Teips  (also taip, teyp; Nakh тайпа taypa : family, kin, clan, tribeНохчийн-Оьрсийн словарь (Chechen-Russian Dictionary, A.G. Matsiyev, Moscow, 1961), also available online: Чеченско-Русский словарь: “схьаIенадала-такхадала” ; and Ингушско-Русский словарь (online Ingush-Russian dictionary)   ) are Chechen and Ingush tribal organizations or clans, self-identified through descent from a common ancestor or geographic location.
It is a sub-unit of the tukkhum.
There are about 150 Chechen and 50 Ingush teips.
Teips played an important role in the socioeconomic life of the Chechen and Ingush peoples before and during the Middle Ages, and continue to be an important cultural part to this day.
Traditional teip rules and features
Common teip rules and some features:Traditional Social Organisation of Chechen people
The right of communal land tenure.
Common revenge for murder of a teip member or insulting of the members of a teip.
Unconditional exogamy.
Election of a teip representative.
Election of a headman.
Election of a military leader in case of war.
Open sessions of the Council of Elders.
The right of the teip to depose its representatives.
Representation of women by male relatives.
The right of the adoption of outside people.
The transfer of property of departed to members of the teip.
The teip has a defined territory.
The teip constructed a teip tower or another building or natural monument convenient as a shelter, e.g. a fortress.
The teip had its own teip cemetery.
The teip hospitality.
List of teips
Below is a list of teips with the tukkhum to which it may belong.
Cheberloy tukkhum ();
Nizhaloy ();
Makazhoy ();
Rigakhoy ();
Buni ();
Sharoy tukkhum ();
Shotoy tukkhum ();
Varandoy ();
Keloy ()
Ovkhoy tukkhum ();
Mälkhiy tukkhum ();
Nokhchmakhkakhoy tukkhum ();
Allaroy ();
Belgatoy ();
Benoy ();
Biltoy  ();
Chartoy  ();
Chermoy  ();
Tsontaroy ();
Elistanzhkhoy ();
Engnoy ();
Ersenoy ();
Gendargnoy ();
Gordaloy ();
Gunoy ();
Kharachoy ();
Yalkhoy ();
Zandkhoy ();
Orstkhoi tukkhum (Russian: Орстхой);
Chantiy tukkhum ();
Chanti ();
Tukkhum is not known / Without a Tukkhum;
Chinkhoy ();
Dishni ();
Marshaloy ();
Mulkoy ();
Nashkhoy ();
Peshkhoy ();
Satoy ();
Turkoy ();
Terloy tukkhum ();
Khindkhoy ();
Kalkhoy ();
Yalkhoroy ();
Zumsoy ();
Zurzakkhoy ().
Identity, land and descent
Teips being sub-units of tukkhums, members of the same teip are traditionally thought to descend from a common ancestor, and thus are considered distant blood relatives.
Teip names were often derived from an ancestral founder.
As is also true of many other North Caucasian peoples, traditionally Chechen men were expected to know the names and places of origin of ancestors on their father's side, going back many generations, most common number is considered 7.
Many women also memorized this information, and keener individuals can often recite their maternal ancestral line as well.
The memorization of the information serves as a way to impute clan loyalty to younger generations.
Among peoples of the Caucasus, traditionally, large scale land disputes could sometimes be solved with the help of mutual knowledge of whose ancestors resided where and when.
A teip's ancestral land was thus held as sacred, because of its close link to teip identity.
It was typically marked by clan symbols, including the clan cemetery, tower, and sanctuary.
Land being scarce in mountainous Chechnya, after the feudal system was overthrown, each teip claimed a definite area of land.
Land boundaries were marked by stones with specific marks pointing to a local place of worship.
While at first land was owned collectively, individual cultivation ultimately became the norm.
In old Chechen tradition, women were allowed to own land.
The vehement Chechen opposition to Soviet collectivization has been explained by the threat it posed to the traditional customs of land allotment.
Political function
Each teip had an elected council of elders, a court of justice, and its own set of customs.
The civilian chief, referred to as the thamda or kh'alkhancha, chaired the council of elders.
The baechcha, meanwhile, was the military leader.
Subdivisions
The teip has its own subdivisions, in order of their progressive nesting, the , the , and the .
The  consists of households sharing the same family name, while the  is a number of  units that together form a common lineage, however that is not always the case.
The basic social unit, meanwhile, was the household, consisting of the extended family spanning three or four generations, referred to as the ts'a or the , with married daughters usually living with in the household of their spouse.
Brothers would share the same land and livestock.
Formation of new teips
The number of teips has been unstable in recent history.
While there were 59 Chechen teips in the early 19th century, this swelled to a hundred by the mid-19th century, and today there are about 170.
New teips could be founded when a large  broke off and claimed the title of a full-fledged teip.
See also
Tukkhum
History of Chechnya
References
External links
Teips on chechen.org (In Russian )
Russia and Eurasia Review (pdf)
Traditional social organisation of the Chechens (pdf)
A complete list of all Chechen Teips
