Symposium:
Nomaden und Sesshafte in Geschichte und Gegenwart
27.-29.11.2003
Ort: Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Stiftung LEUCOREA, Collegienstraße 62
Zeit: 27.–29. November 2003
Special Panel: Arms and Armour as Indicators of Cultural Transfer
Kontakt:
Dr. Stefan R. Hauser · hauser@orientarch.uni-halle.de
Dr. Wolfgang Holzwarth · holzwarth@orientphil.uni-halle.de
PosterPressemitteilung, 19.11.2003
Parallele Welten? – Internationales Symposium "Nomaden und Sesshafte in Geschichte und Gegenwart" in Wittenberg
In Zeitungen und Reisemagazinen erscheinen Nomaden heute als Relikte einer untergegangenen Welt, ihr Lebensraum, die Wüsten und Steppen, wird für Abenteuerurlaube gepriesen. Das Bild der ungebundenen Nomaden dient als romantischer Kontrast zum sesshaften Leben der Ackerbauern und insbesondere der modernen Städter. In diesem Bild setzt sich ein Motiv fort, das sich über Jahrtausende hinweg immer wieder vor allem in Texten sesshaft-städtisch geprägter Autoren findet, die Nomaden als Gegenbild städtischer Zivilisation beschreiben, ihre Freiheitsliebe und Gastfreundschaft preisen, aber ihre Raubzüge fürchten.
Diese Wahrnehmung in Gegensätzen ist ein Teil der mannigfaltigen Formen intensiven Kontaktes und Austausches, welche das Thema eines dreitägigen internationalen Symposiums in der Lutherstadt Wittenberg, vom 27.–29. November 2003, sind. Führende Nomadismusforscher aus aller Welt werden das Verhältnis und komplexe Zusammenspiel von Nomaden, seßhaften Bauern, Städtern und Staaten in Wirtschaft, Politik, Kultur und Selbstwahrnehmung diskutieren.
Im Kern soll dabei erörtet werden, wie die unterschiedliche Raumnutzung und Arbeitsteilung zwischen Sesshaften und Nomaden die Geschichte der Alten Welt (mit)prägten, und welche Bedeutung die funktionale Differenzierung der Lebensformen, etwa mit Blick auf moderne Dienstleistungsnomaden in Teilen Europas oder im Hinblick auf Tierzüchter in ökologisch fragilen Gebieten Afrikas und Asiens auch heute noch hat.
Am ersten Tag des Symposiums stehen die Übergänge und Zwischenformen von nomadischem und sesshaftem Leben im Zentrum, wobei vor allem moderne Veränderungen nomadischer Lebensverhältnisse vorgestellt werden. Im zweiten Teil geht es um wirtschaftlichen und kulturellen Austausch sowie politisch-militärischen Konflikt zwischen Staaten, Seßhaften und Nomaden. Der abschließende Teil des Symposiums befaßt sich mit der Wahrnehmung und Bedeutung von nomadischem bzw. sesshaftem Leben mit den zugehörigen Konzepten der Fremd- und Eigendefinition.
Gäste sind willkommen.
Programme
27. November 2003
Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Stiftung LEUCOREA, Collegienstraße 62
Transformation: | |
9.30 Uhr | Prof. Dr. Bernhard Streck, Leipzig: |
10.00 Uhr | Prof. Dr. Günther Schlee, Halle: |
10.30 Uhr | Dr. Katharina Lange, Leipzig: |
11.00 Uhr | Kaffeepause |
11.30 Uhr | Prof. Dr. Hermann Kreutzmann, Erlangen: |
12.00 Uhr | Ingo Breuer, Leipzig: |
12.30 Uhr | Mittagspause |
14.30 Uhr | Prof. Dr. Emanuel Marx, Tel Aviv: |
15.00 Uhr | Dr. Udo Mischek, Leipzig: |
15.30 Uhr | Kaffeepause |
16.00 Uhr | Prof. Dr. Anatoly Khazanov, Madison: |
16.30 Uhr | Kaffeepause |
17.00 Uhr | Films on Nomads |
18.00 Uhr | Myriam Ababsa (Amman/Tours): |
18.30 Uhr | Empfang |
19.30 Uhr | Abendessen im Brauhaus Wittenberg |
28. November 2003
Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Stiftung LEUCOREA, Collegienstraße 62
Austausch und Konflikt: | |
9.30 Uhr | Dr. Kurt Franz / Prof. Dr. Jürgen Paul, Halle: |
10.00 Uhr | Dr. Donald Whitcomb, Chicago: |
10.30 Uhr | Constance Dittrich, M.A., Leipzig: |
11.00 Uhr | Kaffeepause |
11.30 Uhr | Dr. Michal Biran, Jerusalem: |
12.00 Uhr | Dr. Wolfgang Holzwarth, Halle: |
12.30 Uhr | Mittagspause |
14.30 Uhr | Prof. Dr. Irene Schneider, Göttingen: |
15.00 Uhr | Dr. Peter Finke, Halle: |
15.30 Uhr | Kaffeepause |
Nomadisch oder Sesshaft? | |
16.15 Uhr | Prof. Dr. Stefan Leder, Halle: |
16.45 Uhr | Prof. Dr. Hans-Werner Fischer-Elfert, Leipzig: |
17.15 Uhr | Kaffeepause |
17.45 - 18.15 Uhr | Gundula Mehnert, Halle: |
19.30 Uhr | Abendessen im Goldenen Adler |
29. November 2003
Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Stiftung LEUCOREA, Collegienstraße 62
9.30 Uhr | Dr. Thomas Herzog , Halle: |
10.00 Uhr | Prof. Dr. Saad A. Sowayan, Riad: |
10.30 Uhr | Prof. Dr. Mohanna Haddad, Irbid: |
11.00 Uhr | Kaffeepause |
