Ecsedy I. 1981. Nomads in History and Historical Research

NOMADS IN HISTORY AND HISTORICAL RESEARCH
Author(s): ILDIKÓ ECSEDY

Source: Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, Vol. 35, No. 2/3 (1981), pp. 201-218,
219-227
Published by: Akadémiai Kiadó
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Acta Orientalin Academiae Scientiarum Tomus XXXV — 201 — 227
Hung. (2 3), (1981)
NOMADS IN HISTORY AND HISTORICAL RESEARCH1
BY
ILDIKÔ ECSEDY
A comprehensive summary of the complété history of nomade cannot

be attempted here, because it could or at least should be equal to an endeavour
to write the universal history as a whole. Instead, this paper tries to présent
a survey of the related difficulties, i.e. the problème of nomads in history,
to be met and solved in the course of historical research.2
The final evolvement of nomadic stockbreeding and its expansion of
historical significance came about in an early period — during the 2nd millen
nium B. C. — when no border-lines were or could have been marked out and
defended, and when no frontier limited the spread and gaining of pasturing
land by herds and their herdsmen, and no défendable wall-line or effective
military defense represented insurmountable difficulties to the raids of nomadic
troops. However, information concerning the way of life of pastoral peoples
has been richer and much more detailed in recent times: the source material
on them is widening — so to say — in direct ratio to the narrowing down of
their geographica! and historical sphere of activity. But in this recent period,
the appearance of political borders compelled the livestock-breeders' societies
to exist under living conditions so alien to their original way of life, that even
direct information about them, when reflecting their historical rôle and
character, may suffer inévitable distortions.
1The Hungarian variant of this paper was prepared for the Conference Nomad
tàrsadalmak es âllamalakidatok Societies and State —
[Nomadic Formations], Budapest
Visegrâd, October 25 — 28, 1978 (see the summary review of the Conference in this same
fascicle of the Acta Orient. Hung. XXXV, 1981, pp. 393—396). It will be published in the
volume of the Conference (of the same title, in the sériés Kôrôsi Csoma Kiskônyvtàr,
Akadémiai Kiadô, Budapest, in press).
2 For mere no reference is made to my earlier on ancient
practical reasons, papers
nomads recorded by Chinese sources, formerly published in this same periodical (cf. my
book Nomâdok es kereskedôk Kina hatârain [«Nomade and Merchants in China's Border
lands»], Kôrôsi Csoma Kiskônyvtàr 16, Akadémiai Kiadô, Budapest 1979); and my
summary paper On the economic and social structure of nomadic societies (in the volume
Primitive Society and the Asiatic Mode of Production, ed. by F. Tôkei, Corvina, Budapest,
in préparation)
Acta Orient. Hung. XXXV. 1981
202 I. ECSEDY
The and scanty records concerning the early nomads could

fragmentary
not be deciphered without a coherent and detailed total-plan of their world,
i.e. the direct and scholarly knowledge gained on the spot by purposeful
ethnographical—ethnological description. But when judging their role and
position in world history, more importance ought to be attributed to studies
concerning their past, namely to traditional philological research of the sources,
in close connection with archaeological discovery of the material remnants of
the culture concerned. That is why a Conference of orientalists like this could
claim successful
activity only through efforts of philologist,
harmonized
archaeologist and anthropologist représentatives of historical studies, in order
to approach the problème of nomads in an up-to-date, i.e. complex way.3
The frontier-lines of various disciplines, due to the historical héritage of
science history, were by necessity transgressed by the research of nomads,
in accordance with the history of the nomads themself, extending — if pos
sible — over or beyond any frontier-line. The historical failure of a nomadic
economy to maintain lasting prosperity can be attributed, after all, to a forced
narrowing down of its extensive and Overall expansive method of pro
duction, and this should be a warning regarding every forced narrowing
down of fields, within «civilized» disciplinary scopes as well.
communities was always determined by their capac

The fate of nomadic
ity and
possibility to step across the primary and rudimentary limits of
their historical sphere. In a geographical sense: in cases when they could
conquer new territories for their economy, thus also gaining new fields for
human expansion. In an economical way: if they could learn new techniques
(but in a measure not yet endangering their original way of life). Or frorn
a political aspect: if they could extend their superiority over other commu
nities, thus crossing borderlines of other types of economy, as far as taking
empire-size positions on the borderlands of ancient agricultural civilizations
and their neighbourhood of similar historical possibilities.
That is why the entire history of pastoral nomads was designated as
«frontier history» by one of their most clear-eyed witnesses, Owen Lattimore
who was of the view: «the poor nomad is the pure nomad».4 It can be added:
3 efforts seemed désirable for other recent Conferences on the

Similarly joint
related problème, see e.g. Pastoral Production and Society (Production pastoral et société).
Proceedings of the International Meeting on Nomadic Pastoralism (Actes du Colloque inter

national sur le pastoralisme nomade — Paris 1—3 Dée. Edited la direction
1976). by/sous
de L'Equipe écologie et anthropologie des sociétés pastorales. Edition de la Maison des
Science de l'Homme, Paris 1979.
4 See his that part of Chinese connected with the steppe
book, dexcribing history
nomads: Inner Asian Frontiers of China (Boston 1962. Beaeon Press). Or his paper The
NOM ADS IN HISTORY AND HISTORICAL RESEARCH 203
the «pure» nomads, of an isolated economy and territory, can be mainly found
among the impoverished liverstock-breeders of, say, the 20th Century, forced
among the given political borders, and thus deprived of their original living
conditions. Therefore, a survey of historical problems of nomadic livestock
such as this must concentrate — as concerns final
breeders, paper, prospects
of this way of life at least — on the historical
région without impénétrable
geographical borders in the Eurasian steppes and their inhabitants of con
tinent-wide political importance, the mounted pastoral i.e.
nomads, ruling
over or starting from Inner Asia. (All the more so, since for the main and direct
lessons of nomadic history, the author of this paper is primarily indebted to
the sources of Inner Asian history.)5
Thus when judging the character and significance of the activity of those
— i.e. to
pastoral nomads who were able to get over their own boundaries play
a role in the history of their area —, the task of research is complicated by
the fact that they played an active part in the history of the sphere beyond
the related borders, and thus their presence and participation has to be taken
into considération far beyond their occasional registration in chronicle history.
Furthermore, their behaviour may be différent according to their presence
within or beyond their frontier sphere.
The steppe nomads also play a role of historical importance in régions
and countries alien for them: in the cultural sphere of those cultivator societies
which they had to attack if meeting opposition, in this way initiating regulär
contacts even with civilizations trying to avoid them, for political reasons,
— which
e.g. with China. If only for these rudimentary connections by the way,
Frontier in History (1955): Studies in Frontier History, Gollected Papers 1928—1958:

Le Monde d'Outre-mer. Passé et présent, Troisième Série. Essais IV. Mouton et Co. Paris —
La Haye 1962 (pp. 469 — 491), p. 471: «... frontiers are of social, not géographie origin».
On the vulnerability of nomade if their original economic and social conditions become
modified, and the lesson «at the core of all steppe-nomadic history: it is the poor nomad
who is the pure nomad»: The geographica! factor in Mongol history (Gollected Papers, pp.
241 — 250; this form of the quotation: p. 257; the above form: p. 258). This «poor» late
form is, however, so distant from the earlier prospects of the nomads, that he excludes it
from the characteristics of historical

nomadism, as confirmed in his recent paper: Herds
men, farmers, Urban (aculture

paper submitted to the Conference cited in the above note,
— ni l'archéologie ne
pp. 479 490), introducing the French summary, p. 479: «Ni l'histoire
nous donnent la preuve société nomad «pure» ait jamais existé.» The cultivation of
qu'une
been older than the domestication of animais — he —
land does not seem to have says
and nomadic livestock-breeding developed through specialization, in close contact or
mixed with hunting and gathering.

