worry that some of their members will see others living just fine and abandon the tribe. That threatens the power structure and that is not allowed.

Furthermore, I think we tend to have the sneaking suspicion that if a loner can survive without the tribe they must have some secret source of power they can tap into, a notion  that makes every levels of the hierarchy uneasy.


Tribes have the power to banish non-conformists or deny membership altogether. Some tribes demand absolute conformity in nearly every aspect of the lives of their members. Others seem to tolerate more individuality on the surface, but will crack down if the power structure is threatened.

What would happen if no one feared banishment from their tribe. I think most tribes would evaporate rather quickly. The power of tribes over people is an idea that’s just nagging me right now.