11.30 Uhr | Prof. Dr. Frank Stewart, Jerusalem: |
12.00 Uhr | Dr. Elena Marushiakova and Dr. Veselin Popov, Leipzig/Sofia: |
12.30 Uhr | Mittagspause |
13.30 Uhr | Prof. Dr. Svetlana Tchervonnaya, Moskau: |
14.00 Uhr | Dr. Marko Scholze, Bayreuth: |
14.30 Uhr | Schlussbemerkungen und Diskussion
|
Abstracts
"Tribal Citadinity" in Raqqa (Syria)
Myriam Ababsa
IFPO Amman / Départment de Géographie, Université de Tours
Located in the western Jazira, 200 km east of Aleppo, at the eastern limit of the ma'mûra (the settlement zone between Bilad as Sham and the steppe), Raqqa is an old wintering station for semi-nomadic tribes (the Shâwaya 'Afadla and Walda). In the 1970s it became the administrative center of the Syrian north-east agricultural front. According to Syrian official rhetoric, the city has gone through two golden ages: that of Harun el Rashid and that of Hafez el Assad, who made it the administrative center of the Euphrates Project in 1974. Between these two periods, the authors of the official history book "Raqqa, pearl of Euphrates" (1992), describe a "rainbow in which the colors palpitate like civilizations"! That denotes little consideration for the six centuries during which the city remained uninhabited after its destruction by the Mongols (XIIIth century) and before its revival starting from the building in 1864 of an Ottoman police station (karakol) there.
However, the revival of Raqqa and the resumption of human permanent settlement within its boundaries is a much appreciated topic among the Raqqawî intellectuals. They used it as a tool to distinguish themselves from the other social categories, namely the civil servants, the merchants, and semi-nomadic people that settled in the town during the 1950s, and benefited from the Ba'thist revolution, taking over the main administrative and political positions. In order to highlight the city's former autonomous status vis-à-vis the state's central authority, the Raqqawi intellectuals have constructed a third Golden age: that of the Bedouin state of Hajem ibn Muheid (F192d'an 'Anaza) in 1920–1921.
In writing their own story, the Raqqawi intellectuals express a type of "tribal citadinity", if I may use this neologism to refer to a whole set of attitudes, practices and representations through which an individual or a social group expresses its attachment to a city. This citadinity is based on an ambiguous relation with the Bedouins whose virtues and practices are adopted (for instance the use of the madâfa), but who at the same time are despised as they have lost their political and economical strength.
From Mongols to Chinese: The Khitans after the Mongol Conquests
Michal Biran
Institute for Asian and African Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The paper examines the fate of the Khitans after the Mongol conquests as a case study to the complex relations between the Mongols and their nomadic and semi-nomadic subject people.
Throughout their rule in north China as the Liao (907–1125), in Central Asia as the Qara Khitai (1124–1218) and during the century they lived in China under Jin rule (1115–1234), the Khitans retained a multi-cultural Khitan identity, which they were quick to adapt to their changing circumstances. Yet although they were close allies of the Mongols and despite their crucial role in the shaping of the Mongol world empire, the Khitan ethnic identity did not survive the upheavals of the Mongol period. Like many other steppe people (Qipchaqs, Tanguts, Uighurs), the Khitans were either reduced to clan or tribal units in the new collectivities established in Mongol and post-Mongol Eurasia or assimilated into the sedentary civilizations surrounding them.
The paper focuses on the process of Khitan assimilation in China, which involved a shift from nomadic or semi-nomadic way of life into a sedentary one. It examines several Khitan families who originally gained their status in the Mongol empire by their nomadic qualities, as generals, and shows how Mongol policies, notably the introduction of nomadic social norms into Yuan China, were a major factor in the eventual "sinicization" of the Khitan families that took place by the mid-14th century. Lastly, the paper compares the processes in China to the different fate of the Khitans in western Asia where assimilation was mainly achieved through islamization, and the nomad–sedentary dichotomy less clear-cut.
