A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA

44 A history of Inner Asia
among their herds, cherished their freedom from daily drudgery and felt
superior to their peasant neighbors to the south.Aside from herding,
hunting was the nomads’ favorite occupation; this at times took a form
that went well beyond the hunter’s usual goal of acquisition of game for
food, hide, and fur, or even beyond the privileged prince’s favorite
pastime: it could assume a paramilitary dimension, as for example
among the Genghisid Mongols, where, as a unique form of battue, it
became a rigorous and well orchestrated training exercise preparing the
nomads for war (and was known by the technical term nerge).Moreover,
the tribal structure of nomadic society also contained elements analogous
to military organization.Mobility and a paramilitary lifestyle were
thus the chief factors that gave the Turco-Mongol nomads of Inner Asia
the advantage over their sedentary neighbors to the south and west in
pre-modern times.
How much of the nomads’ way of life, of its assets and drawbacks,
still exists today? Some aspects do, but many began to disappear with the
dawn of the modern era, and the rest with the uncompromising exigencies
of the contemporary state, especially the authoritarian one.Herding
as the main source of livelihood still exists in some areas, especially in
Mongolia, but seasonal migration of tribes or families with their herds
has ceased, and efforts are being made to place stock breeding on a more
modern, rational basis, including winter shelters and forage supplies:
these basic but previously shunned measures have begun to prevent the
wholesale losses of livestock caused by a phenomenon called jut in Turkic
(dzut in Mongolian), the re-freezing of the ground after the spring thaw.
The yurt still functions as the most convenient shelter for those individuals
or families who look after the herds.On the other hand, the military
advantage of the nomads over their sedentary neighbors started to
wane as early as the sixteenth century and disappeared in the eighteenth
– a result of the rise of a powerful centralized Russia equipped with
firearms, and of a China that likewise was beginning to use cannon
and to rely on armies, which only a populous, sedentary state could
maintain.
For all practical purposes, the Turks and Mongols of Inner Asia have
now adapted to a sedentary way of life.Their nomadic past, however,
has left such a strong imprint on human memory that most discussions
of their history – and even of their society without reference to a historic
period – focus on that special dimension.And for good reason: customs
and cultural heritage do not change overnight, even if the present-day
scene is the focus of attention.The memory of tribal affiliation and of