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MongoliaSociety
Pastoral Nomadism
Almost every aspect of Mongolian society has been shaped by
pastoral nomadism, an ecological adaptation that makes it
possible to support more people in the Mongolian environment than
would be true under any other mode of subsistence. Pastoralism is
a complex and sophisticated adaptation to environments marked by
extreme variability in temperature and precipitation, on time
scales ranging from days to decades. Mongolia's precipitation is
not only low on the average; it varies widely and unpredictably
from year to year and from place to place. The dates of first and
last frosts, and hence the length of the growing season, also
vary widely. Such general conditions favor grasses rather than
trees, and they produce prairies rather than forests. Grain can
be grown under such conditions, but not every year. Any
population attempting to support itself by cereal agriculture
could expect to lose its entire crop once every ten years, or
every seven years, or every other year, depending on the
localities they were farming. Because ecological systems adapt to
extreme limiting conditions rather than to the mean of variation,
agriculture is not adaptive to Mongolian circumstances.
Pastoralism, however, permits societies to exploit the
variable and patchy resources of the steppe. The key to
pastoralism is mobility, which permits temporary exploitation of
resources that are not sufficient to sustain a human and
herbivore population for an entire year. Pastoralism may be
combined with agriculture if a stable resource base, such as an
oasis, permits, or agriculture may serve, as in central Mongolia,
only to supplement herding and may be practiced only to the
extent that labor is available.
A host of features of nomadic life reflect the demands and
costs of mobility and of dependence on herds of animals to
convert the energy stored in grasses to the milk and meat that
feed the human population. Such societies commonly develop a
conscious and explicit nomadic ethos, which values mobility and
the ability to cope with problems by moving away from threats or
toward resources and which disparages permanent settlement,
cultivation of the earth, and accumulation of objects.
Societies based on pastoral nomadism do not exist in
isolation, and nomads commonly live in symbiotic relationships
with settled agriculturalists, exchanging animal products for
grain, textiles, and manufactured goods. Both the nomads and the
agriculturalists can, if necessary, survive without the goods
provided by the other, but under most circumstances both benefit
from exchange. Mongols typically dressed in sheepskin tunics
covered with Chinese silk; drank tea from China; consumed a
certain amount of millet, barley, and wheat flour; and used
cooking pots and steel tools produced by non-nomadic smiths, some
of whom were Mongols and some Turkic speakers or Chinese.
However, the scattered nature of the population and the necessity
of moving trade goods long distances by camel caravan limited the
quantity of bulky goods available to nomads.
Data as of June 1989
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