Survival Strategies and Mobility among (ex-)Nomads in Morocco
Ingo Breuer
Orientalisches Institut, Universität Leipzig
In many Moroccan regions formerly dominated by nomadic activities, nomadic and semi-nomadic systems have been replaced by extremely complex survival strategies. These strategies, however, may combine, within single households, the remains of a nomadic past with a plethora of other economic activities, most of which require a high degree of spatial mobility.
In this fieldwork based paper, I will present an analysis of these strategies in different local settings of both rural and—concerning ex-nomads—urban Morocco. I shall focus on identifying the role of remaining nomadic activities and different forms of mobility in economic strategies within different household types. On a more general level, my aim will be to deliver an account of how these strategies contribute to structuring the conditions under which nomadic activities are increasingly being abandoned or, mostly in a transformed way, continue to exist.
Integration and Separation: Two Examples from Babylonia
Constance Dittrich
Altorientalisches Institut, Universität Leipzig
During the third to first millennium BC nomadic people repeatedly penetrated or infiltrated Mesopotamia, removed the existing order and successively established their own dynasties. Despite these political transformations older traditions persisted, became integrated and amalgamated with specific new elements.
A prominent role in these processes play the Amorites, who are first mentioned in sources of the later third millennium BC. At the beginning of the second millennium BC the Amorites replaced the third Dynasty of Ur and created several, at first territorially limited, political entities with individual local elites. Later these were united by Hammurapi under the supremacy of Babylon.
Nevertheless, there is no uniform pattern in the process of integration of Amorites and the older local populations. On the contrary, the general picture is determined by regional and temporal differences. These diachronic and diatopic differences will be illustrated by two examples.
Cuneiform texts of the later third millennium BC from southern Babylonia indicate limited acceptance of the alien Amorite population. Documents show that they mainly exchanged small livestock for agricultural and craftsman's products. But in these documented transactions Amorites are often not even mentioned by name. Access to the religious centre Nippur seems to have been generally denied. A certain Dada, an Amorite, served as intermediary with the highly developed Ur-III administration.
Further north, at Sippar, Amorites appear as persons with high social competence and full legal status in numerous documents of the early second millennium BC. Of particular interest are the Amorite so-called nadîtu of the sun-god Shamash. This cultic office was largely limited to daughters from families of the local elite; among them daughters of the respective kings.
Some Remarks on Nomads and the State in Present Day Mongolia
Peter Finke
Max-Planck-Institut für ethnologische Forschung, Halle
After a brief period of imperial rule, Mongolia was little more than a colonial outpost for the last centuries. During the 20th century, her fate was largely in the hands of two all-powerful neighbours, Russia in the north and China in the south. This domination was reflected not only in political affairs, but also in economic life. During socialist times, Mongolia became primarily a provider of raw materials within the "Soviet firm". The nomads became firmly embedded into a state, which was ruled by former nomads—but controlled by more powerful (sedentary) forces. Obligatory delivery quotas in combination with the regular and secure provision with needed goods led to rising living standards. This, as well as universal access to school education and health services, was highly appreciated.
The dissolution of socialism therefore struck the nomads hard. Much of the achievements in recent decades have faded away. Politically, Mongolia is again caught between her two mighty neighbours who often use economic relations for political goals. For the nomads, although little seems to have changed on the surface, these transformations caused fundamental re-arrangements in social life as well. Amazingly, in spite of the economic hardships faced today, social and inter-ethnic relations remain remarkably peaceful. State institutions are still considered prime responsible for guaranteeing social order. This may have negative effects on local cooperative structures, but it prevented Mongolia so far from many less desirable developments in other parts of the pastoral world.
Sedentarism and Nomadism as Criteria of Ancient Egyptian Cultural Identity
Hans-Werner Fischer-Elfert
Institut für Ägyptologie, Universität Leipzig
Sedentarism as opposed to nomadism was regarded as a very fundamental expression of the adequate way of life an Ancient Egyptian was supposed to lead. Having a closer look at this issue nevertheless reveals a multi-facetted access to this phenomenon, as there is no such uniform concept of "nomads" or "nomadism" regardless of the genre of text in which it is made a topic. Thus, royal and literary proclamations that were to be "published" at strategic spots as e.g. on the Egyptian border or directed to future kings by way of instruction tell a completely different story of how nomads are to be addressed and dealt with. The "royal discourse" on nomads may go as far as to publicly execute one individual of a nomadic tribe to deter all the other members of his tribe and prevent them from aggressing Egypt and its king.
Administrative sources reflect a much less dramatic form of contact between sedentary Egyptians and, e.g., Nubian nomads of the desert. Mutual interrelation is based principally on economic transactions. As long as the nomads do have any products to barter and appreciated by the Egyptians, they might do so. The overall picture presented by "official" sources and media is absolutely contrary, i.e. simply false, to social reality as far as the Middle Kingdom (2050–1750) is concerned. Formerly nomadic Nubians as well as Asiatics have to be regarded as sedentarised mercenaries in the Egyptian army and civil servants in patron's households.
