Nomadism

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nomad camp on the Tibetan high plateau.
The riding and draft animals (horses, camels, reindeer) play a special role for all shepherd nomads.

Nomadism is (in the German-speaking area) an umbrella term for the traditional economic and social form of the pastoral peoples of dry and cold deserts, steppes and tundras, in which permanent soil construction has no perspective. They operate remote pasture farming on natural pasture land (mobile pastoralism ) and, depending on the condition of the pastures, practice repetitive relocation of the place of residence. Historically, nomadic or semi-nomadic horsemen played an important role in the Eurasian steppe .

Other cultural elements are portable or easy-to-erect dwellings (mostly tents), a similar material culture and generally low property. In addition, animal species that can be used as riding or draft animals have a high social value: They are cared for and revered.

However, not only the members of the shepherd peoples discussed here are referred to as “nomads” , but all people who change their place of residence more frequently (→ nomad ) . With this broader meaning, nomadism - in the sense of "nomadism" - is used in many European languages. For a clearer distinction, the terms pastoral nomadism or pastoral nomadism are sometimes used in German .

The year-round non-motorized migration of a complete, largely self-sufficient , shepherd community with their cattle is extremely rare today. As a result, the use of the term for modern pastoral nomads is controversial.

At the same time, the most ecologically sustainable, best adapted and still the most common form of management of the barren dry areas is mobile remote grazing. Therefore, in the specialist literature, a separation of the terms into a cultural / historical and an economic terminology is required. In this respect, the modernized, now more or less market-oriented forms of post-nomadic extensive grazing cattle are often summarized under the term mobile animal husbandry .

Attempts to redefine

Young goatherds in Afghanistan

Today there is a multitude of different ways of life among mobile animal keepers: from paid, employed shepherds to all conceivable forms of spatial, temporal or social “part-time nomadism”. Therefore, some scholars advocate a definition in the modern sense. Two contrary examples:

  • Suggestion to narrow the term to mobile animal husbandry:

"Nomadism should be understood as a non-temporal, overarching framework term for a mobile way of life and economy based on migrant livestock farming."

  • Proposal to extend the term to all nomadic life models:

"Nomadic are forms of organization of work and life that are flexible in terms of person, work equipment, workplace and housing, which allow geo-climatic or socio-climatic rigors to be avoided."

- Andreas Gruschke

Classical pastoral nomadism

Camel market in Sudan
Chanting girls collecting berries; In the past only for own consumption, today also for direct sale.
Milk, wool, hides and other products are far ahead of the meat of the herd animals for most of the herdsmen

The basis of the livelihood ( subsistence ) of all migrant shepherds is the cattle herds , which almost always include several animal species. The animals primarily serve as suppliers of milk and clothing for self-sufficiency and to be exchanged for vegetable products and only ultimately as meat suppliers! Proto-nomadic peoples domesticated a multitude of animal breeds such as cattle , goats and sheep , yaks , horses , camels and, in the New World, various species of llama . In the sub-polar and boreal areas of the Old World , nomadism is based on keeping (semi-wild) herds of reindeer .

Seasonal fluctuations and the small amounts of food available due to the extreme climatic conditions in the dry and cold open landscapes are the main reasons for the mobile way of life. The size of the herd, its composition (number of young animals, etc.), the amount of animal products produced, the proximity to water points and permanent settlements (with regard to trade, sales markets, health care, etc.) and, last but not least, the required workload are important. In addition, relationships with other peoples or national borders have always played an essential role. This requires flexible economic strategies that may have to be adapted to the changed environmental conditions year after year. Apart from the reindeer nomads, who have largely adapted to the migrations of the animals, nomadic families therefore plan their migrations carefully.

