Pastoral nomads camping near
Namtso in 2005
Turkmen nomads in the steppes of the Russian Empire, ca.
1910
'Nomadic people', also known as 'nomads', are communities of people that move from one place to another in the deserts or winter-climated places, rather than
settling down in one location. There are an estimated 30-40 million nomads in the world.
[1] People who move from place to place that are not in the desert or winter areas are called
gypsies. Many cultures have been traditionally nomadic, but traditional nomadic behavior is increasingly rare in
industrialized countries. There are three kinds of nomads,
hunter-gatherers,
pastoral nomads, and
peripatetic nomads.
Nomadic hunter-gatherers have by far the longest-lived subsistence method in human history, following seasonally available wild plants and game. Pastoralists raise herds and move with them so as not to deplete pasture beyond recovery in any one area. Peripatetic nomads are more common in industrialized nations, traveling from one territory to another and offering a trade wherever they go.
Nomadic hunter-gatherers
For more than one million years before domestication, nomadic hunter-gatherers (also known as foragers)moveded from campsite to campsite following
game and wild fruits and vegetables.
'Examples of nomadic hunter-gatherers'
★ Various groups of
Pygmies, such as the
Mbuti of the
Ituri Rainforest in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo
★ The
Bushmen (also known as Basarwa or San) of
southern Africa
★ Some
Native Americans prior to Western contact
★ Most
Indigenous Australians prior to Western contact
★ The
Negritos of
Southeast Asia
★ Some
Adivasi tribal people of
India
Pastoral nomads
"Nomad" is often shorthand for "pastoral nomad," which refers to one whose subsistence is based upon
domestication of animals. This nomadic
pastoralism is thought to have developed in three stages that accompanied
population growth and an increase in the complexity of
social organization. Karim Sadr has proposed the following stages:
★ 'Pastoralism:' This is a
mixed economy with a
symbiosis within the family.
★ 'Agropastoralism:' This is when symbiosis is between segments or clans within an
ethnic group.
★ 'True Nomadism:' This is when symbiosis is at the regional level, generally between specialized nomadic and agricultural populations.
The pastoralists are sedentary to a certain area as they move between the permanent spring, summer, autumn and winter pastures for their livestock.
Origin of nomadic pastoralism
Nomadic pastoralism seems to have developed as a part of the
secondary products revolution proposed by
Andrew Sherratt, in which early
pre-pottery Neolithic cultures that had used animals as live meat ("on the hoof") began also using animals for their secondary products, for example,
milk and its associated
dairy products,
wool and other animal hair, hides and consequently
leather,
manure for
fuel and
fertilizer, and traction.
The first nomadic pastoral society developed in the period from 8500-
6500 BC in the area of the southern
Levant. There, during a period of increasing aridity, PPNB cultures in the Sinai were replaced by a nomadic, pastoral pottery-using culture, which seems to have been a cultural fusion between a newly arrived
Mesolithic people from Egypt (the
Harifian culture), adopting their nomadic hunting lifestyle to the raising of stock. This lifestyle quickly developed into what Jaris Yurins has called the circum-
Arabian nomadic pastoral techno-complex and is possibly associated with the appearance of
Semitic languages in the region of the
Ancient Near East. The rapid spread of such nomadic pastoralism was typical of such later developments as of the
Yamnaya culture of the horse and cattle nomads of the
Eurasian steppe, or of the
Turko-
Mongol spread of the later
Middle Ages.
Examples of pastoral nomads
Traditionally nomadic people in industrialized nations
★
Roma (Gypsies)
★
★
Kalderash
★
★
Gitano (AKA
Cale)
★
★
Manush (AKA
Sinti)
★
★
Romnichal
★
Irish Travellers
★
Yeniche
★ Some
Saami communities
One of the consequences of the break-up of the
Soviet Union and the subsequent political independence and economic collapse of its
Central Asian republics is the resurgence of pastoral nomadism. Taking the
Kyrgyz people as a representative example, nomadism was the center of their economy prior to Russian colonization at the turn of the C19/C20, when they were settled into agricultural villages. The population became increasingly
urbanized after
World War II, but some people continued to take their herds of horses and cows to the high pasture (''jailoo'') every summer, i.e. a pattern of
transhumance. Since the 1990s, as the cash economy shrunk, unemployed relatives were absorbed back on the family farm, and the importance of this form of nomadism has increased. The symbols of nomadism, specifically the crown of the grey felt tent known as the
yurt, appears on the national flag, emphasizing the centrality of their nomadic history and past in the creation of the modern nation of
Kyrgyzstan.
Nomadism unique to industrialized nations
★
RV lifestyle
★
Technomad
★
Perpetual traveler
See also
★
Eurasian nomad for the historically and pre-historically important Horse People
★
Itinerant
★
Kochari
★
Transhumance
★
Snowbird (people)
★
Seasonal human migration
Further reading
★ Sadr, Karim. ''The Development of Nomadism in Ancient Northeast Africa'', University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991. ISBN 0-8122-3066-3
★
Cowan, Gregory. "Nomadology in Architecture: Ephemerality, Movement and Collaboration" University of Adelaide 2002 (available:
[2])
★
Chatwin, Bruce. ''
The Songlines'' (1987)
★
Deleuze and
Guattari, ''
A Thousand Plateaus'' (1980)
★
Grousset, René. ''L'Empire des Steppes'' (1939)
★ Michael Haerdter
Remarks on modernity, mobility, nomadism and the arts
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