Nomads in the Near East and Central Asia
Kurt Franz and Jürgen Paul
Institut für Orientalistik, Universität Halle
Instead of comparing selected groups of nomads in this paper, we shall compare patterns of interaction between nomadic groups and the sedentary economy. For this purpose, we find it appropriate to consider different sets of resources on the nomads' side, since these do justice to regional specificities and yet put comparable conditions of interaction on display. Accordingly, it will be asked: How do nomads, and which nomads, depend on which resources, and what are their strategies to gain and maintain access to these resources?
It goes almost without saying that interaction also includes nomad–state relations, and therefore, special attention will be paid to possible correlations between resources and nomadic political formations. In order to avoid ecological determinism, we propose to view the state formation processes that occurred in any given region as a result of a complex interplay of mutliple factors.
With regard to historical instances, we will not comply with the frequently encountered dichotomizing confrontation of Central Asian and Near Eastern nomads still present in the title of this paper. Instead, we propose to distinguish five domains of nomadism within the Old World's arid zone that have been the home for distinct types of interaction and distribution of resources. Among these, attention will be drawn in particular to the Turko-Mongolian region, the Turko-Iranian region and the Arab region.
The Force of Peaceful Relations among the Confessionally Divided Sedentaries Facing a Common Enemy: the Nomads (The case of Jordan)
Mohanna Haddad
Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, Yarmouk University, Irbid
This paper deals with the ways sendentaries in Southern Syria in the 19th century dealt with the nomads through uniting as Fellahin (agriculturalists) to protect their lives and properties against nomads' raids and attacks. The problem of interaction between sedentaries and nomads developed further after the formation of the modern states in the 20th century until it was solved by establishing security forces (army and police). Cases of conflict and violence, however, continued either in the same form or in different ones. Such cases may inspire us how unity and use of force may lead to less violent coexistence and finally lead to more understanding through negotiations and exchange of ideas. Such cases also reveal that reaching such coexistence passes through stages of interactions. Under the state supervision more contact occurred between sendentaries and nomads in melding the whole in a national unity.
Wild Ancestors: Bedouins in Mediaeval Arabic Popular Literature
Thomas Herzog
Institut für Orientalistik, Universität Halle
Nomadic tribesmen are depicted in an ambivalent way in a number of popular Arabic epics (siyar). On the one hand they are portrayed as the incarnation of noble values—courage, strength, generosity, chivalric honour—and, on the other hand, as cruel and greedy savages. This paper presents the fictitious nomadic world of two of the main Arabic popular epics, Sîrat 'Antar b. Shaddâd and Sîrat al-Zîr Sâlim, and analyses the 'triangular' relationship between "good" Bedouins, "evil" Bedouins and sedentary characters. In an attempt to determine the time and setting in which these texts were created, an analysis is offered of the main thematic oppositions between the three groups of characters. Finally, a hypothetical answer is suggested to explain the question of the social and political function of these narratives.
Relations between Uzbek Central Asia, the Great Steppe and Iran, 1722–1747
Wolfgang Holzwarth
Institut für Orientalistik, Universität Halle
The paper focuses on Bukharan history during a phase of turmoil and crisis when well-established boundaries between Uzbek Central Asia and adjacent polities to the North and South seemed to disperse. Large numbers of Kazak pastoralists migrated from the open steppe into the Samarkand region, and eventually devastated agricultural lands between 1723 and 1727. A few years later an Iranian king rode in triumph into the Bukharan capital and Iranian troops operated around Samarkand. Driving forces behind these encounters were two powers expanding into Central Asia from opposite directions: the nomadic state of the Mongol Oirats (Jungars, Qalmaq) with its centre in the open steppe (Ili, Yeti-su), and the empire of the Turkmen general and Iranian king Nadir Shah Afshar with an urban centre in an agro-pastoral zone (Mashhad, Khorasan).
How did Uzbek Central Asian actors participate in these conflicts? And what impact did these encounters have on their politics and attitudes towards other parties of conflict? These questions will be addressed by considering the role of Uzbek amîrs—tribal chiefs and military commanders in the second line of power next to the sovereign (khân)—who were engaged in strengthening their own local bases of power. In part, their strategic options had occasioned the foreign invasions. One of them had played "the steppe card" and relied on Kazak support—with disastrous consequences for all the groups involved—, whereas another one had promoted his interests by a special relationship to the Iranian king. The "Iranian alternative" proved to be successful in restoring "law and order" and thus, it will be argued, shaped political concepts Uzbek Central Asia. The presentation will, if time allows, also draw attention to Bukharan diplomatic letters to steppe leaders that document shifting alliances during the years under concern.