e Other of the 1978 Conference dealt with the problème of other types of
papers
nomadism; them the two nomadic cultures of lower historical prospects than that
among
of the Inner Asian nomads, namely that of the Near East and Africa respectively. On the
R. Simon in this same fascicle 229 — and on the
former one see the paper by (pp. 242),
that of Cs. Ecsedy 365 —
latter (pp. 372).
Acta Orient. Eung. XXXV. 1981
204 I. ECSEDY
sometimes to be the only ties between divergent cultures —, it is inévi

prove
table to gain a thorough knowledge of the economy and society of the «other
side», in order to shed light on anv important action of the history of the
nomads. The coherent network of events and the continent-wide or even wider
historical processes themselves require a complex approach from a wider

horizon, bringing about new difficulties of interprétation of the sources, which
need further or further sources, at least at the vague historical
arguments
beginnings.
The appearance of pastoral peoples was first recorded by their agri
cultural neighbours and counterparts, withdrawing behind the protective
walls of their Settlements. These records were naturally made from an alien
and hostile angle, sometimes with a view limited to their own sphere, recording
merely the harmful appearance of the nomads or at most their apparent dif
—
férences striking in a cultivator's «civilized» eyes —, without further pros
pects. For a cultivator the nomads could only be «martial», «agressive» or
simply «robbers»; while in most cases they gained no information about the
more distant, «peaceful», i.e. weak (already weak or not yet strong enough)
pastoral communities. The records also indirectly reveal the authors of the
sources as well; these hidden confessions, raising problems far beyond the
sphere of nomadic history, by ail means have to be deciphered before inter
preting their content or even their judgement on their political enemies.
In addition, the records limited to occasional or indirect information, do not
contain — or at least not — ail the or the most
necessarily important just
important either, as shown e.g. by the treasury of the Chinese sources,

data
representing further problems concerning textual vicissitudes, difficulties of
philological interprétation and so on.
However, the eventual survival of written records or material evidence
about or from a nomadic people is not at ail independent from the historical
rôle of the nomads in question; the powerful ones must have been mentioned
more frequently in the sources, too, in forme that could be more easily inter
preted and connected with their historical background. Their famé spreading
in oral and written ways, and a closer acquaintance with them also belonged
to the historical process of their regulär attempts at eliminating frontière by
economic or diplomatie contacts, through regulär connections or collisions.
In a paradox, so to say «unjust» manner, only those nomads took their due
place in historiography — or could for modem
provide proper conclusions
— whose recorded existence survived at ail; the and harmo
politology joint
nized efforts of philology, archaeology and ethnology (anthropology) are also
needed in order to ensure, i.e. to enlighten their appropriate rôle in the course
of world history. Thus a «fair« research of their past, in an effort to avoid
conclusions drawn from eventualities, cannot omit traditional methods and
minutious jigsaw-puzzle work of the specialized studies, offering merely
NOMADS IX HISTORY AND HISTORICAL RESEARCH 205
The frontière of the separate discip

fragments of the mosaic of the past time.
—
lines, however, no matter how they provide protection against major errors
for instance —, also mean limitations, especially for the up-to-date research
of universal history, urged bv a limited life-time of human beings, too. There is,
therefore, a need of science-historical importance to find a forum from time
to time where représentatives of the différent branches of sciences can trans
gress the due disciplinary boundaries for a peaceful confrontation, according

to the character of the topic, e.g. the history of nomads, not unaware, but
stepping over frontière of various types.
The nomad conquerors who obtained huge territories without taking
them completely in possession — the lands gained, by organizing
by tilling
the countries won —, when living without respect to frontiers, also missed
— both
the protection of those frontiers. Their primary defencelessness against
or historical neighbours — must
the forces of nature and the geographical
have been in direct relation to their agressivity, but apparently in much more
the chroniclers of the early
complicated ways and forms than believed by
records and even by a few scholars of recent times. The connection of practical
need with violence is to be explained at least not upon this order of sequence
considered as fatal; a mere poverty or weakness cannot be regarded as the
main reasons for nomadic martiality, especially not in times of victorious
wars and the lack of limitations — meaning a lack of pro
prosperity. Since
tection — also makes it possible to develop a kind of mobility, and this could
partly serve as an explanation for the successful actions of nomads. Nomadic
societies even utilized a constant need of opposition, at least by strengthening
their social cohérence, provoked by the hostility of their natural and historical
environment. of the attacked societies were hardly
Historians agricultural
able to recognize the double face or multifarious conséquences of collisions with
nomads, to the dynamics of historical events and processes;
contributing
thus even the interprétation of their related records require a dialectic ap
indi
proach, inevitably necessary to understand just the most characteristic
cations and phenomena of the nomads' rôle in history.
on the geographic-ecological preconditions of their economy,
Depending
the pastoral nomads were directly exposed to the vicissitudes of their natural
the füll development of nomadism, of the
environment. As a conséquence,
and became prédominant
rider-nomad, stockbreeder way of life came about
only on the Eurasian steppe région, where ail the necessary meteorological,
were provided, i.e. moderate climate and large
botanical, etc., preconditions
and conquering them. The area of
pasture lands, with the horse for crossing
the steppe, however, is not at all so closely and exclusively connected with
land with
a mounted conqueror and his stockbreeder way of life as a cultivated
of nomads is changed
its tillers and their culture. The living place (territory)
to the changing or just varying ecological or historical preconditions,
according
206 I. ECSEDY
and their way of life is modified, when being adapted to the place concerned.
In this way the multitude of the colours on the palette of nomadism can be
emberrassing for research, especially while searching for their separate types,
for criteria to distinguish them from each other etc. Doubts may arise concern
ing the validity of one and the same term when applied to the nomads of
différent territories, e.g. to nomadic rulers of prosperous empires, imposing
taxes on rieh lands, on and around the Eurasian steppe belt; or: to Beduin
robbers of the Near-Eastern deserts; or: to African pastoral tribes also living
under conditions of a small-scale transhumance.
rudimentary
The term nomad
may cover différent content
according to the related
area, period or source material, even after «final» development and dominance
of nomadism in its classical sphere and heydays, i.e. rider-nomad empires,
with apparent local différences or merely varieties, from the âge of the Kim
merian, Scythian or Sarmatian rulers of the steppe to as far as the Mongols
and their descendants. Still more varieties of adaptations to the environment
can be found peoples of less means to protect themselves,
among pastoral
especially in recent times, when they are forced to survive in more and more
reduced circumstances. The misleading diversity, shown by recent on-the-spot
studies as well as by the increasing archaeological or philological détails, can
be overcome or just enlightened, for practical — —
e.g. terminological pur
poses, only through a distinction of the historical aspects of nomad pastoralism
as a whole from other significant ways of life.
The historical differentia spectfica seems the only means of orientation
in the research of nomadism, i.e. their determinative adaptation to the écologie
environment, doser and stronger by a historié phase, than that of agricultural
ists;6 it is the relatively defenceless nature of this economy that requires a big
variety of adjustment to living conditions. As a matter of fact, instead of the
«diverseness» of nomads, the diversity of local ecological conditions has to be
taken into considération, apparently bringing about relatively more regional
différences or local variétés among pastoral nomads than within an agricultural
land of similar size or within the sphere of cultivation as a whole. It is one and
the same type of nomadic stockbreeder economy that may show such a lively
capacity of adaptation, at least in the period of its historical vitality. The pro
•The economy and society of the nomade wasas one type of the
characterized
productive interrelations between human society and

summarizing its historical
nature,
development from point of view of the «technical»
and inner side of nomadic economy
— as a dispute with and completion to this paper
partly —, at the same Conference by
A. Rôna-Tas (see his paper A nomâd életforma geneziséhez [To the genesis of the nomadic
way of life] in the volume of the Conference, cf. note 1 above). He treated the décisive
motives and main types of the birth and évolution of nomadism, with the economic
factors maintaining and regenerating it, and with the social relations and forms based
on it.
NOMADS IN HISTORY AND HISTORICAL RESEARCH 207
cesses of adaptation, however, were not without risk; especially in cases when
a Community had to adapt its life to reduced conditions for a longer period
of time, at least the reserves and abilities, needed for further efforts had to
be wasted. these nomads, forced to live under and
Among poorer poorer
conditions, wandering in the geographical and economical périphéries of the
land of their ancestors, in areas of desert, etc., among the diverse actual
appearance of primitive or apparently re-primitivized nomad communities,
only good sources and well-informed research can find the reasonable methods
of évaluation and points of orientation.
The image of the Eurasian steppe région, i.e. the homeland of rider
nomads cannot be considered homogeneous either. Neither as regards the
geographical and ecological factors that also have a history of their own, the
research of which — as well known — has just begun; nor from the viewpoint
of the human, i.e. political aspect of the région concerned, formed by various
factors of human history.
Within the classical
of the history of stockbreeder
sphere nomads, ail
the forms of peoples' movements
that had once played a rôle in history can
again appear from time to time, promoting or withdrawing the communities
of différent ways of life, through their confrontation or even collision. The
historical scale of mobility begins from paleolithic-type migrations, at least
on the ecological périphéries or in emergency cases, i.e., when the due pre
conditions are endangered. In normal période a regulär movement is charac
teristic of the herds and herdsmen, between their place of résidence and the
pasture land (and hunting place, etc.), while the most spectaculous events on
the steppe are — in the eyes of the historians at least — the rare steppe-wide
actions of the rider-nomads, organized for attack and defence; they may flee
from one place and arrive as conquerors at the other one, stopping only at the
protecting or awe-inspiring walls that offered assurance of life in return for
a fixed place in a cultivators' society. The latter type of extraordinary peoples'
movements, i.e. changes in the place of résidence of whole communities
— not their enemies, but themselves, too, by the loss of
endangering only
life through war — mark out only the sphere of a new political entity, i.e. the
territory of a rider-nomad empire, where ail the social movements take place,
either belonging to nomad
stockbreeding or inherited from the past, e.g.
adopted by conquering another community, and another field of life, etc.
The sphere of power of conquering nomads covered not only the place of
résidence and pastures, hunting places and war routes of the rider-nomad
rulers, but their geographical background within or around their land, some
times preserving the population's own way of life, historically prior to rider
nomad âges. For instance, the steppe région of Eurasia was joined and com
pleted by the Altai Mountain or by the huge woods of the taiga, as far as the
Arctic Océan, seemingly useless from the economic viewpoint of stock-breeding,
208 I. ECSEDY
but territories, for withdrawal or as reserves of man

