tribal art

Scope note: Refers to the art and certain artifacts of small-scale societies, even when the societies are not strictly speaking tribal in social structure. The rubric is typically applied to works of Native Americans, Oceania, and sub-Saharan Africa. The characteristics that define creators of tribal art are 1. isolation, politically and economically, from advanced civilizations; 2. oral traditions in rather than literacy; 3. small, independent population groupings, usually in villages of no more than a few hundred inhabitants who live a life of face-to-face social interaction and informal social control; 4. a low level of labor and craft specialization; 5. subsistence by hunting, fishing, and gathering and/or small-scale agriculture; 6. little technology beyond hand tools, often of stone rather than metal; and 7. slow rates of cultural change prior to European contact.

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Tesaurus d'Art i Arquitectura