Cattle breeding can sometimes be temporarily subordinated. Temporary farming, hunting and gathering, trading and exchanges with neighboring arable groups or urban centers are therefore also part of nomadism. For example, the traditional Tuareg herders in northern Nigeria regularly set up camp with settled farmers in order to exchange the camel dung, which is coveted as fuel, for millet, wood and water. The contacts were peaceful or full of conflict, depending on the situation, time and circumstances. In the Middle Ages, many riding nomads were also active as human traffickers who supplied the former empires of Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe with slaves.

In contrast to classic transhumance (seasonal remote grazing by paid migrant shepherds) and modern forms of mobile animal husbandry, (classic) shepherd nomads - as owners of the herds - accompany the cattle in a closed family together with their household items on their hikes to fresh pastures.

Corporate structures

The basis of the social structure is kinship. Shepherd nomads have created diverse forms of society: To protect the herds and to coordinate the complex grazing cycles, several families cooperate to form a nomad camp. These smallest social groups are mostly acephalous ( without rulers) and egalitarian (social equality). Most of the ethnic groups are also organized in segmentary societies or in tribes , some of which come together to form tribal associations in times of crisis. This has often led to the formation of leaders . Some pastoral peoples of West and Central Africa (e.g. Fulbe , Tutsi , Hima ) lived in pre-colonial states.

The prosperity , power , prestige and social status of a community are based on the size of the herds. In most nomadic pastoral cultures, there are clear social differences. The relationship between the sexes and the various age groups is usually characterized by a clear separation of duties and rules. Nomadic pastoral cultures are almost without exception patriarchal (examples: Mongols, Maasai, Nenets).

Ownership of the land was previously unknown, one only exercised access and usage rights, which, however, were often defended with violence.

Beliefs

Buddhist prayer flags in the Mongolian steppe

Many nomads still have orally handed down animistic worldviews, i. That is, nature was regarded and revered as animated and meaningful. In addition, there were contacts with other religions, which were sometimes integrated into one's own beliefs. Some groups practice an ancestral cult that is otherwise more likely to be found among peasants and, especially in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula , the belief in a monotheistic high god came later . In addition to the shamanism that still exists in Siberia and Central Asia or America, Islam today and predominantly in the eastern area Buddhism , mostly in the form of Lamaism, play an essential role in the nomadic pastoral societies of Africa and Eurasia .

distribution

With the Spaniards, sheep also came to America in the 16th century, so that a shepherd nomadism developed among the Navajo Indians , which lasted until the middle of the 20th century.

The main distribution area of ​​nomadism is the old world dry belt: the semi-deserts , steppes and dry savannas of North Africa , Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia , as well as the tundras of Northern Europe and the mountain regions of many continents.

To a more modest extent, pastoral nomadism with lamas had also developed in South America, which was particularly evident in the Wari culture . However, this form of culture died out before the arrival of the Europeans with the submission of the Incas. In addition, with the introduction of sheep from Europe, local forms of a nomadic pastoral way of life developed in some Indian tribes of the subtropical arid regions of North and Central America.

History and cultural-historical contribution

Artist's impression of mounted nomadic warriors of Inner Asia
Nomads who still roam the steppe without a motorized vehicle (like these Tibetans in 2007) are extremely rare today.

More recent ethnographic and cultural geographic research has shown that nomadism, contrary to earlier views , arose at the same time or even before the settled peasantry (before 13000 BC) as an adaptation to the special conditions of dry areas. The earliest traces of nomadism, however, date from the end of the 4th millennium BC. The idea that nomadism is a more primitive form of society than that of the sedentary peasantry is considered outdated. Some nomads have specialized in trade throughout history. They carried caravans over distances of more than 1000 km.

Well-known historical nomadic equestrian peoples of Eurasia, who had a significant influence on world history, are the Scythians , Hyksos , Xiongnu , Huns (from which the so-called Iranian Huns are to be separated), Kök-Turks , Mongols , Manchurians and Magyars (the "historical Hungarians") . The most famous example of a border fortification against the attacks of warlike nomad tribes is the Great Wall of China .