providing e.g. temporary
in the opposite
of the nomads extends
power etc. The actual sphere mainly
historical direction, stepping over the frontière of agricultural empires, since
their mounted armies were able to cross the frontière, accompanied by mer
chants or diplomate, occasionally reaching even the capitale, i.e. the attractive
which it was worth robbing or to imposing
peaks of the attacked civilization,
taxes on, even in cases of short or single expéditions.
Consequently, only certain subjects, willing to pay tribute to the rider
nomad authority ruling over their land and région, can be seen and described
as an isolated social unit for a longer period of time, without thoroughly examin
determined their fate, but in which
ing those historical events or processes that
in the time concerned. In assessing
they did not take a décisive or active part
them or the ruling elements of the nomadic power that dominated the given
we to take into considération — in case of later or
territory, have especially
conscious or biased
foreign records, e.g. those of the rétrospective, politically
Chinese sources —, which phase of the history of a nomad empire is described
by a record.
The related information concerning nomads may be evaluated in dif

férent ways if it concerns the conquerors, or their weak predecessors and
a or enemy of
weakened offsprings, a group of them or just subject, ally
theire, recorded under the name of the political scopes, i.e. the ruling rider
nomads. In these cases, the laconic records have to be closely examined with
the of other sources, in written form or of material type, from the same
help
or neighbouring periods, and Later analogies based on recent
if available.
information, from a surviving, but reduced form of pastoral nomad life should
be used caution and with the constant of
only with considérable coopération
of the sources, the above mentioned laboursome, but
experts separate requiring
indispensable specialization.
By a direct dependence on their environment, nomadic societies are
— — to their historical or
exposed by their way of life partners counterparts,
since their rôle in the historical events and their historical prospects are deter
mined or at least limited by the state of economic and social development of
the territory conquered by them (with the earlier inhabitants) and of the sur
rounding territories. That is why every effort to Interpret old or recent sources
on nomads ought to mark out the chronological and geographica! scopes,
i.e. the historical phase and prospects of the examined society, with an eye
on their actual significance (or just périphérie presence) in the sphere con
cerned.
originating from the périphéries of a civilization
Informations or a way
of life cannot be a solid basis for conclusions of général or universal validity.
No final lesson concerning nomad stockbreeding as a whole can be taken,
e.g. from the nomadic waves in Africa, by their herds destroying the shallow
fertile strataof the soil and thus appearing as a mere factor of danger for the
cultivators of land. In these régions a low degree of Organization of the nomads,
and their martiality realized only in acts of robbery, are closely related to the
rudimentary economic and social phase of the agricultural communities
encountered by them. In brief: the more primitive phase of cultivation is seen
on a territory, the more dangerous the nomads can be considered there,
especially when the latter learn a comparatively high degree of war techniques.
The process of the desiccation of Jands, in addition to natural reasons, can be
attributed to the animais of nomad stock-breeders, but only to an extent
permitted or limited by the cultivators of a given land.

The inhabitants of oasis areas
along the long distance trade routes, were
quick to use their contacts
the nomads, while the large agricultural
with
civilizations found it profitable to have nomad tribes Iiving in the borderlands.
In addition to the indirect historical benefits of their harmful presence — pro
voking walls, war préparation and the long-term Organization of societies —
their pasture lands could serve as battle-fields or protective belts around the
cultivated lands, and the strong empires both in East and West, e.g. China
or Byzantium, were willing to allow them to stay at their frontière or even
on their inner side. Their «greediness» represented a market for the products
of other types of economy, and they were utilized as mediators in long distance
commerce by rich countries with a bustling trade activity. When meeting
opponents, they could also from them, in order to use
powerful get weapons
them against external or internal enemies of the big «friend», even if these
weapons could be turned against earlier friends, too. But their presence had
at least two facets in the neighbourhood of strong and rich historical partners
respectively, often depending on the policy pursued in the territory concerned.
with strong and rich agricultural societies, the strong and

Interrelated
rieh rider-nomadconquerors themselves would not perhaps be willing to
recognize or confess an identity with the peaceful and poor nomads among
their neighbours or subjects, or even their ancestors. Probably this is one of
the reasons why we read so little in the chronicles about the origin and ethnie
of the most nomands, or the components of the dynasty
predecessors powerful
founding conquerors. The «forgetfulness» of the sources was well-based on the

différence between the poor and weak ancestors and their martial offspring,
reflected both in the information from and about the nomad rulers and in the
sources recording them.
It is, therefore, not surprising that it is so difficult or just impossible
to identify certain conqueror nomads, since they are not indeed identical,
at least concerning their economical state or historical phase, with another
of nomads the — still living under
community prior to conquest in question
— which was kept out
rudimentary conditions or with a related population
of power and its advantages, which became hostile or an enemy of the leaders.
210 I. BCSEDY
At best a continuity of social units or ethnie elements of a nomadic empire

can be pointed out with other, earlier or distant communities under the same
name or even under différent names. Thus the scholar is at the mercy of the
sources, both for historical and science historical reasons, and the success
of the research dépends on the extension and depth of informations of the
records, on the degree of knowledge available and the political consciousness
of their historians, and, last but not least, on the results on the neighbouring
disciplines.
Sometimes the antécédents of an «agricultural» dynasty of nomad origin
(e.g. in cannot be found — even if the ancestors left
China) steppe-dweller
written sources of their own for posterity, like the Mongols —, because a strong
nomad population of a similar or of the same name is sought after, although
earlier the population and its name not necessarily played a significant rôle
either in the related territory or in the sources. It is an unjustifiable method
to flash a nomad Community back
into the past, prolonging the presence of
a well-known conqueror retrospectively, in a period far before their appearance
on the stage of history. This method cannot be successful, not even in the
case of strong and rich nomads, because generally it is not a mere coïncidence
if they were not mentioned earlier, or were not attributed the same economical
and military power etc., and in the case of a narrowed down nomadic way of
life or power-lost stockbreeder community this unhistorical effort could also
resuit in a simple falsification. Perhaps the ancestors of the ruling nomads
could be found in the sources, if they were searched after in an appropriate
manner: after an examination of the scale of phases of their way of life, to
connect the social units and their names, common or separate désignations
accordingly.
The real distinctive feature of the nomads, fatally Connecting them with
other types of societies anddetermining their rôle in the course of world
history, is the economic factor of their way of life. It can be revealed only in a
context of the corrélation of their whole historical sphere, including both the
antécédents and the subjugated périphéries, ruled by the socially and economi
cally most significant way of life of the area, i.e. that of the stock-breeder rider
nomads. The empire-size région of the Eurasian steppes can best be charac
terized by the dominant form of economy and military power, represented
the rider-nomad rulers of an empire. This actual or potential
by sphere of
pastoral nomadism as a whole is coupled and confronted with that of culti
vation, i.e. with agricultural civilizations, with a prédominance at least of cul
tivation of land. That is how the whole area, from the walls,
e.g. from the Great
Wall of China onwards, became «nomadic» in the view of the historians inside
those walls, and not without reasons —
judging from the weapons of nomads
to be met there —, even if this
simplificatory aspect of the steppes renders
the related records understandable
only with further difficulties.
This opposition of nomad stock-breeding to the cultivation of land, their

co-existence and the confrontation of their divergent interests primarily had
a historical importance at the time of their neolithic beginnings and the sépa
ration of the two types of economy, until as late as the times when the societies
concerned could step out from the state of self-sufficiency of a primitive econ
omy. Düring long and regulär contacts, even the simplest and self-sufficient
cultivator and pastoral communities came to recognize the advantages of the
symbiosis, or at least of the products of the other economy. The barter of gifts
or other forms of primitive exchange, even if they do not bring about con
spicuous economical changes, were able to préparé higher types of trade in
their région, suitable — for economic-historical reasons — to parti
already
corrélations as a more or less organic part of a larger eco
cipate in symbiotic
nomical area.
Naturally this comfortable, but prospect-less connection, satisfying
mutual interests, could happen to survive in a basically unchanged form on
the by-roads and périphéries in the course of world history, without any more
direct or historical mobility than that required by the pastoral stock-breeding
and the relatedwar preparedness for regulär attack and defence. The latter
activity itself, that is the constant necessity and an according ability of motion
and social-wide Organization, made the stock-breeder nomads able to appear
as Organizers in their sphere, as leaders in any social group bigger than a natural
nucleus, and as rulers in political formations.
Even the loose'political cohésion unifying the separate social units by
the force of weapons, or by the related fear and respect — by a kind of pax
nomadica — was due to the authority of the pastoral peoples, e.g. as apparent
in African empires up to the présent time. These préfigurations of an empire,
sometimes also called «states»,7 were always mentioned by the name of the
7 See an expert both of nomadism and modern of history, L. Krader on the

theory
states of the steppe in the la3t one-and-a-half millennium, in a sen3e of his minimum
definition of a State: L. Krader, Formation of the State. Foundations of Modern Anthropo

ed. by M. D. Siblins, Prentioe-Hall. Ine., Englewood Oliffs, New Jersey 1938,
logy Series,
Six, The Tatar State: Turks and Mongols. (The State 13 defined by Kräder as
Chapter
«an on-going of formation of an institution«, «a social institution» or «a political
process
institution . . . it exists alongside, and in interrelation with other institutions of human
society»: Préfacé, p. VII; «Tha stateis a non-primitive form of government»: Introduction,