Nomads and Cities in the Eurasian Steppe Region and Adjacent Countries: An Historical Overview
Anatoly M. Khazanov
Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Non-autarkic character of pastoral nomadic economy made cities indispensable for its normal functioning. In pre-modern times, one may single out three main models connected with different ways by which the nomads of the Eurasian steppes were trying to cope with this problem.
- Trade and other relations with cities in sedentary countries.
- Subjugation of sedentary countries which resulted in exploiting their cities for various economic, administrative, and other needs of the conquerors.
- Attempts at creating an urban sector in nomadic states by utilizing the resources of sedentary countries.
All these models had certain deficiencies, and the nomads often were trying to combine them. Contrary to the rather widespread opinion, however, very few nomads had settled in cities permanently, and their impact on urban culture and social structure was fairly insignificant. The cities in the region retained the main characteristic features of corresponding sedentary countries and civilizations.
Marginality and Mobility: Pamirian Pastoralists in Global Contexts
Hermann Kreutzmann
Institut für Geographie, Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
The paper challenges the thesis about mountain areas as regions of refuge. The refuge concept attributes irrelevant exchange and limited communication to isolated mountain habitats which mainly depend on production for home consumption. In contrast it is shown that exchange relations in all walks of life have been affected not only recently but also for nearly two centuries although a continued importance of subsistence strategies in the agricultural sector can be observed. The Pamirian knot provides the mountainous interface between South and Central Asia for the case studies of Kirghiz pastoralists in order to exemplify socio-political developments in a rather similar mountain environment, not to state that perceptions of the environment do not transform either. The examples are presented from three different countries: Afghanistan, Tajikistan, PR of China. Since the late 19th century the previously contiguous territories are separated by international boundaries conceived as the result of an imperial "great game" about spheres of influence. Emphasis is put on the developments in the livestock sector and it is shown that adaptation to changed socio-political frame conditions has affected the livelihood strategies of nomads.
"Shepherds" vs. "Bedouins": Narratives of a Relation
Katharina Lange
Institut für Ethnologie, Universität Leipzig
The paper discusses the semi-sedentary lifestyle characteristic of the shepherding tribes ("Shawaya") of the upper middle Euphrates valley during the first half of the twentieth century. Taking the Wuldah tribe as an example, the presentation will question the perception of this lifestyle as a transitional stage on a temporal continuum between "true" nomadism and sedentary culture.
European travellers and administrators in early twentieth century Syria regarded the semi-sedentary tribespeople of the Euphrates valley as formerly nomadic Bedouin groups who were undergoing a rapid sedentarization process. Echoing the image of the "decline" of an originally nomadic lifestyle, they assumed that social structures and cultural characteristics as well were in a process of degeneration. Accordingly, this view informed practical policies in tribal administration.
Historical narratives told by tribespeople today, however, do not reflect this frame of degeneration and decline. In talking about their history, members of the Wuldah tribe emphasize their difference from "the Bedouin" on the one hand and "townsfolk" (hadar) on the other. However, tribesmembers frequently represent the combination of seasonal agriculture and mobile sheepherding which shaped their parents' and grandparents' lives not as the result of a "degeneration" process, but as an integral feature of their culture since the beginning of their tribal history.
The presentation will introduce and discuss these different narratives. In conclusion, I will raise the question if determining the extent of nomadic and sedentary elements in the Wuldah tribe's "original" lifestyle has any meaning to tribespeople today, or if it is actually given an "artificial" importance by outsiders.
Nomadic and Sedentary Peoples—a Misleading Dichotomy?
Stefan Leder
Institut für Orientalistik, Universität Halle
Neither is the economic activity of nomads in general restricted to animal breeding, nor is their political and social life confined to the needs of a pastoralist existence. During the last three decades, social anthropology emphasized nomadic "multi-resource economics and multi-referrent politics", and studies concentrate on the multifarious aspects of interaction between nomadic and sedentary peoples. The idea of an anti-thesis between their ways of life, which is a apparent also in modern ethnographic accounts, was now interpreted as going back to the nomadic self image presented to researchers from the West. As a matter of fact, images of the nomad created by sedentary peoples and promoted by nomads themselves since ancient times mostly refer to dichotomies. We must learn to understand this vision, not as an ideology which is in contradiction to reality, but as an integral part of the nomadic-sedentary-interaction. The case of the Arabic Bedouin illustrates the continuous presence of the nomad, as a conceptualisation of social reality, in a sedentary context. Depending on specific historical circumstances, images of the Bedouin represent various values, concepts and identities. They mirror the changing position of the Bedouin in political and normative contexts, they reflect various stratagems of acquiring prestige and identity, and they constitute a rich potential of conceptual thinking by way of symbolic representation. A prerequisite of this lasting impact of nomads, in this case, probably lies in their ability to use and refer to Bedouin conceptions for the organisation of their internal and external social life.
