Nomadic Challenges And Civilized Responses
Edited By: R. A.Guisepi
The Rise And Spread Of Pastoral Nomadism
The domestication of animals also made possible an alternative basis for
the support and organization of human societies - nomadic pastoralism. We do
not know when genuinely nomadic societies first came into existence because
the peoples who developed them had no written records and their wood-, hide-,
and bone-based material culture deteriorated rapidly in the harsh steppe and
semi-desert environments in which they lived. But it is likely that the
nomadic alternatives to sedentary agriculture emerged sometime after the first
civilizations, and that nomadic herders were quite widely distributed by 1500
B.C. It is also probable that pastoral nomadism originated among peoples who
had been driven with their herds from the fertile river valleys of the
civilized cores or among hunting-and-gathering bands that captured
domesticated livestock in raids on agricultural villages.
The nomadic peoples led their herds into the grassy but sparsely
inhabited plains of central Eurasia. In this vast area and in similar zones in
Sudanic and East Africa, Arabia, and highland South America, refugees and
raiders found ample pasturage for their herds and discovered that they could
subsist on the products the animals supplied. The regions into which nomadism
spread received enough rainfall (considerably more then than today) to support
the grasses and other plant life on which herd animals feed, but not nearly
enough for sedentary farming. Thus, nomadic peoples occupied lands that could
not be claimed by rapidly growing farming populations. As they spread through
the steppes and savannas, the pastoralists displaced the original
hunting-and-gathering peoples or prompted them to adopt the herding
life-style, which was better suited to the plains environment. The
pastoralists in turn continued to hunt the abundant game animals for both the
meat and the furs they provided.
The Horse Nomads
The first nomadic peoples about whom we know a good deal are the
Indo-European tribes of the middle centuries of the 2d millennium B.C. For
over a millennium thereafter they threatened the early civilizations of the
Middle East and the Indus plains. Some Indo-European peoples, such as the
Hittites and Hyksos, also established their own empires and centers of
civilization, while others, such as the early Greeks, settled in the lands to
which they migrated. As late as the last centuries B.C., these settled groups
still struggled to fight off the incursions of later Indo-European migrants
such as the Scythians, who invaded Europe and Asia Minor, and the Kushanas,
who established an empire spanning Northwest India and central Asia. Some
Indo-European peoples migrated eastward, where they contested with other
nomadic peoples for grazing lands, and invaded northwest India, where they
proved an increasing menace to Harappan civilization.
Interestingly, the earliest Indo-European invaders did not ride the
horses that they raised in great numbers and prized as symbols of wealth and
status. Instead they fought from war chariots drawn by one or two horses. With
the development of increasingly effective bridles and stirrups, however,
Indo-European warriors increasingly rode horses to migrate or do battle.
Another nomadic group that played a major role in the age of classical
civilizations were the Hsiung-nu (later known in Europe as the Huns). The
devastation wrought by Hsiung-nu incursions into China, beginning in the 4th
century B.C., presaged the calamities that would befall India and Europe
centuries later when the Huns toppled the Gupta Empire and smashed into the
crumbling Roman Empire. The eastern branches of the Hsiung-nu tribes also
competed for pasturelands with peoples such as the Tungus, while the Huns to
the west fought constantly with sheep- and goat-herding nomadic peoples
speaking a variety of Turkic languages. From the era of the Indo-European
migrations, droughts and intertribal warfare periodically drove large bands of
central Asian nomads into the sedentary agricultural zones that fringed their
far-flung steppe homelands. Their migrations played a major role in the rise
and fall of empires in the civilized cores from the time of these first
incursions to the era of the Turkic and Mongol explosions of the 11th through
the 14th centuries A.D.
The Reindeer Herders Of The North
It is possible that reindeer-herding nomads like the Lapps were migrating
with their flocks across the tundra of northern Europe even before the nomadic
pattern spread to the steppe regions of central Asia. In the bogs of
Scandinavia archeologists have found the remains of sledges dating as early as
the Late Paleolithic era. The earliest of these sledges were probably pulled
by teams of dogs or men on rudimentary skis. But by the early Neolithic
period, tamed reindeer were used, suggesting that pastoral nomadism had been
established in the region. Despite their early appearance, the
reindeer-herding nomads lived far from the centers of civilization, an
isolation that rendered their influence on the course of human history
marginal at best.