The same author dealt the problem
with of The Origin of the State Among the
p. 13.)
in the volums The State. Ed. H. J. M. Claesson — P. Skalnik:
Nomade of Asia, Early by
in the Social Sciences 32. Mouton The Hague—Paris —
New Babilon Studies Publishers,
— involves «the of
New York 1978, pp. 93 107. This time his state-concept Organization»
a «cla33-divided or its «formal (p. 93) only, considering the
society» (p. 94) Organization»
and variou3 type3 of rudimentary steppe hierarchy a3 a kind of cla3s
easily changing,
that «The Turks and Mongole had a clas3-divided society» from tha
division, stating
time on (p. 99, without not earlier — if so — or
Hsien-pis' explaining, why later).
Ada Orient. Hung. XXXV. 1981
212 I. ECSEDY
Organizer (conqueror) nomads, both in tlie oral and written sources,

pastoral
reflecting their organizing rôle of historical importance in the territory under

their authority, tliis being sometimes the most important conséquence of
a pastoral-cultivator symbiosis in certain areas. In this case, economic activity
was not their only separative factor; the unity and séparation of the separate
segments were assured by the dominance or even agressivity of the nomads,
the balance of power always being tipped in their favour. The stock-breeder
nomad was the conqueror, leader or organizing party, expecting or also demand
ing «gifts» in return, while the cultivator had to pay taxes, without partici
pating even in joint military actions. As a resuit, there was no common eco
nomic or social motive in the segments of the small communities within a
territory of their political coherence. It was the «martial» nomad component
that defended the whole territory as his own, against any other society, thus
gaining a natural ability of political activity, suitable for organizing higher
types of political formations as well. In this way, if no external catastrophe
of nature or history interfered, it was the pastoral, stock-breeder nomad
element, with an inclination and ability for social and political activity, that
could break the fatal primitiveness or early pastoral-cultivator symbiosis, to
make the efforts needed to create new political scope for a social intégration
and a higher type of Community.
At the historical beginnings ο ί agriculture — probably for several mil

lennia — the cultivators of lands lived in a relatively peaceful coopération
with the pastoral population of their neighbourhood, by domesticating certain
animais thus also contributing to a transhumance
and type, early form of
nomadism. The «self-sufficient» world of cultivators was connected mostly on the
periferies with the appearing and disappearing small pastoral communities,
e.g. in the early Near East; because of the small number of population, no
serious collision was necessary, and no change of the historical interrelation
was brought about until the new prosperity of extensive livestock-breeding,
beyond the valley-and-mountain cradles of early pastoralism: in the large
steppe région.
In neolithic times'
«revolutionary» changes, namely the development of
a specialized cultivation and a large size grazing livestock-breeding, with its
rivalry and mutually profitable progress, prepared the way for an increase in
population that needed a new division of the world and new territories for
habitation. The economically conquered sphere of the known world became
more narrow, in a sense that the différent types of extensive and actively
extending économies met one another in more and more serious collisions.
After a parallel development, first the stock-breeders were forced to search
for new territories, to separate themselves by the use of weapons and some
N03IADS IN HISTORY AND HISTORICAL RESEARCH 213
times by arming tlieir whole community, travelling on horses (and on camels),

here and there frightening the settled population that for a time lacked the
appropriate methods of defence against them. Recent results of Near-Eastern
archaeology have revealed several millennia of a peaceful and primitive, by its
nature ever-lasting symbiosis of cultivation and sheepbreeding, thus the ini
tiator of a motion of historical importance must have been the pastoral party,
developing a rider-nomadic pastoral way of life and needing new pasture

lands for their herds, i.e. being forced to do so by objective needs of their
economy, exposed to natural and historical vicissitudes.
Although they were known for their marauding expéditions and recorded
as robbers, the rider-nomads played a significant rôle through their demande
on their enemies and pillage that evoked a kind of regulär exchange of material
and cultural goods; through their conquests they forced a kind of rudimentary
division of labour between communities with différent ways of life. At the
beginning of economic history, when autarchy was a means of survival, it was

the economy of the nomads that had to seek connections, being by its nature
one-sided, compared to agriculture's primitive complexity, including
at least
complementary gathering and hunting. The rich rider-nomads of the steppe,
well able to live on their own production, were also induced to seek economic
partners and carry out an exchange of goods, i.e. to obtain foreign products
for their goods, and to find a market for their surplus herds. The alternative
was to resort to the use of arms and force countries to pay this kind of tribute,
which was often recorded in those countries as a form of paid tribute.
Both if forcing their neighbours to give them the required goods as
—
gifts by a measure considered as a tax drawn by the stronger part, and
extracted in the form of robbery from the other one —, the nomads compelled
their opponents to the surplus needed. The demand concerned not
produce
only agricultural products; instead of perishable foods, in the main durable,

labour-intensive luxury articles were wanted. In this way the rider-nomad
invadors or visitors provoked the increased activity of the craftsmen of the
agricultural partners, sometimes of an industrial size, as seen from the imitators
and dictators of the «nomadic fashion» (of the clothing and weapons, etc.)
of Byzantium to the silkware-producing manufactures in the Chinese courts.
The foreign products — demanded or bought, handed over in fear or
looted — only partly served the personal use of the nomads; the rest was
transmitted in various ways of exchange, during the usual multi-facet diplo
matie actions, often supported by military means. This process was sometimes
not at ail apparent, and the true character and real motive of the involved
events has to be learnt a confrontation of the sources, not
by circumspect
infrequently conceding some unveiling détails, independently from or against

the intention of the authors. However, being aware of the economic reasons for
the alternately shown friendly and hostile attempts to establish connections
3* Acta Orient. Hung. XXXV. 1981
214 I. ECSEDY
(«tributary» contacts, with or from opponents), the short and vague reports of
sources and the fragments of folklore do reveal some new informations, which
provide more tasks, but also promise more results for thorough textual phi
lology.
Due to their intermediary function, the historical rôle of rider-nomads
is determined by the value, character etc. of the cultures with which they are
connected, or the goods they could transmit and so on. Their significance was
always dépendent on the objective circumstances beyond their control and
responsibility. Namely, on the early development of agriculture that founded
civilizations at the price of fixing the cultivators to their soil, thus also forcing
the stock-breeders to regularly move in order to find new pastures; on the
process of developing fortified Settlements, thus forcing them to use and
increase their mobility, in order to deliberately transgress the just outlined
borders, which represented limitations even for those civilizations which had
sought protection behind them; or on the final occupation of suitable lands,
accompanied by the growing number of Settlements (the so-called «urban
révolution»), the comparative isolation of which could be and was relieved
by the above mentioned process of the forced exchange or peaceful trans
mission of wares by the rider-nomads, who had the horse — the best means
of transport of the time — at hand.
The conséquences of the activity of the stock-breeder nomads are dépen
dent, among objective external factors, especially on the character or phase
of development of their opponents. Their armed actions and the damage
involved could represent extreme péril, as mentioned earlier, mainly for those
who were unable to adequately defend themselves in a proper way; the same
danger placed those who were able to organize themselves for defence and to
develop the technical

