The Nomadic Alternative

57 THE NOMADIC ALTERNATIVE INDIANA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES BLOOMINGTON THOMAS J. BARFIELD Boston University PRENTICE HALL Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 07632 LOCATIONS OF NOMADIC PASTORAL PEOPLES MENTIONED IN THE FOLLOWING CHAPTERS Contemporary Nomadic Groups Name of Group Number Approximate Location C7/^ Al Murrah Bedouin 1 Empty Quarter Arabia (. J Altai Kazaks 2 Junction Russia, Mongolia, China s§ \ Baluch 3 junction Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan *5~~^ O Basseri 4 southern Iran } Buryat 5 region of Lake Baikal / Central Asian Arab 6 northern Afghanistan '• ' £^~^~~\_ ( Dinka 7 southern Sudan •• - - &r Drokba 8 central Tibet -: "; - Jie 9 northern Uganda Kazak 10 between Caspian Sea and Lake Balkash Lur 11 southern Iran Masai 12 Kenya and Tanzania Mongol 13 Mongolia Nuer 14 southern Sudan Oashqa'i 15 southern Iran Rwala Bedouin 16 North Arabia (Jordan, Iraq, Syria) Turkana 17 northern Kenya Turkmen 18 northeastern Iran, Turkmenistan Zulu 19 southern Africa Historic Nomadic Groups Hsiung-nu 20 Mongolia/China . r, LAKE / BAIKAL Scythian 21 southern Russia/Ukraine Uignur 22 northwestern Mongolia U f- Zunghar 23 Junction Russia, Mongolia, China -99J r>^-— ^ s __ / f^ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Barfield,Thomas]. (ThomasJefferson), (date) '' >V":V The nomadic alternative / Thomas J. Barfield. , ; -,: p. cm. , ' ' ' I Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-13-624982-5 1. Nomads—Social conditions. 2. Nomads—Economic conditions. I- Title. ,,..,,.. ; GN387.B37 1993 - -' ' 305.9-069—dc20 ' 92-15067 CIP Production Editor: KERRY REARDON Acquisitions Editor. NANCY ROBERTS ONTENTS Copy Editor: HENRY PELS C Cover Designer: RICH DOMBROWSKI • .• Prepress Buyer: KELLY BEHR Manufacturing Buyer. MARY ANN GLORIANDE Page Layout: JOHLJSA Editorial Assistant: PATRICIA NATURALE ==&= ©1993 bv Prentice-Hall, Inc. ESJJE A Simon & Schuster Company PREFACE IX ~^Q Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 07632 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be INTRODUCTION reproduced, in any form or by any means, Myths and Legends 3 . without permission in writing from the publisher. Definitions 4 Animals 5 Cultural/Ecological Areas 6 Printed in the United States of America Key Animals 9 10 987654321 Ecology of Movement 11 Pastoral Economic Organization 12 IS-: Pastoral Social and Political Organization 15 ISBN D-13 Approaches and Themes 17 Notes 18 PRENTICE-HALL INTERNATIONAL (UK) LIMITED, London PRENTICE-HALL OF AUSTRALIA PTY. LIMITED, Sydney Further Readings 18 PRENTICE-HALL CANADA INC., Toronto PRENTICE-HALL HISPANOAMERICANA, S.A., Mexico PRENTICE-HALL OF INDIA PRIVATE LIMITED, New Delhi *- THE CATTLE KEEPERS: EAST AFRICAN PASTORALISM PRENTICE-HALL OF JAPAN, INC., Tokyo SIMON & SCHUSTER ASIA PTE. LTD., Singapore The Cattle Complex: EDITORA PRENTICE-HALL DO BRASIL, LTDA., Rio de Janeiro Definition/Distribution/Problems 20 v I CONTENTS CONTENTS Cultural Ecology of East African Pastoralism 21 Models of Sedentarization and Their Having Large Herds: Symbols, Subsistence, Consequences 104 . and Survival 24 Tribal Khans and Nomadic Confederations 107 The Ro\e ot kgricufture and Trade 26 Tribal Political Organization 108 Tribes and States 109 Soc\a\ Organization 29 Political Encapsulation by the Modern State Political Organization 37 in Twentieth Century 115 Internal 37 External Affairs 42 Pastoralism and Economic Change 118 Models of Sedentarization Revisited 118 Problems and Prospects for Pastoralists Pastoralism as Cash Ranching 122 • • •• ;': in Modern Africa 49 The Viability of Contemporary Nomadic ,. ,v V Notes 53 Pastoralism 126 Further Readings 55 Notes 128 .,.,,,, . i . Further Readings 130 ;r-\ THE CAMEL NOMADS: THE DESERT BEDOUINS 57 A Few Words About Camels 58 THE HORSE RIDERS: NOMADS OF THE EURASIAN STEPPE 132 The Emergence of Bedouin Societies 60 Horse Domestication and the Rise of Steppe The Bedouins of Arabia 64 Pastoralism 132 ., ... The Economics of Camel Pastoralism 68 Nomadic Pastoralism in Central Eurasia 136 Households and Tent Groups 69 The Five Animals 137 Lineage Models of Society 74 The Migratory Cycle 140 > -' . .• Control of Resources 144 , , . Women's Roles and Marriage Patterns 76 Social Organization 145 ., -T <* .••."•- Honor and Reputation 78 The Family Camp Group 145 Tribes with Leaders: The Role of Sheikhs 82 Marriage Alliances and the Role of Women 146 Clan and Lineage Organization 147 . •'. Tribes and States in History 83 Political Organization 149 The Bedouin in the Modern World 87 ."MStf The Imperial Confederacy 150 Notes 90 , - The Outer Frontier Strategy 151 Further Readings 92 ,. Of Predators and Prey 152 d The Hsiung-nu Empire 154 The Nomads Who Conquered the World 158 THE GOOD SHEPHERDS: PASTORAL TRIBES The Rise of Chinggis Khan 158 OF SOUTHWEST ASIA ^ 93 Mongol Political and Military Organization 159 The Mongol Conquests 161 Sheep and Goats 93 The Mongol Devastation 164 Pastoral Economics 94 -, ;•*< The Decline of the Steppe 166 The Central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan 98 Central Eurasian Pastoralists Today 168 The Rise