Mary Allen
A trunk is an important part of a tree. He stands on the roots and carries the branches. But the word has even more meanings: A tribe can also be a people group, part of a family, or part of the animal kingdom. Different groups of Boy Scouts also form a tribe together. In the language, there is also the stem of the word. There are even more meanings.
We probably know the tree trunk best. He doesn’t just carry the branches. It also transports sap from the roots to the leaves and vice versa. The trunk grows every year and puts on a new ring of cells. The bark is on the outside. People like to use the wood of the trunk as building material or for furniture.
A tribe can also be a group of people who belong together. They have the same language, the same laws and traditions, and many other things. We know it best from the Indian tribes. Perhaps they all descended from the same ancestors. So there is a common pair of first parents. Such extended families often draw a family tree. The parents form the tribe. The names of their children are written on the branches, the grandchildren stand on the thinner branches, and so it goes.
In the animal kingdom, too, large groups are combined into a tribe. The best known of these is probably the Vertebrate phylum. They include mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. It’s the same with plants. Instead of tribes one sometimes speaks of departments.
The scouts also speak of tribes. However, this does not mean exactly the same thing in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. But there are always several groups that belong more closely together.
In language, there is the stem of the word. Singing, sang, and sung, for example, belong to the same root word. It always means the same thing, simply in a different person or tense.