Subsistence Strategies: Pastoralism

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Subsistence Strategies Pastoralism
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A Story of Sididi Ag Inaka

• Pastoral Nomad, Mali

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Animal Husbandry

• 10,000 years ago
• Diversity camels, reindeer, cattle,
• sheep, goats, llama, alpaca, yaks

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reindeer
sheep, goat, cattle, horse
yak
camel
llama, alpaca
cattle
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Unlike Horticulturalists

• Mostly nomadic
• Occupy grasslands
• Commitment to animals
• Usually dont plant crops
• (may look down on cultivators)
• Maasai
• Often hierarchical sociopolitical
  organization

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Political Organization

• Tribes or Chiefdoms
• Tribes Formal Institutions to unify
• dispersed groups
• Lineages, Clans (kinship)
• Sodalities (non-kin)
• Provides united front
• Rights to grazing lands, herds

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• Nuer

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Nomadic or Sedentary

• Nuer (Sudan) Horizontal
• migration (wet/dry seasons)
• Importance of cattle
• Payment to settle feuds (Dinka)
• Bride price
• Inheritance via clan
• membership

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Individuals Cattle Names
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Nuer History

• Nuer were one of few groups who fended off
  colonialism
• Evans-Pritchard
• British bombing of Nuer camps
• Hanging of Nuer profits

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• Basseri

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• Basseri (Iran) Vertical migration
• Transhumance
• Summerhighlands,
• Winterlower elevations
• Do not raise crops
• Chiefdom
• Tents

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Functional Consequences

• Fluid Groups
• Fusion in wet, Fission in dry
• Also depends on resources, social
  conflict
• Rarely kill animals

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• Not self-sufficient
• Symbiotic relationship to settled
• communities
• Peaceful trade
• Purchase land, hire tenants
• Tribute
• Raiding

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• Division of labor based on sex age
• Little specialization
• Often social stratification
• Territoriality
• Often hierarchical political
• organization
• May be authority to settle
• disputes, lead raids,
• coordinate migrations

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• Fueding warfare common
• Ancestor veneration
• Rights to grazing lands herds
• determined by descent

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Compared to Cultivation

• Pastoralism is less efficient
• Desert, Grasslands, Savanna,
• Mountains
• Animals transform plants into
• meat, blood, milk, cheese
• Risk reduction vs. drought

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10 Rule

• Food energy the food chain
• Plants are at the base
• Herbivores convert 10 plant
• energy into flesh blood
• Carnivores convert 10
• At each level energy is lost

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• Maasai

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Maasai

• Cattle herders, Kenya, Tanzania
• Cattle bring prestige
• Feared warriors
• Internal conflict,
• drought, disease
• Resistance to sedentarization

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• Semi-permanent settlements

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• Maasai do not cultivate
• Sacrilege to break the earth
• Large portion of diet is cows
• milk blood
• Meat eating is restricted to
• ceremonial occasions

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• Maasai warriors raid, steal cattle
• women
• Moran Warriors live as age
• grades
• Hallucinogens to prepare for raids

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Male Age Sets

• Childhood
• Boyhood
• Warrior
• Elder
• Initiation of Age Sets
• Gender differences

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Maasai Beliefs

• All cattle put on earth by Ngai,
• all belong to the Maasai
• Raiding is thus return of cattle to
• rightful owners
• Change Resistance to colonization,
• tests of manhood forbidden,
• restrictions to grazing lands,
• settlement

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• Taureg

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Taureg

• Mali, Niger
• The tent camp
• Few possessions
• Sharing
• Mobility

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• Taureg nomads drought
• Forces for change
• Past wealth, camel caravans
• Uranium Tourism
• Taureg Rebellion
• U.S. Role

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• Wodaabe

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Wodaabe

• Nigeria, Niger
• History religious wars
• Trade routes

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• Women weaving
• Men political office

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• Bakhtiari

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Bakhtiari (Iran)

• Pastoral Nomads Governments
• Concern with National Unity
• Pahlavi Dynasty
• Reza Shah Pahlavi
• (1925-41)
• Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi
• (1941-79)

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• Bakhtiari
• Dont pay taxes
• Allegiance is to chief
• Dont recognize national
• boundaries

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• 1925-41 Shahs Policy
• Pacification sendentarization
• Killed tribal chiefs,
• 19th C. British opened oil fields in
• winter pasturelands
• 1941 U.S., Britain, USSR invade

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• Mohammed Reza Pahlavi
• Nationalized oil
• Converted pastures to
• agriculture
• Bakhtiari become tenant farmers,
• sharecroppers, wage laborers
• Sedentarization is not complete
• Loss of herds when dont
• migrate

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• Bedouin
• Egypt,
• Iraq,
• Israel,
• Jordan,
• Lebanon,
• Libya,
• Saudi Arabia,
• Syria

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Bedouin

• Traditionally nomadic pastoralists
• Territorial defense hospitality

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Gender Differences

• Separation of tent
• Retained in settled houses

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Social Change

• Settled communities
• Acquisition of material goods
• But cultural identity is in tact
• Genealogy,
• Tribal organization,
• Kinship relations,
• Code of morality

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Role of Women in Muslim Society

• Inequality dependence
• Loyalty to tribe
• Polygyny
• Purdah (seclusion) Veiling
• Social status
• Resistance

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• Women as danger when not
• subjected to male authority
• Honor Shame
• Importance of chastity where
• inheritance is through the male
• blood line
• Modesty, deference

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Importance of Blood Relations

• "I against my brothers,
• I and my brothers against my
• cousins,
• I and my brothers and my
• cousins against the world"

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BEDOUINS THE WAR IN IRAQ

• US Army 2nd Battalion, 70th Armor passing
• Bedouin family in the desert March 23, 2003

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A US Army tank speeds past a Bedouins camel in
the southern Iraqi desert
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US soldier attached to the 101st Airborne
Aviation Brigade throws crackers to two Bedouins
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Bedouin Campsite
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Pastoralists The Original Capitalists
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Natural Capital

• Entrepreneurial activities
• Reliance on increasing herd size
• Importance of wool to early
• capitalism
• Textile industries relied
  
• on animal products in the
• early phase of
• industrialization

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• Pastoralists contributed to growth
• of the world economy
• Yet their lives are in crisis today