As an undergraduate I became interested in the the word ‘tribe’, as we use it colloquially. Despite thinking of it as word for something other, non-modern, non-industrial and even pre-agricultural forms of social organisation, I was aware the word was thoroughly civilised in its provenance, from the Old French tribu or directly from Latin tribus.
I’ve just come across some etymological notes on the word’s slang usage from those days, which I reproduce below.
From Slang and its Analogues by JS Farmer et al, which is available online.
TRIB subs. (Old Cant) – A prison (B.E. and Gross): see cage [that is tribulation]. He is in trib (B.E.) = ‘he is layd by the Heels, or in a good deal of trouble’.
TRIBE subs (colloq.) – A number of persons: in contempt.
d. 1685 ROSCOMMON, prol to Duke of York at Edinburgh. Folly and vice are easy to describe, the common subjects of our scribbling tribe.
1859 TENNYSON, Geraint. A tribe of women dress’d in many hues