The Camel Nomads
The spread of pastoral nomadism in the central Asian steppes had hinged
largely upon the domestication of the horse. Farther west in the Arabian
peninsula and the Sudanic zone that stretches across north-central Africa,
another animal played the pivotal role in the diffusion of the nomadic
pattern. As early as 1700 B.C. the camel was mentioned in Egyptian sources as
a pack animal, but it was not yet ridden by humans. It is likely that
pastoralism based on the camel had been established in western Asia even
before they were first ridden in the last centuries B.C.
Awkward-looking and peevish creatures, camels have proven remarkably
adapted to the barren and parched regions that fringe the Sahara and Arabian
deserts. They can carry loads of up to 400 pounds and travel 60 miles a day.
Once they have filled the reservoirs in their paunches with water, camels are
able to sustain this pace for over 20 days without water in temperatures
averaging 120 degrees Fahrenheit. If they are occasionally fed a little green
fodder on the journey, the camels will plod on indefinitely. Without the
fodder, they will continue on for another five days before lying down to die.
Though horses were introduced into both Arabia and the Sudan and
cattle-herding nomads came to predominate on the savannas south of the Sahara,
the camel has remained central to most of the nomadic cultures that have
developed in these regions. These "ships of the desert" have been essential to
the great trading systems that developed in these areas and the formidable
capacity of their nomadic masters for making war.
The Cattle Herders
Beginning in the upper reaches of the Nile River in the southern portions
of the present-day nation of Sudan, and expanding over the centuries from
north to south across the rift valleys and plains of East and southern Africa,
yet another major variant of pastoral nomadism developed. In this vast and
varied expanse, warrior-dominated societies based on cattle herding coalesced
and expanded. Because the climate and especially the disease environment posed
major barriers to horse breeding, the cattle nomads migrated, hunted, and
fought their wars on foot. But cattle provided their sustenance and the basis
of their material culture. Cattle were the prime gauge of wealth and status,
the focus of religious rituals, and the key item given to the bride's family
in arranging a marriage alliance.
Like those of the reindeer herders of the northern tundras, the regions
occupied by the cattle nomads were initially distant from major civilized
centers. As a consequence, we know little of the early history of these
peoples. However, in contrast to the Lapps and other subarctic pastoralists,
the cattle herders of Africa were eventually to play major roles in the
history of different areas of the continent.
Nomadic Peoples Of The Americas
Because most of the large mammals of the Americas had died out by the end
of the last Ice Age, pastoral nomadism played almost no part in the history of
these continents until horses, cattle, and other domesticated animals were
introduced by the Europeans after A.D. 1492. Only in the highlands of the
Andes, where llamas and alpacas survived in large numbers, was it possible for
truly nomadic cultures to develop. But even in this limited area, pastoralists
played a minor and subordinate role. The prairie and semidesert regions of the
Americas that might have supported pastoralists were occupied instead by
hunting-and-gathering peoples. The incursions of some of these peoples, such
as the dreaded chichimecs, into the sedentary farming zones of Mesoamerica
appear to be similar to the assaults on the civilized core regions of Eurasia
by the steppe and camel nomads.
The absence of large mammals, however, prevented the nomadic peoples of
the prairies and arid plains from fully tapping the potential of their
environments and deprived them of the superior mobility necessary for raiding
and conquering in the civilized heartlands. If the Aztecs can be taken as
typical, however ferocious the chichimecs were in battle, they were
impoverished wanderers until they established themselves in the sedentary
zones. The Aztecs' arrival in the central valley of Mexico was little noticed
by the civilized peoples who lived in great cities along its lakes. During the
decades when they struggled to establish themselves in the region, the hapless
and weak Aztecs were beaten in battle, enslaved in large numbers, and finally
driven to a marshy island refuge in Lake Texcoco. The contrast between the
reception accorded in civilized Mesoamerica to incoming migratory peoples and
the shock waves sent repeatedly through the civilized centers of Eurasia by
invading horse- and camel-herding nomads is indeed striking evidence of the
power that could be generated by pastoral adaptation.