While pastoral nomads played a central and recognized role in long-distance intercontinental trade in the pre-colonial period (e.g. Silk Road , Frankincense Road ), they were later fought in every imaginable way due to their cross-border mobility. The inevitable conflicts between settled people and nomads are as old as the history of agriculture. The Old Testament story of the murder of the shepherd Abel by the farmer Cain takes up the conflict. Amongst settled peoples, wandering shepherds have suffered from prejudice, distrust and discrimination to some extent to this day . Their mode of production, their communal land ownership, their elusive number and their "permanent inaccessibility" are a thorn in the side of many states.

In Central Asia , nomadism had been endangered by peasant colonization since the tsarist times; its complete decline in the former Soviet republics was caused by the forced socialist collectivization and the forced sedentarism under Stalin . The nomadic societies were expropriated, the herds were added to the collective farms and the people made into dependent shepherds. After the collapse of the Soviet Union , some local communities returned to nomadic values. This is particularly true of the reindeer nomads of Eastern Siberia.

A similar development took place in Mongolia . The so-called “renomadization” was planned by the state there and was much more successful than in Central Asia, because the understanding of the ecological relationships on the steppes had survived the socialist era. But even in Mongolia, only a few families of individual ethnic groups can still be referred to as nomadism. This is also a modernized form of the original way of life. B. hay is produced for the winter and there are permanent centers (so-called "Som centers") with facilities for the shepherds such as schools, clinics and old people's homes. The decisive difference to other countries is the great acceptance of the traditions and the efforts to preserve many traditional cultural elements.

The development in China was ambivalent : In the 1950s, Han Chinese in Inner Mongolia displaced the nomads into remote areas. At the end of the 1970s, their living conditions improved again: they were given animals and grazing land because the Chinese authorities had realized that the grazing areas would otherwise lie fallow. Since the end of the 20th century, China has been carrying out forced resettlements in large parts of Inner Mongolia and Tibet in order to make the nomads settle down. Huge protected areas have been established where it is forbidden to graze cattle. The international community often regards this measure as a pretext, as it has been proven that mobile animal husbandry (in its classic form) does not cause any ecological damage, but actually makes sense.

In many other countries in Asia and Africa, for reasons of state policy, efforts were made to make the shepherd peoples settle down and, often at the same time, to put an end to mobile livestock farming.

Today, science no longer regards nomadism as a quasi-isolated special form of human society, but as an essential part of an overarching structure that has shaped crucial aspects of neighboring settled cultures. Not only the Mongolian or Tibetan culture, but also the Western Christian and Islamic cultures are influenced by it. The founders of the three great monotheistic religions come from nomadic peoples: Judaism, Christianity and Islam are not called the "desert religions" for nothing. Abraham (aram. Av-ha-am: father of the nations), Isaac and Jacob , the patriarchs of Judaism, were nomads.

Forms of nomadism

The semi-nomadic Khanty people who still breed reindeer in the taiga undertake much shorter hikes than their neighbors in the tundra

In the ethnology of the 20th century, different forms of nomadism were distinguished: according to the type of migration, type of housing, animal species or herding method. Today this structure has largely lost its meaning, as it has been recognized that the actual conditions were and are very often mixed variants. Even a static distinction between full and semi-nomadism is misleading, since the needs of the pastoral communities are redefined from year to year.

Differentiation between full and semi-nomadism

  • Fully nomadic are groups who do not cultivate permanent fields in addition to herding and / or where the entire family group regularly relocates.
  • Semi-nomadic are societies in which only part of the family migrates while the others farm or pursue other sedentary activities (→ agropastoralism ). Reindeer herders are also more often referred to as semi-nomads due to their seasonal migration with one residence in the summer and one in the winter pastures.

