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

Usage

Brunei

Brunei Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely surrounded by t ...

, village head is called or in the

Malay language Malay (; ms, Bahasa Melayu, links=no, Jawi alphabet, Jawi: , Rejang script, Rencong: ) is an Austronesian languages, Austronesian language that is an official language of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, and that is also spo ...

. It is an administrative post which leads the community of a village administrative division, the third and lowest subdivision of the country.

Malaysia

Generally in

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

, the village head is called , except for the

proto Malay The term Proto-Malay, which translates to ''Melayu Asli'' (aboriginal Malay) or ''Melayu Purba'' (ancient Malay) or ''Melayu Tua'' (old Malay), refers to Austronesian speakers, possibly from mainland Asia, who moved to the Malay peninsula and ...

village where the position is called . Ketua Kampung was appointed and assisted by (Village Community Management Board). In

Sarawak Sarawak (; ) is a state of Malaysia. The largest among the 13 states, with an area almost equal to that of Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak is located in northwest Borneo Island, and is bordered by the Malaysian state of Sabah to the northeast, ...

, the head of a traditional long house is called .

Indonesia

The village head in

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

is called .

China

In China, village head () is a local government or tribal post. The village headman is the person appointed to administer an area that is often a single

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred ...

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, !Kung, and Mehinacu,Marvin Harris. Our Kind, Harper Perennial, 1989 among others. Nearby tribal leaders recognized or appointed by the Chinese were known as ''tusi'' (''tu-szu''; ), although they could command larger areas than a single village.

Historical usage

Japan

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characte ...

Japan, the village head was called ''

nanushi ''Nanushi'' ( Japanese: 名主) was a village official in the Edo period. They were village headmen, administering a village (''mura'') under a district magistrate (''gun-dai''), the '' daikan'' of a district governor (''gunji''). Their duties inc ...

'' (名主) and was in charge of tax collection, general village administration, management of public natural resources (such as mountain, field, river and ocean) of the village, as well as negotiating with the territorial lord as the representative of the villagers.

References

Political occupations Titles of national or ethnic leadership {{anthropology-stub