of Collectivization 169 ; FamilyCycle 100 - . The Demise of Collectivization 172 ii CONTENTS Notes 176 •. - *-'.av- Further Readings 178 '" • . O THE YAK BREEDERS: HIGH ALTITUDE PASTORALISM IN TIBET 1 SO The Drokba of Northwestern Tibet 182 The Animals 183 - .. .. -.;, • Pastures and Migration 186 Pastoral Production and Trading Relations 188 Social Structure 191 Traditional Political Organization 192 ''-* Tibet under Chinese Rule 194 'REFACE The Future of Pastoralism in Tibet 199 P Notes 200 Further Readings 200 THE ENDURING NOMAD: PERCEPTIONS AND REAL/TIES 202 The Problems and Prospects for Nomads in the Modern World 207 '• -^ Shifts of Power 207 Pastoralism and Economic Development 210 Nomads have always attracted attention far out of proportion to their "The Tragedy of the Commons": Do Nomads numbers. From the earliest writings on clay tablets complaining about the Degrade the Environment? 214 depredations of tent-dwellers living in the badlands of Mesopotamia to Notes 218 ,...,..-... the most recent pictorial in the National Geographic, the world of the pasto- Further Readings 219 ral nomad has impinged upon the sedentary imagination. Historical and anthropological research on them, particularly during the past forty years, has been extensive and continues to grow. Yet in spite of this interest, BIBLIOGRAPHY 220 general works on the topic have been rare and detailed ethnographies, the backbone of anthropology, go out of print in a twinkling of the eye. As in all too many of the social sciences, specialists write mainly for one INDEX 226 another in respected but obscure journals where the demand is for highly focused articles. Indeed from reading the academic literature on cattle pastoralism in East Africa or camel pastoralism of the Near East and North Africa, a casual reader might well assume these neighboring regions were islands separated by vast oceans, so rarely do researchers in each area appear to interact with one another. I am myself as guilty as oth- ers in this process. My own anthropological fieldwork on pastoral nomads, first in northern Afghanistan and later among the Kazaks in Xinjiang, China, focused on patterns of economic and social change of i x X PREFACE CHAPTER ONE particular relevance to the Near East and Central Asia. My historical research examined the process of state formation among the nomads of Mongolia and their relationship with China over the span of 2000 years. Of other places and peoples in the pastoral .world, I maintained only a vague knowledge: enough not to seem stupid, too little to appear smart. I would have, in all likelihood, continued to graze in my own pastures had I not decided to teach a general course on pastoral nomadism. As any instructor knows, having to explain basic concepts and compare very different regions forces the specialist to take a broader perspective. It opens the mind to new and often surprising conclusions. At the same time there is the difficulty of generalizing from a wealth of a specialist literature without bleaching out the complex shades of opinions on any issue. As a text- book, The Nomadic Alternative seeks to cross this divide by examining a set of common themes that span the pastoral regions of Africa and Eurasia and thereby create a more integrated picture of nomadic pastoralists both in the NTRODUCTION past and present. Undoubtedly researchers in each area will feel that im- portant issues or peoples have been neglected, while beginning students may feel there is far more about nomadic pastoralists than they ever wished to know. I owe the greatest debt of gratitude to the many scholars whose work I cite. Without their research such a book would be impossible to produce. I would also like to thank the students in my Nomads classes at Harvard and Boston University whose direct and well aimed criticisms did much to improve the quality of the course, and I hope the book. I owe an additional debt of gratitude to those scholars who took the time and effort to com- ment on the manuscript during its many stages of preparation, particularly It was the season of the nomad migration in northern Afghanistan and our Professors David Morgan of the University of London, John W. Olsen and truck ground to a halt, temporarily engulfed by a mass of animals. Dust clouds Robert Netting of the University of Arizona, Jill Dubisch of Northern Ari- raised by thousands of sheep filled the sky as strings of camels decorated with zona University, and Walter Sangree of the University of Rochester. At beads, tassels, and cowrie shells passed in procession, the clanging of the bells Prentice Hall, I would like to thank Nancy Roberts, my editor, for first en- around their necks beating out a rhythm indelibly linked with nomadic move- couraging me to write for a larger audience and Kerry Reardon who han- ments and caravans. Armed men on horseback preceded and followed the col- dled the electronic production with speed and grace. umn, while women dressed in bright satins with velvet capes embroidered in rich gold brocade sat atop the camels. The loads themselves were topped with carpets or some other piece of finery.

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