Tukkhum

Tukkhum are systems of social organisation in traditional Chechen society. A tukkhum is a grand alliance of familial clans or teips. The tukkhum brings together clans which are unrelated by blood but united in a higher association for the joint solution of common problems — the protection from enemy attack and economic exchange. A tukkhum occupied a specific territory, which consisted of the area inhabited by members of the tukkhum, as well as a surrounding area, where the teips, which comprised the tukkhum, engaged in hunting, farming and cattle breeding. Each tukhum spoke their own dialect of the Vainakh language.

Tukkhums, in contrast to the teips, had no official head or commander (Chechen: byacha). Thus, the tukkhum was not so much a governmental or political body as a social organization.

The deliberative organ of the tukkhum was the Council of Elders, which included representatives of all the teips comprising the tukhums, on an equal footing.

The Council of Elders would convene to address inter-teip disputes and differences, to protect the interests of the individual teips, and tukkhums in general. The Council of Elders had the right to declare war, to conclude peace, to negotiate with the help of their own and others' ambassadors, to make and break alliances.

A tukkhum was not a consanguineous union, but a kind of brotherhood. It is a formation that emerged from the tribal organization. This alliance, and (or) the association of several teips, was established for specific purposes.

The tribal union of tukkhums forms the Kham or the entire Chechen nation. During the 16th and 17th centuries nine tukkhums, composed of separate teips were formed in Chechnya,

At the moment, the Chechens are united in 9 tukhums, comprising more than 100 teips:

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