The "Gypsy Court" as a Concept of Consensus among Service Nomads in the Northern Black Sea Area
Elena Marushiakova and Veselin Popov
Institut für Ethnologie, Leipzig / Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia
The Northern Black Sea Area mainly includes the steppe regions, which were relatively late reclaimed by the contemporary European civilization—Dobruja, Bessarabia, Crimea, the lower course of the rivers Dnepr, Don and Kuban. One of the main characteristics of the many Gypsy groups living here, which were in the past (or still are) service nomads, is the presence in their lives of the so called "Gypsy court".
In the paper this specific institution will be presented, together with the main conceptual idea, on which it is based and functions. This basic conceptual idea, determining the forms and the way the "Gypsy court" functions, is the concept of the consensus. Every one of the decisions of this court must not only be accepted by unanimous agreement of the court's members, but by the whole community (including the "charged" ones). If there were no such consensus, then the whole institution itself would not be able to exist, because there are no other mechanisms for its decisions to be carried out. In the paper the variants of functioning of the Gypsy court among the different Gypsy groups will be presented: the causes, processed by the Gypsy court, the way of its summoning and its exhibiting; the frames in which a consensus decision is searched and found. The main functions of the institution of the Gypsy court for preserving of the everyday life in the middle of a given Gypsy group and in the relations with the other Gypsy groups, and also wider, its significance for preserving the integrity and the development of the community are given.
Nomads and Cities: The Development of a Conception
Emanuel Marx
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Tel Aviv University
The paper sets out the slow stages by which I reached a better understanding of the South Sinai Bedouin, and through them—of the integration of pastoral nomads in urban civilization.
In my early work with nomadic pastoralists in the Negev I argued that Bedouin, in as far as they were pastoralists, were part of a complex city-based market economy. They specialize in the production of labor-intensive commodities such as meat, wool and hides, which are readily sold in cities. With the proceeds they buy their staple foods and the numerous items they require for daily life. On the face of it, the nomads can transact their business during one or two annual trips to the city. Yet their existence as pastoralists depends on whether the city-dwellers can afford their products. Bedouin who become labor migrants in cities are no less vulnerable to economic and political vicissitudes. Any recession throws them out of work.
The Bedouin of South Sinai made me revise that conception. They were a specialized segment of urban culture, as they made their living entirely in cities and also needed a steady supply of imported food for survival. They were 'pastoral nomads' only in a very limited sense. They participated in a monetary market, had developed a complex division of labor and even a degree of specialization in each trade. The implication was that urban civilization was to be found in their midst.
The Image of Cimmerians and Scythians and the Interpretation of Archaeological Remains in Transcaucasia
Gundula Mehnert
Institut für Klassische Archäologie, Universität Halle
Cimmerians and Scythians are the first nomadic invaders in Transcaucasia mentioned in the ancient oriental and classical sources. In written sources we read only about single wars or nomadic raids in particular regions and about particular cases (actions of special chieftains, alliances, conflicts). They give us a picture from sedentary people on nomads at the moment of their presence on the borders of Urartu or Assyria. Archaeological remains from Transcaucasia complete the image of the events in the first millenium BC.
The image of Cimmerians and Scythians ("nomadic horsemen") based on written sources still has a continuing influence on methodical approaches of current research. The supposed sudden appearance of nomadic invaders in the north of Urartu is accepted in many publications and evolves into the image of the unpredictable warrior of the steppe. Because of their weapons and unknown strategy it is assumed that the nomadic horsemen must have had an advantage over other warriors which finally caused the fall of Urartu and Assyria. The main source for this image is Herodotus who writes about Cimmerians and Scythians leaving the northern Pontic steppe areas and crossing the Caucasus. Concerning their route many suggestions were made by scientists but each attempt to find the only possible route in the end depends on the unreliable report of Herodotus. Such pinpointed view of the events is in contrast with the known mobility of nomads (huge numbers of tribes, changing of chieftains, military victories, rise and decline, retreat, alliances etc.) .
In the same way also archaeological material, especially weapons like arrowheads were interpreted and dated on the basis of written sources connecting these to Scythians or Cimmerians.
The focus of my paper will be on archaeological material from Transcaucasia which until today have been used predominantly to illustrate different historical events.
The Dual Morphology of an Oscillating Society
Udo Mischek
Institut für Ethnologie, Universität Leipzig
My presentation will bring into focus the living conditions in one of Istanbul's gypsy quarters. The various economic niches and jobs found among the inhabitants will be mentioned. As a consequence, these activities entail a specific life style. The quarter is inhabited by three different groups of service nomads and by members of the majority. Especially the mode of life of the two dominant nomadic groups show how a peripatetic existence could be incorporated and lived in an urban context. The inner structure of this neighbourhood also reflects the relationship between nomadic and sedentary ways of life.
This leads to a model of nomadic–sedentary relations other disciplines can make use of.
