Tribal circuitry

Meaning

Human Design sorts its 36 channels into circuits, families of channels that carry the same kind of energy. It gathers the circuits into three groups, and each describes a way of sharing energy. The Tribal circuitry has seven channels. Its keynote is support.

The tradition contrasts it with the two other groups. The Collective circuitry shares with everyone, strangers included. The Individual circuitry brings something new and touches others by example. Tribal energy shares within a circle of people who know and need each other: a family, a household, a village, a team, a business. Its question is always who belongs, and what each one gives and receives.

Human Design reads the Tribe through the bargain. Support is given, and loyalty, care or work come back. This is not a cold exchange. The tradition sees it as the oldest glue of human life: food shared, children raised, homes kept, promises honoured. Touch matters here too, and so do resources, which the Tribe gathers and passes on.

The group holds two circuits:

• The Ego circuit, with five channels, is the core of the group. Most of it runs through the Heart, the centre of willpower and of the material world. It deals with work, resources, agreements and the community they sustain.
• The Defense circuit, with two channels, runs through the Sacral. It deals with intimacy, nurture and the protection of the next generation.

In practice

• Reading a chart. Ulune draws every defined channel on the bodygraph but does not group the channels by circuit. To find the Tribal ones, compare the defined channels with the lists on the Ego and Defense pages.
• The deal. A chart rich in Tribal channels is read as at ease with clear agreements. The tradition suggests naming the terms of a bargain, at work or at home, so no one feels used.
• Belonging. Tribal energy is personal. It cares for its own first, and the tradition reads this as loyalty rather than narrowness. It can still feel excluding to someone outside the circle.
• Rest and work. The Heart is read as a motor that needs rest between efforts. The tradition counsels keeping promises within what the willpower can truly give. This is a teaching about balance, not a health claim.
• With other groups. A Tribal person may find Collective fairness distant and Individual independence unreliable. Human Design reads all three as needed, each covering what the others cannot.

Across traditions

• The I Ching. The Tribal gates include hexagram 37, which Wilhelm calls The Family, and 45, Gathering Together. Hexagram 27, The Corners of the Mouth, is about providing nourishment. These titles suit the Tribe well, though Human Design did not draw its circuits from them.
• Astrology. Modern astrology calls Jupiter and Saturn the social planets, between the personal and the outer ones. They govern growth within society and its rules and duties. The likeness with the Tribe’s support and agreements is loose but real.

Origin and history

The Tribal circuitry belongs to Ra Uru Hu’s teaching on circuits, presented from 1987. The Definitive Book of Human Design (Ra Uru Hu and Lynda Bunnell, 2011) describes it.

Correspondences