Discuss about life and tradition of today's tribes and nomads have take Given Up their customs and lifestyles and adopted modern ways of life analyse and elaborate
Answers
Nomads have been a distinct element within and carriers of civilizations within the old world dry belts for thousands of years, from Morocco in the west to northern China in the east. They have, however, not always been perceived as such. Academics have only learned within the past few decades to view nomads not as a separate societal phenomenon, or as a fascinating particular form of human lifestyle, but, rather, to perceive them as an intertwined, broad societal structure.
Nomadic mobility has also shaped nomadic life styles and living forms. Continuous cyclical wandering, usually in tribal or familial groupings, has helped to create spatial and cultural distance to settled communities. This is to be observed within the Roma and other traveling peoples in Europe. Economic practices, social organization, laws, norms, language and the material culture of nomads have, usually, distinguished them greatly from their social surroundings.
The Multiplicity of Lifestyles
Nomadic ways of life have been characterized by a great variety. One thinks instantly of the historical model of mounted pastoral nomadism. Highly, and instantly, mobile they were able to assert themselves in relation to state-oriented settled communities for many years. Pastoral nomads’, at times, quite extensive wandering movements were often directed towards, and centered on, territories dominated by settled communities and often placed these under pressure. With their control of transport avenues and their position as, at times, subject, ‘cavalry’ powers they also commanded important resources, in addition to their herds, which meant that they came into contact with settled communities. But, however, nomads that have retained smaller numbers of animals in the steppe or mountain areas also have engaged in economic activities other than those of a mobile pastoral nature, including landholding and wage labor.
The Influence of Nomads on their Surroundings
With the taming of the horse for domestic usage and its resulting mobile life forms, especially the emergence of horse breeding mounted nomads in 200 B.C., and the employment of the camel as a pack and riding animal from 100 B.C., a spatially far-reaching, at times war-like nomadic mobility developed.
The consequences of this development included the spread of the image of the weapon-carrying nomads, which became a sort of dominant leitmotif. Nomadic-dominated rule or state forms, as are to be seen for example in the Fruitful Half Moon of the 11th century or the Uzbeks of the 16th century, show the possibilities and limits of the adaptability of nomads in relation to the institutional requirements of a political order. The example of the Near East shows in detail how efforts at a controlling and integrating nomadic politics incorporated great effort, as well as misguided directions. In relation to North Africa it can be proven that the nomadic or nomadic dominated areas influenced directly Roman power structures, in which the local demesne economics developed its own administrative and legal forms.
Characteristic for these interrelations are not the “Nomadic storm”, nor the “Nomadic state”, but, rather, the influence of nomads upon societies and states. When today armed nomadic militia in the west of Sudan go to attack the farmer communities of Darfur, it seems as if an ancient contrast lives on. It does not, however, relate to a conflict concerned with the rivalry of resources between nomadic pastoralism and settled agriculture, but rather to an earlier conflict constellation that arises from former political conditions and this dynamic has resulted in the Sudanese government’s support of Janjaweed bands.
This situation is typical for contemporary and historical times. The present practical and developmental-oriented perspectives of peaceful nomadism in Tibet and Central Asia, in the Arabic Near East and in North Africa are determined by events on national and international fields of play, often very distant from the place of the actual happenings. It is a task of observing and accompanying academia to incorporate the economic possibilities of mobile pastoral agriculture and the social function of nomadic or nomadically perceived ways of life from the local context with the process of decision-making.