Differentiation according to the type of hike

Mongolian shepherds cover very long distances with their flocks in all seasons

The type of migration can be differentiated in two different ways:

  • Horizontal migration or "area nomadism": very long walks within a vegetation zone (dromedaries, trampoline animals, sheep and goats)
  • Vertical nomadism or "mountain nomadism": migration from winter quarters in the steppe or in the forest to the summer camp in the mountains (almost exclusively sheep and goats)

or.

  • “Long-distance nomadism”: Several hundred kilometers are covered over the course of a year
  • “Nomadism, wandering close by”: There are only a few dozen kilometers between summer and winter pasture areas

These distinctions often overlap. The Kyrgyz people of the Pamir are mountain nomads who migrate close, the Mongols mostly long-distance migrant area nomads.

Differentiation according to dwelling

Nomads in Eastern Iran in front of a white linen tent

Differentiation according to the type of herd animals

The type of herd animals is determined by the geomorphology of the landscape, the climate and the vegetation. The distinction is made according to the economic importance or the appreciation of the animals.

One differentiates, for example, cattle nomads, small cattle nomads, camel nomads and reindeer nomads.

Differentiation according to the herding method

  • “Herd-driving nomadism”: In the arid regions, the shepherds drive their flocks and manage the pastures themselves
  • “Herd-following nomadism”: Reindeer are rarely domesticated wild animals that migrate according to their instinct, so that humans only have to follow them

The current situation of nomadism

Motorcycle owned by Lappish Sámi

Some authors believe that the decline of nomadism can no longer be stopped. The nomadism researcher Fred Scholz is quoted repeatedly in this context. Indeed, one can establish a multitude of causes which, in very many cases since the middle of the 20th century, have turned previously independent and independent cultures into dependent, marginalized and in some cases considerably impoverished and starving population groups. The following points roughly represent a causal-historical chain, the factors of which, however, also strengthen retrospectively:

  • Obstruction of long-distance migration due to national borders, land privatization or major infrastructural projects
  • Replacement of the caravan trade with more modern forms of transport
  • Occupation , fencing and conversion of the previously free pastureland
  • State programs for (often forced) sedentarization with arable farming (on completely unsuitable areas)
  • Dwindling willingness of the sedentary farmers to traditional barter
  • Transition from subsistence farming to market-oriented production with intensification of mobile animal husbandry
  • Overgrazing and soil degradation through shorter walks and larger animal populations
  • On the one hand, higher consumer demands of the nomads; on the other hand economic problems (marketing, price drop for animal products)
  • Population increase
  • Migration to mining, industry and cities
  • Climatic development in the course of climate change
  • Often derogatory ( pejorative ) views about nomadism, which, according to the theories of socio-cultural evolution, supposedly represents a very low “cultural level”. In science, this view is long out of date, but it persists in many countries.

In some countries, the existing nomadic ethnic groups are specifically promoted, e. B. the Sami people in Norway , which can lead to their own “main settlements” (e.g. Kautokeino ), their own parliament and their own school and radio stations. Such support is made more difficult by the fact that the ethnic groups mentioned are often divided between different countries (e.g. the Sami on Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish or Russian territory).

That is why there are authors who also state positive developments locally and see nomadism as a way of life still existing, because groups with migrant grazing and mobile dwellings as well as various “nomadic characteristics” still exist. Anja Fischer noticed a trend back towards nomadic livestock farming among the Tuareg of Algeria. In the vast majority of cases, however, it is only small parts of the peoples who traditionally cling to the primarily subsistence-oriented, nomadic life. Such retraditionalizations also occur in other remote regions of the world; especially when market participation is too problematic. Furthermore, ethnologists have established that social structures persist for a long time, even if mobile animal husbandry has been completely given up.

Change from nomadism to sustainable mobile animal husbandry

Most authors agree that mobile pasture farming in the barren open landscape will continue to be the only way to secure a permanent existence in the future. At the beginning of the 21st century there is a growing danger that the knowledge that has been handed down by the former nomads will be lost. Scholz therefore advocates a quick and intelligent modernization of mobile animal husbandry - above all by the participating states - in order to combine traditional and modern knowledge and working methods in such a way that a socially, economically and ecologically sustainable form of economy can be established. So far, however, with the cautious exception of Mongolia, he does not see a promising approach anywhere, at most debates about more effective and ecologically adapted mobile animal husbandry.