(military) means, in a stronger position; and their
«greedy» agressivity compelled those who were capable of further economical
development, to increase their production, for instance for exchange purposes.
The armies of the rider-nomads could therefore function as intercontinental
mediators between societies temporarily closed in by their new walls, i.e.
relatively isolated for actual reasons of their historical évolution; and they
could act as catalysts even in those historical or economic-historical processes
which — by establishing new institutions, and a social and political framework
for peaceful and more modem forms of trade, diplomacy, transport, and the
dissémination of news, etc. — gradually made the warlike and dangerous form
of nomadic intermediation useless, with the nomadic way of life involved.
The relative or complété lack of an external framework or outlined
frontier — i.e. the form of nomade' life bringing about historical advantages —
could also represent a serious danger for their own society, even in times when
it may have been coniidered one of the co nponenfc-i responsible for their early
victories. Namely, compare! to the setfcled p~>oulation, their soeial coherenee
was endangered by the fact that they lacked the directly territorial forms of
Organization. Instead of them the forms of social Organization of nomadic
character gained special importance, developing close kinship ties and partic
ular forms of their social-wide unity. At the beginning of nomadic history it
was the vitally important effort of organizing their own world that distin
guished them from the other world and steeled them against the nature around,
and their organizing ability proved to be a useful means of social defence in
later periods.
The collective forms and regulär common efforts of the nomads were
provided with a natural and ever-regenerating economical
basis by their way
of life, especially by the vital precondition of their large land, to be invaded,
defended or used as a pasture in common efforts and collective ways. Since
these social ties could not be strengthened by constant territorial
(local)
scopes, under nomad conditions, they sometimes needed
to be supported
even in conscious ways, by means of memorizable, folkloric forms of common
historical and cultural tradition, to be learnt or contributed to by any member
of the community. The marked outlines of small communities were also not
preconditions for the survival of the whole society, so they were exposed to
various modifications to a reasonable extent and within an economical com
pass of e.g. a tribal territory, and so on. These non-primary types of social ties,
transgressing natural frontière of direct blood relations, were apparently evoked
by historical concomitants and the special needs of the nomad stock-breeder
way of life. That is why the society of the nomads was characterized by a net
work of fictive kinship, by its basic units: the clans, i.e. — under prosperous
conditions, among rider-nomads able to conquer, that is to create regulär
and direct contacts within their sphere — a natural (kinship-based) concaténa
tion of exogamous, patriarchal and patrilineal kinship groups.
In the period of the early contacts or confrontation with a settled agri
cultural population, compared to its increasingly territorial and bureaucratie
social the System of clans, and the clans themselves, were given polit
division,
ical importance by their basically natural character of blood-relation type,
while their fictitious motives and moments of political significance — within
— had to be
organizing activities of a major social formation regularly streng
thened by a collective tradition. Based on a common way of life, i.e. a cultural
community, and being given a solid foundation by their common territory,
the fictitious cohesive factors could render good service in forming a real
community, far beyond the original limits of a kinship group, first of all in
periods of active or even conscious organizing trials, after a new conquest.

The rider-nomadconquerors tried to automatically establish their own
on the new territory. The conquering leader declared himself the
Organization
«head of clan» of the subjugated, surrendered, recently allied communities
(or of their joint communities); he was Willing to accept those surrendered
216 r. ecsedy
persons who had lost their community for any reason and wished to join the
conqueror's community or one of his original communities (for usual or special
service, in lower or higher status than that of the ordinary clan-members,
at the first step at least); and he reaJized the new types of connection with
more distant communities or countries through the traditional practice of
exogamous relations, i.e. by marriages.
Marriage connections are not unknown elsewhere either in a rôle of
creating a constant connection between isolated communities, e.g. pairs of them;

this may also occur on the steppe, but it covered a much wider sphere in rider
nomad empires, among politically connected communities. Düring the mil
lennia of nomad mobility and a regulär necessity of différent kinds of move
ments, the rider-nomads could organize the conquered territories by new
kinship ties also join, by marriage of diplomatie

or could purposes, other
communities of higher prestige; this can be seen from the related diplomatie
missions of nomad rulers sent to the courts of agricultural civilizations.
The exogamous tradition of establishing an inter-clan or inter-tribal
kinship-network could bring about a particular practice and model of social

cohésion, having a direct rôle or an indirect influence in organizing other
societies as well in the sphere of pastoral nomad societies. This could primarily
be seen in the prosperous period of the nomadic way of life, i.e. from neolithic
times to the beginning of a commodity-producing economy with an institutional
international commerce. Meanwhile the nomads, functioning as economical
mediators, were the catalyzers of social processes, contributing to state
forming Organization of other societies by providing the conquering dynasties

— — or
e.g. in the Asian empires by contributing as Organizers (or models)
to the foundation of states in the Mediterranian antiquity or in early feudal
times [e.g. in Eastern Europe, as it happened in Hungary in the lOth Cen
tury A.D.).
The tribal society of the stock-breeder steppe nomads based on closely
related and realized on a common, «tribal» territory — to be conquered
clans
and defended, as outlined above, in collective actions — and
developed
became strengthened in the «revolutionary» period of the agriculture, closed
behind the new, various types of protective walls. The small nomadic commu
nities of natural origin, i.e. the clans (or, in less prosperous cases, the extended
families of clan-prospects), connected both by kinship-ties and the common
— tribal — of their and neighbouring
territory joint (or common) pasture-lands
places of résidence, approached a unity of a political type (realized in warlike
actions, expressed in a related or common language, culture and tradition),
in a period when the agricultural empires were founded on an inorganic unity
of taxation, Controlling a population of différent origin by bureaucratie or
even agressive manners, restricting them to a certain place, i.e. isolating them
and stabilizing their différences.
Ada 0 rient. Unna. XXXV. 1981
XOMADS IX HISTORY AXD HISTORICAL RESEARCH 217
The most important agricultural tasks, namely: tilling the new lands,
and settling the population on the cultivable lands, by their reasonable con
centration around the ruler's court (in an «urban révolution», resulting mostly
in préfigurations of really urban Settlements), primarily required major and
constant frameworks for stabilizing and
protecting the new institutions,
without the direct need for closed natural
small communities, able to form
a basis of patriarchal résistance and oppose the centralizing effort. In a local
and formai (bureaucratie) phase of social development in agricultural state
formations, leaving the politically neutral and controllable kinship forms only
untouched for a time, the social Organization of the rider-nomads on the steppe
could preserve the particular Community form of the clans (joint clans forming
a tribe in fortunate cases), involving new trends towards political intégration,
with political activity that did not contradict their natural origin, but origi
nated from their natural bases and patriarchal cohésion.
While the early cultivators' communities and agricultural societies must
have defended their cultivated lands and perishable Settlements by isolating
walls, fortifications and frontière, limited to a minimum size as a conséquence
of the rudimentary technical level (of tools and weapons for instance), and the
growing external danger, the Community units of the clan System of the
nomadic societies could remain open to societies and cultures outside their
way of life or even beyond their sphere of power.
The societies of settled cultivators with their walled central «countries»
beyond a city-wall, even the city-states of the Mediterranean Antiquity (polis,
and civitas) could represent only exclusive communities, guarding their achieve
ments with a jealousy, due to their limited capacity and willingness to accept
outsiderswithin their institutional walls. The growth in size and number could
have brought about an essentially new situation, requiring new measures
concerning the economy and Organization. Meanwhile, in the heydays of steppe

stock-breeding, the more «natural», tribal communities and their tribal (and,
sometimes — able to be extended
through kinship-ties: inter-tribal) clan-system
under prosperous economical conditions and according to changed social
conditions of e.g. a conquest — , could become and remain inclusive, i.e. open:
Willing and able to accept and include as members ail those who wanted to
—
share their way of life. At most a relative overpopulation compared to the
—
territory needed for their extensive, nomad stock-breeding may have
provoked a movement of a part of the population to find a new land
instead, thus establishing a new situation. In fortunate cases it is possible
to observe the beginnings of a further clan-system, forming a new tribe
under the rule of a leading clan, in order to found a new empire under
the rule of a leading tribe, according to rules and customs of the steppe
nomads, as far as they could still find new pastures, herds and people to
conquer.
218 I. BCSEDY
On the conquered territory, the natural (kinship-based) political cohésion