Forms of Pastoralism
Günther Schlee
Max-Planck-Institut für ethnologische Forschung, Halle
Forms of pastoralism have often defied classification. Definitions of "nomadism", "transhumant pastoralism", "semi-nomadism" etc. have often led to paradoxes. It is not easy to define mobile ways of livestock keeping by different degrees of mobility, because mobility can be measured in many different ways, like distance covered, frequency of movement, or the proportion of the population or of given households or management units involved in these movements.
This presentation wants to give an overview of different patterns of movements of pastoralists in time and space and to explain some of these patterns by looking at the distribution of resources seasonally and geographically. In addition to the distribution of inputs into pastoral production, social determinants of movement can be identified, like the availability of government services, avoidance of government control, access to the market, or ritual requirements.
It will be attempted to give a global overview of forms of pastoralist production in terms of geographical regions and climatic zones. The examples to be discussed with more detail, however, stem from the area where the author has done his won field research, namely the lowlands of the Horn of Africa.
Settlement of the Turkmen People in Early Twentieth Century Iran
Irene Schneider
Seminar für Arabistik, Universität Göttingen
In my project "Nomadism and the State in Qâjâr Iran" I have dealt with the military and political role of the Turkmen Yamût in the process of state formation in late 18th century Iran. The ultimately victorious Quyunlû-clan of the Qâjârs depended on the Yamût's co-operation and friendship and military aid in the time of the establishment of state power.
However, at a certain time the Yamut broke away from the supratribal confederation Âghâ Muhammad Khân had build up. Subsequently, the relation between the Qâjâr state and the Yamût remained hostile during the whole of the 19th century. The Yamût remained independent, raiding the sedentary population of the region and extorting protection money from them, while the state power proved incapable of establishing lasting administrative and military control in the region. This situation was reflected in the socio-political discourses of the time, particularly in the construction of the image of Turkmen, not only as sturdy warriors and a base people with barbaric severity, but also as a potential threat to central power. When the dynastic rule was handed over to Rizâ Shâh in 1925, policy towards the tribes changed. The new tribal policy was tantamount to pacification, disarmament and settlement of the tribes and was carried out with a strong arm and even sometimes brutal force.
In my paper I want to present some documents form the early phase of Rizâ Shâh's rule. The documents contain communications between the central administration in Tehran and the provincial government in Astarabad and dating to the year 1926, after Rizâ Shâh assumed power. They reflect the situation of the nomadic and sedentary Turkmen people—the Yamût as well as the Guklân—and concern plans for the settlement of these tribes.
Modern Nomads: Tuareg and Tourism in Niger
Marko Scholze
Institut für Ethnologie, Universität Bayreuth
The Tuareg have stirred the imagination of many Europeans (including scientists) as the famous "blue veiled men" and the "knights of the desert". Derived in Europe, these images look back on a long tradition and go well along with modern marketing strategies to promote Niger as a tourist destination. Thus the Tuareg have become an important incentive for European tourists to visit the Saharan part of the Republic of Niger. The Tuareg in turn do not only function as an exotic backdrop for desert tourism but becoming more and more engaged in this business themselves. This paper takes a look on those Tuareg who are working as guides, drivers or cooks for the numerous local tour-operators, which have sprung up in recent years in the town of Agadez and which are mostly run by Tuareg themselves. Considering the ongoing processes of desertification and the increasing population growth, tourism offers an alternative economic activity to the traditional breeding of camels and goats, horticulture and the salt-caravans. But there is more to this activity for the actors than just an additional income. It offers the opportunity of perpetuating a nomadic lifestyle by modern means and at the same time, this lifestyle is altered through tourism and the contact with tourists itself. This paper aims to explore the resulting implications and contradictions for the Tuareg involved in tourism and their society.
Tribalism vs. Statehood: An Alternative Model To The Baduw Hadhar Dichotomy
Saad A. Sowayan
King Saud University, Riyadh
Nomads and cultivators of Arabia are compatible and reconcilable. It is the rise of the state which turns the tension between from the mere ecological competition which is at most times peaceful into a deadly ideological conflict between tribe and state. In addition to the fact that tribalism and statehood, as two distinct political formations, are incompatible, religious creed, from which a nascent state usually draws its legitimacy, is irreconcilable with tribal ethos. Nomadic tribes are coerced into political submission under the pretext of religious conversion. Statehood and formal religion are both closely linked to writing. Thus from the start of its invention, writing contributed to the formulation, accumulation and propagation of ideologies and attitudes hostile to the Bedouin. Throughout the centuries, the antagonistic attitudes against the Bedouin and their culture which are fixed in written texts accumulate forming a sort of antithesis between the scriptural urban centres of civilisations with their permanent cumulative written records on the one hand and the nomadic culture with its oral traditions and lore which are ephemeral, transient and non-cumulative on the other.