Recent communities with mostly traditional full nomadism

Europe

Africa

Asia

Other ethnic groups whose way of life has changed to post- nomadism are listed in the article Mobile animal husbandry .

literature

  • Annegret Nippa u. Museum für Völkerkunde Hamburg (ed.): Small abc of nomadism. Publication for the exhibition “Explosive Encounters. Nomads in a sedentary world. " Hamburg 2011
  • Fred Scholz : Nomadism is dead. In Geographische Rundschau , Issue 5, 1999, pp. 248–255
  • Zoritza Kiresiewa: Current status of national and international projects in the field of nomadism / mobile animal husbandry in the Old World dry belt. Institute for Geosciences at the Free University of Berlin, 2009.
  • Robert C. Schmid et al. Oswald Bendl: The last nomads. The life and survival of the last shepherd peoples of Asia. Styria Publishing House. Graz, Vienna, Cologne 1997
  • FAO : Pastoralism in the new millennium. in Animal production and health paper , No. 150, 2001.
  • Ernst E. Vardiman: Nomads, creators of a new culture in the Middle East . Munich 1990
  • Thomas Staubli: The image of the nomads, in ancient Israel and in the iconography of its settled neighbors , 1991 Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen
  • AM Khazanov Nomads and the Outside World , Cambridge 1984; The focus is on the interactions between nomadic and sedentary cultures