(stabilized by economic factors) of the social Organization of the nomads could
hâve a useful historical function, transgressing and loosening, perhaps elimi
nating the artificial and limiting primary frontiers of too small communities;
it could connect geographically distant or otherwise isolated societies or social
units — as long as the preconditions of their traditional mode of production
could be provided, under the changed conditions as well. If, on the contrary,
they wanted to learn the way of life of the conquered population, adopting
their institutional achievements, and the bureaucratie means of administration
for their own empire — as happened at the time of Chinggis and in the empires
of the Chinggisids —, they could lose just their main advantage compared to
other societies, which was responsable for their earlier successes: the mobile
and natural basic structure of their society. Their capacity and willingness to
—
learn implies this fatal conséquence representing the danger of assimilation
to the conquered culture and their ethnie disappearance —, especially after
the time when the trade-routes and other ways of international economical
cultural contacts avoided of the steppe. But even in these
the vicissitudes
cases, the nomad conquerors, proving too good pupils of the empire
while
organizing methods e.g. in China, could intermediate by conveying the learned
civilizatory methods to other régions of the steppe and its neighbourhood.
The open character of the nomads' social Organization is also revealed
by the difficulties that have to be met when searching for the exact size,
number, and territorial extension, of its various units. If a record informe us
about a territory designated with the name of a rider-nomad power conquering

we can never be certain — in case of a Chinese record on a
it, e.g. «country»
of nomads — if another is not mentioned, concerning more of less
population
the same time, in the territory given in another record of even in the same
source. As a matter of fact, several forest communities, living on or
hunting
gathering, or even a few oasis trading towns may exist within the same terri
tory, together with small «countries» of cultivators that do not disturb the
grazing herds of the new rulers on the steppe, peacefully pay their tributes,
or join in the way of life and the communities of the rider-nomads, and dis
appear behind their name and activity.
Thus the names relating to a nomad empire and its subjects may be
ambiguous in many ways. If a new name occurs in the same sphere, it may
belong to a smaller région within the old political framework; or the name
may be due to a new ruling clan, and tribe of the same old population; or the
social group, and
territory is re-named after a new leader. Naturally these
leading persons must be associated with their community, even if the historical
events and processes of a larger extension are attached, by an unintentional
falsificatory manner of the chronicle-writers, to one single person (and one
single point of time, etc.). It is sometimes a problem to identify certain moments
NOMADS IN HISTORY AND HISTOEICAL RESEARCH 219
and processes, treated under a new name in the not

(and date) sources, even
mentioning the true motives

concerned.
Unfortunately not all the nomad conquerors considered it necessary to
leave their own-written record to the posterity, with inner information about
their world. The need for writing seems to have been not at ail
inévitable,
since their natural communities, able to mobilize their members or their
popu
lation as a whole, were or could be in constant or at least
regulär personal
contact. They could also organize their society without bureaucratie manners;
even the fictive motives and strengthening factors of unity, i.e. a common
social, cultural
or historical memento could
spread and survive in oral form.
As a matter of fact, the lack of a form of médiation that could be
monopolized
— — made the common tradition more wide
by clerks, clérical leaders etc.
spread, and more effective as a integrating factor. That could also be respon
sible for a comparatively late appearance of their own script among the
nomads (in the Türk Empire, in the 8th Century Β. C., before the collapse
of their power), in order to unify in a lasting form — on stone, textile, and
— all that was in order to
paper endangered by disintegration, preserve the
memory of the disappearing glory of their people for furthergénérations,
perhaps even to revive it. This explains why the historian of the nomads is
confronted by records made by foreign hands, information through
foreign
eyes, mechanically cutting the steppe into unidentifiable parts by unknown
names, even in times of an actual power unifying it by weapon. Nevertheless,
the «countries» of the nomads
and their linguistical-cultural-ethnical intégra
tion, or the phases of the latter process — mentioned sometimes under différent
désignations, some of them being misunderstandable as ethnie names — may
raise as much in the records made the nomads in
problème by themselves,
several cases quite similar to those to be solved in the foreign records on them.
* * *
The tribal Organization (based on a particular of rider

clan-system)
nomads, like every other phenomenon of their society, can be considered of
double facets. It could pro vide every member of the
community/communities
(of comparatively small size and, on principle, natural character) with ail the
goods and rights available in their sphere, and ail the possibilities provided
by customary law or common actions; but this same Organization, flexible
regarding inner matters within the political outlines concerned, evoked an
even stronger unity among the small communities — clans —
outlining and
separating them from other communities. Inside a nomad society this Organ
ization resulted in the equality-minded Community feeling and communal
that used to be called démocratie —
practice upon its highest early realization
and stabilization in the Mediterranean antiquity —, although the related
strengthening of the small, patriarchal communities could serve as a basis
220 I. ECSEDÏ
of and differentiation, able to turn other, smaller or

séparation against any
bigger communities. However, in the compassés of an empire, this inclination

of separatism could hinder both political unity and linguistical-cultural intégra
tion, since the more powerful a nomad conqueror was the stronger its clan
system could develop.

The
conquered (accepted as subjects, and allies, etc.) clans or tribes
could preserve their separate and separating community within a nomad
empire, because they paid tribute and participated in military expéditions in

such units or according to them, their new and rôle in accord -
position being
ance with their origin, at least for a certain time. As a conséquence of these
separative tendencies, the democracy was valid mainly inside the privileged
communities of the conquerors, rather than in the whole of their empire, the
surrendered other nomads included. Democracy of military bases and patri
archal on one side, and empire-size segmentary division upon a hier
character
archy of the communities on the other, show two opposite, but related con
of one and the same social Organization; but under certain circum
séquences
stances they may hinder or even exclude one another.
The democratism
patriarchal of the nomad conquerors' society was,
after ail, provided and protected by the same military preparedness and
activity that led to a kind of hierarchy both among communities of différent
size, character and origin within the conquered sphere in général, and partic
ularly between the privileged conquerors and their subjects. For a général
empire-size spread of this weapon-based democratism, the nomad rulers
should have renounced their conqueror's rôle, and that would have brought
about the collapse of a steppe empire; thus a social model based upon their
society as a kind of «military democracy» could only be a utopian extrapolation.
It could develop to real democracy only when entering into another type of
— that based on the — and it could become stabilized
economy agriculture
by the way of life and institution system of the settled civilizations, being
protected both against external attacks and from the nomadic type «civiliza
tory» practice of inévitable conquering wars, which compelled even the con
querors to preserve their «barbarian» strength and the traditional way of life
involved.
The démocratie forms of social primarily Organization of the nomads
reached a lasting
peaceful and validity in the
city-states of cultivators'
Mediterranian Antiquity, where the pastoral components of the founders
surrendered themselves to the culture of the invaded land. But where a steppe
empire was ruled by livestock-breeder nomads, the démocratie character of
the conquerors' communities had to be implemented within or against hier
archy of clans and tribes, and its most effective forms were made possible
inside the social scope of the conquerors, defending their privilèges — at least
that of requiring tributes — against any other of their subjects.
NOM ADS IN HISTOEY AND HISTORICAL RESEARCH 221
Within the separate clans of the rider-nomads, the traditional order

was adequately ensured by a kinship-based, patriarchal hierarchy that could
be modified, if required so, in a conscious or active (fictive) way. A Community
of the nomads could be its «natural» leaders — heads of clans,
represented by
tribes — in connection with other eommunities, other elements of
against
the empire; however, a hierarchy of these actual or potential leaders sometimes
appeared as a patriarchal
aristocracy, rapidly developing according to the
hierarchy of the separate
eommunities, whose traditional séparation was
ensured by their way of life, tribute-paying dutv and so on.
After a new tasks would — for to control
conquest, appear instance,
the increased population — which extended
beyond the patriarchal séparation
of the small eommunities, and new ranks and titles were established to fulfil
them, that often avoided or crossed over the old hierarchy, regulated by cus
toms. The new funetionswere apparently primarily of a military character;
they were perhaps more important from the point of view of an empire, than
the traditional ranks, and they were attributed higher prestige especially
among the conquered subjects. The new rank was not limited to one single
Community, and it was not necessarily given only to the privileged conquerors,
thus the new type of officiais were able to promote the political intégration
of the steppe empires.
The conquerors would send leaders or officiais from their own eommu
nities or from those of their allies, but generally they were accompanied bv
their families, and they appeared as représentatives of their own exogamous
clan-system, i.e. as founders and heads of new clans. In this way the new
division and unity of the empire was determined both by a patriarchal and an
officiai hierarchy, coloured by the original position and kinship-relations of
the wives, i.e. «alien» relations, too, of the leaders and their clans (tribes).
The related integrating effect was also reflected by the written sources,
often leaving unmentioned the original Community of a leader or the ethnie
affinity of his kinship, without indicating his social distance and its nature
in the communitv which he led as an officiai, or the territory surrendered to
him. But having positions and ranks both in their old and new eommunities,
both of clan (or tribe) and empire-size validity and character, all the persons
considered worth mentioning were recorded with their ranks and titles, thus
the steppe people seem to have consisted merely of leaders. Consequentlv,
a careful analysis of the sources is needed for an appropriate évaluation of
social homogeneity i.e. democractic traditions of the
(«equality»), patriarchal
nomads or the related records, even if they are declared e.g. by the Chinese
historians not to have known social «etiquette» and the «cérémonies» due to
a social hierarchy.
Since the demoeratism of nomads' Organization could best develop in
the strengest clans/tribes, i.e. in those of the conqueror rider-nomads, it could
222 I. ECSEDY
be manifested by the new acquisitions and rights, first of all in the privilèges
•won against their subjects, even if also influenced by the original patriarchal
In this way the
hierarchy among and inside their original communities.
coherent communities of the conquerors could become a privileged social
a of higher Community, functioning as a political Organization,
entity: type
while still preserving its natural character. As a political aggregate, it fulfilled
the highest possibilities of the historical premises provided by the nomad
stock-breeder way of life, and prepared the way for a kind of «national» unity
among the ruling elements. Naturally the widening of the leading community
(the leaders' communities, also connected by political cohésion) was limited
by the natural exhaustion of their means of life, by changes in the power -

