There are two parts to the Tribal Circuit Group:

1. The Ego Circuit, which is about building community and making money for the community.

2. The Defense Circuit, which is about making children and raising children.

The collective person will share with you but it is not necessarily personal. The individual person will do their own thing and it might empower you (but they are probably too busy doing their own thing to care either way). So for these two circuits it is not very possessive.

When you get to the tribal circuit it gets very sticky. The tribe is not concerned with sharing with you, nor does it care if you are empowered as an individual. What they care about is what kind of support the relationship has. It is the tribe that says:

"If you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours."

For Tribal circuitry, the super keynote is the word support. And for support to happen you need to get close enough to smell them.

Also, in order for backs to be scratched you first have to have a back, and this is the next point to understand in the tribal circuitry: It is about having. "My wife supports me" could only be said by a tribal person. An individual person would find this statement suffocating and a collective person would talk about women's liberation. But for a tribal person it works.

The tribe is the most intimate of the circuits in terms of the senses: body odors, touch, taste, etc. For example, the family recipe that is handed down as a form of family identity. Or the handshake to seal a deal. Or the blood bond between best friends. Or remarks about the guy from out of town who "smells funny." This is all in the tribal realm.

But the most important thing to remember is that it is about making deals that guarantee support. "I'll clean the house and feed the children if you go out and work to make the family money." Without this kind of deal making we would not survive.