It varies, but a chief has to sneak into an enemy's fort and steal horses from the enemy, and skin the heads of some enemies, and a few other things they invented in frontier times.
Before that, who knows. Maybe hereditary benefits, or maybe whoever was the strongest or something.
To lead the indigenous by proper title, one must trespass, steal, abduct something living of value (generally horses or women), and murder a certain number of innocents, varying tribe to tribe.
To lead the colonizers by proper title, one must get something like 30% of people (with jerrymandering and FPTP systems) to say "yeah, that person leads us."
That's not a chief. That's a band leader.
It varies, but a chief has to sneak into an enemy's fort and steal horses from the enemy, and skin the heads of some enemies, and a few other things they invented in frontier times.
Before that, who knows. Maybe hereditary benefits, or maybe whoever was the strongest or something.
To lead the indigenous by proper title, one must trespass, steal, abduct something living of value (generally horses or women), and murder a certain number of innocents, varying tribe to tribe.
To lead the colonizers by proper title, one must get something like 30% of people (with jerrymandering and FPTP systems) to say "yeah, that person leads us."