relations on the steppe, forcing them to re-begin their history as conquerors,
according to their military strength and react to the changed political and
economical possibilities.
Those nomad conquerors who could gain durable power, stabilized by
a conquered agricultural civilization, to pay for leaving the steppe by
had
giving up their survival as ethnie entity. On the steppe, however,

a separate
even though the leading communities of the nomad empires were able to
exist under their traditional living conditions and according to their social
and cultural traditions, they had to make concessions to avoid the bloodshed
of constant wars, by forcing an empire-size System of différent type hier
archical relations into an institutional order, perhaps shown in a most specta
culous form in the Mongol Empire.
However, since the communities of a différent economy, tradition, and
size, etc., were to the new measures and Organization com
unwilling accept
passés, or at least not without being urged by military force, this organism
of — almost a state — must have been based on the
empire reaching unity
force of both for external and internai reasons. Therefore, although
weapons
a rider-nomad empire may be quite similar to e.g. an Asian empire, it could
develop into a real state only by the majority and increasing importance of
their cultivator subjects, which then represented a new danger for the rulers.
As a traditional power, a nomad empire was exposed again to external
steppe
circumstances beyond their control: namely, to world progress, transgressing
the limitations of early historical times when the nomads could still play an
active and important rôle in history.
their monopoly position to play an intermediary rôle being over,
Once
the double-facet phenomena of the nomad way of life first and foremost began
to show the disadvantageous side. The iron weapon — the most effective «tool»
of nomadic — that once appeared as a significant technical
«production»
achievement, involving further innovations in the related techniques, in
creasingly became a means of bloodshed. Furthermore, the military pre
paredness required by the rider-nomad way of life, with a «démocratie» usage
— obtainable
of weapons by every member of the Community —,
and owned
proved victorious against peaceful cultivators, until the professional armies
and permanent fortifications were established in the agricultural civilizations,
and the challenge of the nomad danger was answered by a development of
military technique and Organization.
After all, the ever-recurring wars and the manifold
mobility of the
nomads could also endanger the biological survival of their own communities.
Their earlier active part in various contacts, once even forcing other commu
nities to regularly produce a surplus, now became mere plunder, and led the
robbers to engage in parasitic behaviour. As a matter of fact, the economical
background of the open character of the nomads' society became narrowed

down by political frontière, imposing increasingly poorer living conditions for
their traditional way of life, and even this impoverished and small-scale
nomadism met the bans that had been lifted by a spread of modern
economy.
This last, so-to-say obsolete phase of the history of nomads requires an
unbiased and circumspect analysis, never forgetting the original importance
and historical corrélations of their way of life and activity. Upon their histori
cally active, economically promotive period, they can be evaluated in a more
objective («just») way than upon the condemning complaints of the chronicle
writers; and their multi-coloured historical rôle may also help us to understand
the recent colours of their world.
When examining the written or folklore memories of nomad stock
breeding, always directly exposed to nature, we can recognize in them a close
and natural contact between man and nature, or society and its environment,
that no longer exists, closed in by the protecting walls of our industrial civiliza
tion, it is missing in our locally fixed, colour-losing universe. This kind of
feeling about something being missed might play a rôle in the recent upswing
in the research into nomadism, also as a concomitant of the illusion about
a «happy wild a justifiable
man», but concealing nostalgia about the real
historical values concerned.
Unfortunately, the other lesson, offered by the
history of the nomads, is not learnt as much as it would be désirable, namely
concerning the «historical crime» of the nomad way of life, involving an econ
omy and prosperity based on the power of weapons, the final failure showing
the prospects — i.e. the lack of prospects — of any historical practice based
on the daily danger of war and social-wide militarisai.
* * * *
The steppe région was a neighbour, a counterpart and background

to the prosperity of Mediterranian Antiquity and feudal development
in Europe, while in Asia it was confronted by archaic agricultural civiliza
224 I. ECSEDY
tions.8 Being open to the influences arriving from the world outside their own
way of life, the nomad livestock-breeders met différent historical circumstances
in the West and in the East respectively. In the West the trends of social de
velopment were sufficiently strong to defend themselves against any attacks,
and they utilized the objective advantages offered by livestock-breeder social
or cultural achievements; but the nomads were recorded as merciless robbers
in the sphere of the perishable rudimentary économies, or in countries not yet
equipped for defence, even if their social deyelopment showed several features
that seem quite similar to those of the rulers of the Eurasian steppe-belt.
Within a rider-nomad empire, conquered and defended by collective
efforts, tribal territories represented earlier or potential «small empires», while
the economical tasks of daily life were fulfilled by smaller communities, thus
the clans (and even prosperous extended families) could function as — more
or less — independent economical units, living on a due part of the common
tribal territory. The related ownership-relations, recorded by Chinese sources
from the first standard historical works on, were designated by the expression
地分 ti-fen, referring to the due share (feu) of a certain territory (ti:地 is
différent from the Chinese term of cultivated lands:田 t'ien etc.). This term,
sometimes misinterpreted as a wording of some «private property» in land
一
impossible e.g. to defend on the steppe —, is related by the same Chinese
records to belong to everybody (or to every unit: clan or family concerned),
this alone implying a contrary statement, i.e. a kind of equality (or «démocratie»
division) regarding the land conquered and used by them for a longer period
of time.
The expression fen-ti, however, was used in China not only in connection
with steppe nomads — from the
Hsiung-nuB on 一，and its meaning should
be determined at least in the light of its original usage, namely in descriptions
of ancient Chinese agricultural communities that were reported to have lived
under a System of «well-fields» (井田 ching-t'ien — ineluding the term t'ien
of cultivated land). This vague term, referring to ancient times when social
or economical différences had not yet caused any suffering to the cultivators
of land, became a Utopian demand of the Chinese peasant movements and
a slogan of other reformist efforts. Thus it became the name of land-relations
devoid of privacy, representing an ancient type of harmonious common
ownership relations, the due share concerned being just the basis or possibility
of individual holding within a communal territory. The old Chinese, mythic
or Utopian term ching-t’ien must have been
applied in this sense to the nomads’
land relations as well.
8This last part of my is based on the lecture read at the 1978 Conference
paper
under the title Az eurâzsiai lovasnomâdok mint a jöldmüves «tôrténelmi
vïlàga kozosségek
környezete» [The world of Eurasian rider-nomads as a «historical environment» of agricul
tural communiticeT
Acta Orient. Hung. XXXV. 198i
NOMADS IS H1STOKY AND HISTORICAL RESEARCH 225
The ancient Chinese «well-field» system referred to the «revolutionary»

period of neolithic settlement-organization, where common efforts provided
the preconditions for the «civilized» world of cultivatable (irrigated) lands,
cultivated in «equal» (and regulary changeable) plots by individual families.
This small universe of agrieulturer settlement-founders — a «localized micro
cosmos», in Marx's words® — was without protection and indefensible as

a separate entity, but it was easily organizable and controllable as a tribute
paying unit within a «country», governed by a ruling «royal» clan in a fortified
centre. The «small countries» of later
agricultural Utopian desires became
subjects as taxable agricultural communes, being solid bases of social pyramide
controlled from the fortified peaks of the «big country» of the Chou House
(11—13th centuries B. C.).
This «civilized» subjugation and paternalist «eternalization», i.e. a con
tinuing séparation of Asian agricultural Settlements became stabilized in the
same time as the birth and Organization of a higher, bigger and organic Com
munity, proved timely in the Mediterranean sphere, namely, on the land
of ancient Greece, as symbolyzed by the mythic synoikismos of king Theseus,
unifying his people within Athen.10 Thus the two extremities of the Eurasian
steppes represent divergent phases of human évolution at the time of appear
ance of classical nomadism — that of rider-nomads —, thus evoking différent
reactions from the steppe. The related différences in the historical behaviour
of the nomads in the western and eastern area of their sphere respectively,
also serve as bases for historical conclusions.
The parallel beginnings of historical Settlements and communities in

