Clan

A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship

and descent. Even if lineage details remain unknown or non-specific, clan members may claim descent from a founding individual or apical ancestor who serves as a symbol of the clan's unity.

Many societies' exogamy rules are on a clan basis, where all members of one's own clan, or the clans of both parents or even grandparents, are excluded from marriage as incest.

Clans preceded more centralized forms of community organization and government, and have existed in every country. Members may identify with a coat of arms or other symbol. Some kinship-based groups may also have a symbol of origin, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor serving as a symbol of the clan's unity. Traditional anthropological thought (as for example in the work of Gerardus van der Leeuw) classified non-human examples of such "ancestors" (frequently animals) as totems.

Etymology

The word "clan" is derived from the Gaelic word clann meaning "children", "offspring", "progeny" or "descendants". According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word "clan" was introduced into English in around 1406, as a descriptive label for the organization of society in the Scottish Highlands.

None of the Irish and Scottish Gaelic terms for kinship groups is cognate to English clan; Irish and Scottish Gaelic clann means "children":

fine [ˈfʲɪnʲə] means (English) "clan"

teaghlach means "family" in the sense of the nuclear family, or can include more distant relatives living in the same house

líon tí means either "family" in the sense of "household", or everyone who lives in the house, including non-relatives

muintir means "family" in the broad sense of "kinsfolk"

Clans as political units

In different cultures and situations, a clan usually has different meaning than other kin-based groups, such as tribes and bands.