A term used to describe groups of people without fixed habitation.
Nomadism is still a way of life in many regions; however, with the rapid advance of modernization the great nomadic cultures of the past are quickly fading. In the past, it was customary to view nomads as barbarians who had not yet been introduced to the benefits of urban civilization. This view was especially prominent among ancient authors from civilizations that dealt with repeated incursions by nomadic raiders and invaders. Influenced by these views, many cultural anthropologists believed that nomadism represented a transition from the Neolithic hunter-gatherer to the sedentary farmer; this view is no longer widely accepted. Instead, nomadism is seen as a divergent cultural-evolutionary path from that taken by sedentary farmers and urban populations, a different way of coping with environmental pressures.
Anthropologists once attempted to study nomads as a single entity, believing that they could find cultural commonalities between widely separated groups and establish a single theory as to the cause and nature of nomadism. Such scholars attempted to find as many similarities as possible between such groups as the North American Plains tribes, the Bedouin of Arabia, and the Roma (Gypsies). These attempts at establishing a unified “nomadic studies” have been largely unsuccessful; the tendency today is to study each nomadic group in isolation.
Nevertheless, it is possible to make a few broad generalizations about nomadic peoples. Such groups are generally organized along tribal lines. They are usually led by a headman of some sort; however, the government of the tribe often functions along far more egalitarian lines than has been, historically speaking, the norm among sedentary groups. The adult men (and, in some cultures, women) form a warband to defend the territory in which the tribe customarily migrated. Because of the highly mobile nature of their group, wealth must be in highly portable form, usually livestock.
Types of Nomads
Some nomads, particularly those who live in inhospitable terrain, roam from place to place following herds of wild game. Such groups subsist on hunting, supplemented by the gathering of edible plants (often the hunting is done by men and the gathering by women, though this is by no means a universal rule). The degree to which emphasis is placed respectively on hunting and gathering varies from one group to another; some travel primarily in search of seasonal edible plants. Many authorities prefer the term “migratory” to describe mobile hunter-gatherers, viewing this form of organization as fundamentally different from pastoral or herding nomadism. Migratory groups of hunter-gatherers include the Eskimos of the American arctic and subarctic and certain tribes of sub-Saharan Africa. In some cases, sedentary farmers abandoned their agricultural pursuits wholesale and became mobile hunter-gatherers; this occurred among many Native American populations of the Great Plains once the introduction of the horse made buffalo hunting more profitable than subsistence farming.
The most familiar type of nomadism is that practiced by pastoral or herding nomads. Such people rely heavily on mobile wealth in the form of livestock. Pastoral nomads keep herds of quadrupedal herbivores such as horses, cattle, sheep, and/or goats. The exact makeup of their herds depends largely on environmental constraints. In some regions, more exotic animals are herded; these include the reindeer herds maintained by the Saami (Lapps) of northern Scandinavia and the camels kept by nomadic groups in the Middle East, northern Africa, and Central Asia.
Some populations maintain a fixed abode in certain times of year but wander from place to place during other times. Such people are known as seminomadic. The Khazars of Atil, who during the tenth century left their city each spring to tend their flocks and returned in the winter, are a prime example of a seminomadic population. Still other groups are semisedentary. Such groups maintain a fixed residence but move it at irregular intervals because of climatic or other environmental considerations. The best examples of a semi-sedentary group are certain populations in the Amazon, who practice slash-and-burn agriculture and must move every few years because of soil depletion.
A nomadic Kyrgyz family is shown kneeling in a Russian field in the early twentieth century. Nomadic tribes were once important vehicles of trade for more stationary societies; however, with the rapid advance in modernization of the twentieth century, most of the great nomadic cultures of the past have vanished. (Library of Congress)
Nomadic Groups in History
Nomadic cultures have played an important role in history. There was almost always an underlying tension between sedentary and nomadic populations, particularly between farmers and pastoral nomads. The nomads’ herds required vast areas of empty land, and when farms began to encroach on grazing lands, tensions could explode into war. The underlying hostility between nomad and farmer can be seen in a variety of ancient texts, including the Bible (e.g., see Genesis 4).
However, most of the time nomadic groups managed to live in peace with their sedentary neighbors. Both sides benefited from trade. Nomads, especially pastoral nomads, had access to large quantities of animal products not necessarily available to agriculturalists. Likewise, farming and urban populations could provide finished industrial goods and agricultural products to which the nomads might otherwise never have had access. Among many Eurasian steppe nomads in particular, merchants were held to be sacrosanct; the Silk Road passed largely through the territory of nomad tribes, all of whom benefited from the trade routes that flowed into and out of it. Indeed, one of the reasons (or perhaps excuses) for the Mongol invasion of Persia in the early 1200s was the execution of a trade delegation by an official of the Khwarazm Shah.
During periods of hostile interaction, nomads often managed to overwhelm and conquer great sedentary populations. Examples of such conquests include the Hyksos conquest of Egypt and the many waves of Turko-Mongolian invaders who repeatedly seized control of China, as well as the Nahuatl incursions into Mexico during the first half of the second millennium C.E. The speed and mobility of nomads made it possible for them to conquer huge areas in relatively short periods of time. Trade was a critical factor in maintaining these empires. However, the nomadic lifestyle made it difficult to govern such vast territories. The great nomadic empires quickly became sedentary (as was the case with the Parthians, the Mongols, and the Aztecs) or collapsed within a generation or two (as occurred with the Huns following Attila’s death).
Brian M. Gottesman
See also: Mongol Invasions.
Bibliography
Dahl, Gudrun, and Anders Hjort. Having Herds: Pastoral Herd Growth and Household Economy. Stockholm: University of Stockholm, 1976.
Golden, Peter. Nomads and Sedentary Societies in Medieval Eurasia. Washington, DC: American Historical Association, 1998.
Khazanov, Anatoly Mikhailovich. Nomads and the Outside World. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994.
Symons, Van Jay, and Sechin Jagchid. Peace, War, and Trade Along the Great Wall: Nomadic-Chinese Interaction Through Two Millennia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989.