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e Fred Scholz : Nomadism is dead. See literature.
  2. a b c Zoritza Kiresiewa: Current status of national and international projects in the field of nomadism / mobile animal husbandry in the Old World dry belt. See literature.
  3. ^ Dawn Chatty (Ed.): Nomadic Societies in the Middle East and North Africa: Facing the 21st Century. Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden (NL) 2006.
  4. ^ Philip Carl Salzman: Pastoralists. Equality, Hierarchy, and the State. Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado (USA), 2004.
  5. → Lit .: Small abc of nomadism. P. 146.
  6. A. Rosati, A. Tewolde, C. Mosconi, World Association for Animal Production (ed.): Animal Production and Animal Science Worldwide. Wageningen Academic Pub, 2005.
  7. Fred Scholz quoted in: Jörg Gertel: Globalisierung, Entankerung und Mobility. Analytical perspectives of a contemporary geographical research on nomadism. In: Stefan Leder, Bernhard Streck (ed.): Nomadism from the perspective of conceptuality. Contributions from the 1st conference on July 11, 2001. (Orientwissenschaftliche Hefte 3; Communications of the SFB “Difference and Integration” 1) Halle 2002.
  8. Nomads without pasture? . Article in the Eurasian online magazine on May 30, 2006.
  9. a b Nils Wiemann: Info sheet nomadism. Definition, forms, dissemination and current problems. Geography Infothek, Klett, Leipzig 2012.
  10. Small abc of nomadism. Pp. 24, 242-243.
  11. Michael Zeuske: Handbook History of Slavery: A Global History from the Beginnings to the Present. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-027880-4 . Pp. 5, 126, especially 272, 277, 314-315, 539.
  12. a b c Dieter Haller (text), Bernd Rodekohr (illustrations): Dtv-Atlas Ethnologie . 2nd Edition. dtv, Munich 2010. pp. 165–167.
  13. ^ Hermann Kreutzmann: Hunza: rural development in the Karakoram. In: Abhandlungen Anthropogeographie , Bd. 44. Berlin. P. 127
  14. ^ Anne Hegge: Agropastoralismus - Phenomenon and description of African examples. Term paper for the lecture agricultural geography with special focus on North Africa, Chair for Urban Geography and Geography of Rural Areas, University of Bayreuth, 2003. pp. 1–22.
  15. Johannes Moser: Introduction to economic anthropology. Institute for Folklore / European Ethnology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München 2008. p. 56.
  16. Thomas Schweizer, Margarete Schweizer, Waltraud Kokott, Ulla Johansen (eds.): Handbuch der Ethnologie. D. Reimer, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-496-00446-0 . Pp. 545-546.
  17. ^ A b Walter Hirschberg (Ed.): Dictionary of Ethnology. New edition, 2nd edition, Reimer, Berlin 2005. p. 175.
  18. ^ A b Johannes Moser: Introduction to economic anthropology. Institute for Folklore / European Ethnology, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich 2008.
  19. Manfred Kemme: The image of Africa in German religious books: a study of Catholic religious books for secondary level I. LIT Verlag Münster, 2004. P. 111 f.
  20. → Lit .: Small abc of nomadism. Pp. 180-181.
  21. Christiane Bethke: Pastoral nomadism in the Andes. University of Cologne (Institute for Ethnology), 1999 - ISBN 978-3-638-11667-1 .
  22. → Lit .: Small abc of nomadism. Pp. 28-30.
  23. Marvin Harris: Cultural Anthropology - A Textbook. From the American by Sylvia M. Schomburg-Scherff, Campus, Frankfurt / New York 1989, ISBN 3-593-33976-5 . Pp. 437-438, 440-441.
  24. → Lit .: Small abc of nomadism. Pp. 140-141.
  25. Michael Martin : Man in the desert. ( Memento from May 21, 2014 in the web archive archive.today ). Michael Martin's website. Retrieved March 6, 2014.
  26. Ashi Hunger: The Tibetan Nomads, from “Brennpunkt” issue 3, 2011 of the Tibet Initiative Germany .
  27. ^ Dossier "Mongols" on the website of the Society for Threatened Peoples
  28. a b → Lit .: Small abc of nomadism. Pp. 56-58.
  29. → Lit .: Small abc of nomadism. Pp. 120-122, 138-141, 242.
  30. Stefan Bauer (Ed.): Bruchlinien im Eis: Ethnologie des Zircumpolar Nords. Lit-Verlag, Vienna 2005.
  31. → Lit .: Small abc of nomadism. Pp. 56-58, 82, 120-122, 126-127, 140-141, 164-165, 196-198, 212, 218, 232.
  32. Ilse Köhler-Rollefson: Hirtenvölker: Protectors of diversity. In: Ökologie & Landbau 156 4/2010, pp. 16–18.
  33. a b Anja Fischer: Nomads of the Sahara, acting in extremes. , Reimer-Verlag 2008
  34. Claudia Kijora et al. Helmut Schöpf: Study project: Change in animal production systems in Central Asia using the example of Kyrgyzstan. Humboldt University of Berlin, Faculty of Agriculture and Horticulture 2003.
  35. Karl P. Kirsch-Jung a. Winfried von Urff: Rights of use for cattle breeders and fishermen - agreements according to traditional and modern law. Suggestions from Mauritania. In: Sustainability has many faces , No. 6. German Society for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) GmbH, Kasparek Verlag, Heidelberg 2008.
  36. Tanja Kleibl: The Wodaabe in Niger . ( Memento from May 23, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Society for Threatened Peoples, accessed on May 23, 2014.
  37. Detlef Kreimer: Biology, ecology and control of Senna obtusifolia (L.) Irwin & Barneby in the Zamfara pasture area in the Sudan savannah of north-west Nigeria. 1st edition, VVB Laufersweiler Verlag, Giessen 2007. S. 18 u. 186.
  38. "Desertification and Sustainability in East Africa"
  39. Jörg Janzen: Structure of the migrant pasture economy and background of current development problems in nomadic habitat - an overview. In: Africa Spectrum, Vol. 19, No. 2, 1984, pp. 149–171, here p. 150f ( at JSTOR )