Customary Law and Bedouins
Frank Stewart
Dept. of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
In the century centred roughly on the year 1800 Western pressure on the great civilizations of Asia became for the first time a central feature of their history. For students of the Middle East the event that symbolizes this change is Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798. There is some tendency to see these civilizations—those of the Far East, of South and South-East Asia, and of the Middle East—as broadly similar in their level of economic and technical organization. As far as the Arab world is concerned, this was no longer true in 1800. A catastrophic decline had taken place since the heyday of the Abbasid empire. The most obvious effect of this decline was a sharp reduction in population; a less obvious, but no less important one, was that in most regions the cities had largely lost control of the countryside to the tribes. These tribes, if they spoke Arabic, were almost all either Bedouin or profoundly Bedouinized.
One of the most distinctive features of Bedouin culture is their customary law. In this paper I shall point to some distinctive features of this law, and I shall show how, as a result of Bedouin domination of the countryside, it spread to villagers and even to townspeople. Even now, at the beginning of the new millennium, that law retains far more importance in the life of ordinary people than is generally realized.
Transformations: Between Nomadism and Sedentary Life
Bernhard Streck
Institut für Ethnologie, Universität Leipzig
As an introduction to the first panel with the topic of contemporary nomadism the two-dimensional model of economic categories of Aparna Rao (2002) will be presented. In this light the term transformation will be explained as rather a change between nomadic and sedentary components within complex economies than in the sense of an epochal threshold or a global one-way street, which leaves all nomadic forms of life in the backwardness. Moreover the importance of interdisciplinary help will be pointed out as a raison d'être of the SFB as well as of the symposium.
Nogay: The Dwindling Steppe and the Last European Turkic Nomads
Svetlana M. Tchervonnaia
Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow
The Nogay people, numbering 75,000 in 1989, are among the largest population groups in Europe, which overt the centuries retained their nomadic life-style. Until the 20th century pastoral nomadism was the basis of Nogay economy. Increasingly it was supplemented and later replaced by various forms of transhumant livestock keeping which led to a smooth transition from nomadism to a sedentary way of life. Despite the modernization of the economy, the Nogay cultural heritage and ethno-psychological stereotypes were not radically altered. However, the Soviet system by administrative acts and use of force imposed kolkhozes and sovkhoses on the Nogay, introduced cultural stereotypes ("the rapprochement between the city and village") and reduced the Nogay's land for cattle breeding and other branches of economics. In addition, administrative and economic measures caused highland peoples (Laks, Avars, Dargins among others) to migrate into regions which were traditionally populated by Nogays. This created economic incongruities, conflicting interests, and inter-ethnic tension.
In modern Russia the Nogay find themselves in a most complicated predicament.
The Soviet economical system resulted in a complete degradation of the formerly rich Nogay steppe, especially in the Caspian region it has turned into a national catastrophe. A major problem for the Nogay people is the splitting up of its territory into various "subjects" of the Russian Federation, that was made possible by the Edict of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 1957. As a result the Nogay are minorities in Dagestan, Stavropolski krai, Karatchai-Tcherkess Republic and the Astrakhan district.
A national movement "Birlik" ("Unity") came into being in the early 1990's, and proposes a program to restore the ethnic-cultural and territorial unity of the Nogay people, and its right to self-determination in the form of autonomy. Still political disunity prevails. The Nogay have no effective forms of self-determination or local self-government to counter the socio-economic and ecological crisis and a disastrous rise in unemployment.
Without their traditional land, political representation and legislative protection, the Nogay people now find themselves in danger of extinction. The unique monuments and the still existent values of the ancient Turkic nomadic culture in the Nogay steppe are gradually becoming mirages of the post-Soviet desert, inspiring only a small circle of scholars, artists, intellectuals and the last romantics of the national movement which is now going through a crisis and is experiencing the bitterness of defeat.
Archaeological Evidence of Sedentarization: Bilâd al-Shâm in the Early Islamic Period
Donald Whitcomb
Oriental Institute, University of Chicago
Archaeological research at the site of Hadir Qinnasrin in north Syria focuses on the settlement of Hadir outside of the Classical city of Chalcis. As implied in the name, this settlement seems to be the hâdir or camp of Ghassanid and early Islamic times. Excavations on the periphery of the settlement produced two residences which seem to be transitional house forms symptomatic of a process of sedentarization.
This paper will touch on three types of early Islamic settlement: the phenomenon of the hâdir (parembole nomadon) attached to most Syrian cities; the nature of the misr (pl. amsâr), the so-called garrisons of the Muslim conquest; and the concept of the dâr al-hijra as a religious settlement. Each of these intertwined terms may be considered facet of the same social process or indeed of the Arab population of this critical historical period.
This evidence will be presented and examined in light of the archaeological methodologies advanced by Cribb for nomad archaeology and by Helms for Bedouin architecture at al-Risha. This methodology may be examined in light of peripheral settlements in Palestine and the Negev, examples also drawn from the early Islamic period. The purpose will be to offer analyses toward identification of this historical process and the contribution which archaeology may make toward an important aspect of social change in the Middle East.
