The community has a dual system of leadership combining secular and religious offices of comparable influence and authority, e.g., headman and shaman or priest, council and secret society. (Not applicable unless the religious functionaries exercise important judicial or other political functions as well as strictly religious ones)
The community has a single leader or headman but lacks other political offices other than, at most, an informal council of elders
The community has a single leader or headman plus an elaborate or hierarchical system of subordinate political statuses
The community has a single leader or headman with one or more functional assistants and/or a formal council or assembly, but lacks an elaborate or hierarchical political organization
The community has dual or plural headmen with distinct but coordinate authority and one or more functional assistants, etc., but lacks a complex system of subordinate political statuses
The focal or typical community lacks centralized leadership, political authority being dispersed among its component households or other segments, which remain essentially autonomous
The local political organization is theocratic, authority being vested not in secular officials but in a priesthood, a secret society, or other religious functionaries
Two sets of village chiefs with elaborate hierarchy of political status, etc., divided jurisdiction by season

Informally acknowledged by dream power and general qualities of leadership with tendency toward patrilineal heredity
Item 6 ideally, actually tempered by 3 (qualities of personal influence, leadership qualities, prestige, or wealth)
Item 7 ideally, actually tempered by 3 (qualities of personal influence, prestige, or wealth) or by recognition of leadership qualities as determined through either informal consensus or formal elections
No political authorities and no succession to the job
Succession based on divination, dreams, or the like
Succession is not appointive or hereditary but is achieved (by means of informal consensus or election) primarily through the acquisition of person influence, leadership qualities, prestige, or wealth
Succession tends to be hereditary by a sister's son or other matri-kinsmen of the predecessor
Succession tends to be hereditary by a son or other patri-kinsmen of the preceding headman
Succession tends to be hereditary, not by a particular category of kinsmen but by a member of a privileged group selected for his personal qualifications by some electoral or appointive procedure
Succession to the office of headman, if such or an approximate equivalent exists, is through appointment (not merely acquiescence) by some higher political authority