Europe and in Asia respectively, conceal some lessons, e.g. when interpreting
Chinese sources concerning the time of the early young states on the land
of China. A few considérations relating to the preconditions and prospects

of Mediterranian Antiquity have proved fruitful in marking out the original
trends of historical development in Eastern
to the beginnings Asia, similar
of world history that started from Ancient Greece, before history took in China
its specific «Asiatic» turn, according to the ecological and human preconditions
9 On the old agricultural and on the double nature of communal

commuriities,
ownership and individual possession, i.e. private appropriation in them, see L. Krader,
The Asiatic Mode of Production. Sources, Development and Critique in the Writings of
Karl Marx: Dialectic and Society 1, Van Gorcuxn and Comp. Β. V. — Assen, The Nether
— on the Asiatic Mode
lands 1975, p. (177 )178 etc.; F. T6kei, Essays of Production, Akadé
miai Kiadô, Budapest 1979: Contribution to the neio debate on the Asiatic mode οf production,
p. 119 sqq, and see his préfacé to the volume Primitive Society and the Asiatic Mode of
Production (cf. note 2 above).
10 Cf. F. Der Ursprung der Polis : Antike und Feudalismus. Zur marxistischen
Tôkei,
Geschichtstheorie (Beiträge zu Interpretationsproblemen Marxscher Formulierungen),
Band II, pp. 31 — 112.
226 I. ECSEDY
given there.11 Naturally Far

Eastern history also offers lessons for studios of
classical antiquity. The comparison concernod can be mado with regard to
rider-nomad history, since its location, i.e. the steppes are connected with
both polar régions of the Eurasian past.
The primitive agricultural communities, examined from point of view
of their historical prospects, were characterized by Marx as having been marked
by double nature, namely by a communal ownership-base for their production
and social relations, accompanied by germs of private appropriation, with
the later historical conséquences implied.12 The prospects of both sides being
also dépendent on the historical environment of the communitie3 in question, the
steppe nomads must have had a role of their own in the history of early agricul
tural civilizations. This role, however, must have been différent in the East, where
the communal bases became dominant, concluding in Asiatic forms of produc
tion and power, and in the West, where the private elements developed into
their füll forms, promoting the universal beginnings of human
history.
In the archaic communities both the collective and private elements
belong to the very nature of the production form and social phase concerned;
and since the communal features and requirements must gain the
upper hand
in a natural way, by the power of tradition, the true nature of a historical
Community becomes clear only when it is confronted by another Community.
The différences that have to be pointed out may also
help conclusions con
cerning the proper ratio of collective and private elements in the related sphere.
E.g. classical antiquity, where the patriarchial meetings of political importance,
usual among the rider-nomads, were raised to a rank of a political institution
— in the form of a
Symposion, on the agora or another forum of early city
states, demonstrating the political equality of the Citizens — can be better
evaluated in the light of the Chinese sources that condemned the nomads from
the heights of monopolized, and economical
despotic political power, and
expressed astonished views over the curiosity that in a political or/and military
action of the rider-nomads the participants were equally («according to their
rank») given their due share of the gifts, or they accompanied their leader to
feasts in a «big tent», and so on.
However, the mention of private rights, and demand3, in the sources,
may be misleading, since their rarity might have been a reason for a record,
or just the weakness of a demand or favour mu3t have
required a strengthening
in written form. Very the sources
frequently, surviving register the victory
over the «revolting» element3 of privaey, a3 an
apology for despotic measure3
that became dominant in the course of
history. Only the related historical
corrélations, the historical prospects of the phenomena in question and their his
11 Cf. book A kinai âllam kezietei
my [The Beginnings of the Chinese State],
Akadémiai Kiadô, Budapest (in préparation).
11 See note 9.
Acta Orient. Bung. XXXV. 1981
NOMADS IN HISTOEY AND HISTOEICAL EESEAECH 227
torical environment can help to draw the appropriate conclusions. For instance,
the rider-nomad attacks that represented a continuons danger for the defence
less cultivators and the defensive, i.e. isolating economic policy e.g. in China,
offer good examples of the objective necessity of communal factors, also being
inévitable for the biological survival of an endangered community. The histor
ical disparity of the Mediterranian — in the
sphere can be observed history
of the Ancient Orient — in the specific advantage provided for a survival of
private factors, e.g. for small gardens in the mild climate, offering for barter
oil, wine or fruit on the easy routes along the seashores, that led to an expér
ience of historical importance of private production and ownership relations
that opened up the beginnings of European history.
Classical
nomadism appeared on the Eurasian steppes during the organ
izing phase of the new communities of the settled agricultural civilizations.
Then — in the 2nd millennium B. C., especially in its second half — in the
eastern parts of the steppe the rider-nomads mostly met the communal forms
of civilization-founding — or a
activity, so they could represent a threat streng
— to such collective forms of economical and social
thening danger develop
ment, or, by subjugating the communities they could contribute
concerned,
to the collective factors of the surrendered society, organizing it as a subject,
while utilizing the community-creating capacity of nomad society. In the West,
however, the archaic compassés proved too narrow for the prosperous agri
culture of increasing communities, the traditional framework was disrupted
or lost its earlier importance, and — for historical survival — «private» farmers
h ad to be unified within
a new, higher community. In the latter case the
patriarchal ties of nomad communities, coloured by an ever-regenerating
democratism of social-wide activity, offered a model of social cohésion
military
that could cross or transgress archaic agricultural frontiers and other tradi
tional limitations.
Under neolithic conditions — and their survivais, to a decreasing
extent — it was the specialized nomad stock-breeding that implied an objec
tive, i.e. economical factor that made social unity necessary by the need for
common even if used a smaller group, it could be conquered and
pasture: by
defended only by a bigger community. The «private» division of pasture lands
was impossible or senseless, so they could be the guarantees or symbols of
social unity, long after the military danger that had provoked and maintained
it. A symbolizing function of common pasture — and common wood, etc. —
also survived in later periods, e.g. as a factor of village Organization in Euro
pean feudalism. This could be the reason, although historical research still
has the task of clarifying it, why the cultivator founders of city states of
classical antiquity — aware of their own civilizatory achievements —
glorified
their «pastoral» virtues, and sang about their «pastoral Muse» and the «pros
perous pasture-lands» of their city.
4 Acta Orient. Hung. XXXV. 1981

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NOMADS IN HISTORY AND HISTORICAL RESEARCH

Author(s): ILDIKÓ ECSEDY

NOMADS IN HISTORY AND HISTORICAL RESEARCH1

A comprehensive summary of the complété history of nomade cannot

Acta Orient. Hung. XXXV. 1981

The and scanty records concerning the early nomads could

communities was always determined by their capac

3 efforts seemed désirable for other recent Conferences on the

Proceedings of the International Meeting on Nomadic Pastoralism (Actes du Colloque inter

Acta Orient. Hung. XXXV. 1981

Frontier in History (1955): Studies in Frontier History, Gollected Papers 1928—1958:

from the characteristics of historical

men, farmers, Urban (aculture

mixed with hunting and gathering.

Acta Orient. Eung. XXXV. 1981

sometimes to be the only ties between divergent cultures —, it is inévi

historical processes themselves require a complex approach from a wider

important either, as shown e.g. by the treasury of the Chinese sources,

Acta Orient. Eung. XXXV. 1981

The frontière of the separate discip

gress the due disciplinary boundaries for a peaceful confrontation, according

Acta Orient. Hung. XXXV. 1981

productive interrelations between human society and

Acta Orient. Hung. XXXV. 1981

Acta Orient. Hung. XXXV. 1981

but territories, for withdrawal or as reserves of man

The related information concerning nomads may be evaluated in dif

Acta Orient. Eung. XXXV. 1981

permitted or limited by the cultivators of a given land.

with strong and rich agricultural societies, the strong and

founding conquerors. The «forgetfulness» of the sources was well-based on the

Acta Orient. Hung. XXXV. 1981

At best a continuity of social units or ethnie elements of a nomadic empire

Acta Orient. Eung. XXXV. 1981

This opposition of nomad stock-breeding to the cultivation of land, their

7 See an expert both of nomadism and modern of history, L. Krader on the

definition of a State: L. Krader, Formation of the State. Foundations of Modern Anthropo

society»: Préfacé, p. VII; «Tha stateis a non-primitive form of government»: Introduction,

Ada Orient. Hung. XXXV. 1981

Organizer (conqueror) nomads, both in tlie oral and written sources,

reflecting their organizing rôle of historical importance in the territory under

At the historical beginnings ο ί agriculture — probably for several mil

Acta Orient. Hung. XXXV. 1981

times by arming tlieir whole community, travelling on horses (and on camels),

developing a rider-nomadic pastoral way of life and needing new pasture

beginning of economic history, when autarchy was a means of survival, it was

only agricultural products; instead of perishable foods, in the main durable,

infrequently conceding some unveiling détails, independently from or against

3* Acta Orient. Hung. XXXV. 1981

develop the technical

Acta Orient. Hung. XXXV. 1981

periods of active or even conscious organizing trials, after a new conquest.

Acta Orient. Eung. XXXV. 1981

creating a constant connection between isolated communities, e.g. pairs of them;

kinship ties also join, by marriage of diplomatie

kinship-network could bring about a particular practice and model of social

forming Organization of other societies by providing the conquering dynasties

Ada 0 rient. Unna. XXXV. 1981

concerning the economy and Organization. Meanwhile, in the heydays of steppe

Acta Orient. Hung. XXXV. 1981