Nomadic Herding Regions

Abstract

N XOMADIC herding is the dominant and almost exclusive mode of agricultural land occupance in a vast stretch of territory in Asia and Africa that makes up perhaps one-tenth of the earth's total land surface. That the very large area thus occupied is no true measure of the real importance of nomadic herding, however, is readily demonstrated by comparing a map showing the location and extent of this type of agriculture (Fig. 1) with maps of density of population. Such a comparison reveals the fact that except for small and scattered spots of concentration, the population density of this immense area is very low. The insignificance to the at large of the regions of nomadic herding is further emphasized by a tabulation of the names of the countries that lie within these regions; without exception the list comprises land-s that have but little contact with the interdependent commercial world of today. Periodically in the past, however, the populations of these now unimportant lands have powerfully affected, by persistent and damaging raids, their immediate neighbors in China, India, Mesopotamia, Eastern and Central Europe, North Africa and Spain, and the Sudan. At. present the tables are turned, and railroads, airplane routes, and military force are driving wedges of occidental civilization into the lands of the nomads. Even so, the conquest is not complete; the British government, for example, keeps a strong army on the Northwest Frontier of India to ward off depredations of nearby hill tribes of nomadic herders.