Final answer:
Chiefdoms are centralized political systems where power is concentrated with the chiefs, evident in the historical Hawaiian and Polynesian societies. Chiefs controlled economic, political, military, and religious aspects, collecting tributes used to provide services and build infrastructure.
Step-by-step explanation:
An example of a centralized political system that is a chiefdom can be found in the pre-colonial Hawaiian Islands. These islands were governed by a hierarchy of chiefs in a centralized system where chiefs held economic, political, religious, and military power. The commoners paid tribute to the chiefs, which supported government at each level and provided public goods and services. This redistribution is central to the chiefdom organizational structure. Similarly, in Polynesia, societies such as Hawaii, Tahiti, Samoa, Tonga, and the Maori of New Zealand developed chiefdoms that relied on intensive agriculture and redistribution practices. Hawaiian chiefs, for example, controlled land distribution and used their power to coordinate the building of infrastructure and the conduct of religious rituals that sustained social welfare and agricultural prosperity.