The Basseri of Iran - Research Paper Example

? The Basseri of Iran May 15, Introduction The report focuses on the Basseri Nomads in the country of Iran who are different when compared to the other tribes of the country or the other type of nomads in other countries in the Arabian Peninsula. The main focus is on the economic organization, the kinship and the social organization that exists among the people in the nomadic tribe of Basseri. The economic organization is a combination of nomadism, the importance of livestock by Basseri, their environmental adaptation and also the ownership and the property that they have in their tribes. The kinship factors include the patrilineal, the marriage and the divorce aspects of the Nomadic tribe of Basseri and the way it is different to the cultural values to the rest of the country. The social organizational factors is a combination of a number of factors that include the rite of passage in the nomadic society, the headmen that lead the tribe and the Khan who is usually a wealthy person having a number of followers of his own that makes him strong enough to head the society. Economic Organization Nomadism The Basseri Nomads of Iran are the tent-dwelling pastoralists who are under a chief and politically centralized. It is officially stated that the Basseri are Shitte Moslems but such a religious affiliation does not exist to a very big extent among these people. These people seem to be very uninterested in religion generally. The ritual activities of these people are very few as they offer no communal prayer and are more likely to ignore the Islamic feast days. Even the holy month of Ramadan seems to be a very unlikely proposition for most of the people. It is concluded that because of the migration that these people had to do early in their history, there was progressively built tension and excitement and most people were confused whether the economic activity was a religious one or not. These tribes responded more to the movement that was in a more dramatic form rather than considering the utilitarian aspects of the whole movement. There was highly complex essence of tribal organization in Iran that was centralized Uymaq system. The Uymaqs were not only the pastoral nomads but were a combination of three economic forms, the pastoral, the commercial and the agricultural. Importance of Livestock The individual households of the Basseri of Iran hold usually herd their animals together in one or even more than one flock of 400 to 600 animals. This figure limits the number of households that are grouped together. The members of the camp are usually are widely drawn from both consanguineal and affinal groups. Some of the members are not even the immediate groups of these people in the society. The shepherds are usually hired by the members of the camp for the service contracts of one year so that they can care for a single flock of 400 to 600 goats and sheep. For every ten lambs that are born in the spring, they receive one lamb for their work all the year. Even if they quit a bit earlier, there is no pro-rated agreement as the lambs have not been born yet. All of the households owns and milks its own animals separately even though they are gazed together. Also, different households pay, give food and other materials needed by the shepherds in their contribution depending on the number of animals that they own with the addition of the two assistants that the shepherd usually has. Environmental Adaptation The major concentrations of the population of the vertical nomads in Iran occur during the summer. The camps are usually composed of as many as fifty tents during that period of the year. However, during the winter migrations, the camps are composed of as many as twelve tents and as few as one tent. The camps are usually separated by an hour long walk from the neighboring camps and also the pasture areas. However, the visiting between people from one camp to the other and staying connected with each other is a regular activity of the nomads in Iran. Ownership/Property The nomads particularly claim the unofficial title to the pasture lands on the basis of the ancestral rights that they believe have been bestowed on them by the ones who lived before them in that particular area. Their traditional ties with the winter grazing areas are more likely to be tenuous in their view as they shifted only fifteen to twenty years back from the land that were further away from where they are located now. Kinship Patrilineal In the nomads of Iran when there are matters of rights and duties there is usually no distinction between the patrilineal kin when compared to the others. The camps are the local residential groups which consist of the family and are more based on the patrilineal descent of the people in the society. Members of the family are more likely to share the inherited pasture rights as they usually do their rights focusing more on their travel schedules and also their migratory route. These rights tend to be vested in agnates in the camps. This fact exists in spite of the fact that any man is free to attach himself to any of the groups that exist in that family as part of the culture that exists in the nomadic society. Marriage There are about thirty percent marriages between the close cousins of the family. The other third is between the religious festivities as they usually bring the people together and the occasion becomes a memorable one for the people in the society. These festivities bring plenty to eat and drink as part of the nomadic culture and traditionally the meat served is more of what is not served daily and is only served on special occasions which become memorable for the people in the society. The rites of the religion provide the festivities with a purpose and a center round through which they move. Divorce The male ethnographers in the nomadic society of Iran constitute the overwhelmingly majority tend to reason that in the communities where there is separation of the male and female spheres from each other, the activity usually makes it difficult or to be more precise, almost impossible, to penetrate beyond the superficial aspects in which the women is living in that particular society. This reluctant omission of a major segment of the society results in the focusing on the accessible world of men which seems justified keeping in mind the fact that its conceptual and methodological implications that come along with it cannot be distinguished and dismissed so easily. Social Organization Rite of Passage The social structure of the Basseri of Iran people is struck by disconnection, poverty and the apparent irrelevance of the activities that are ritual in their society. Some notoriety in the studies of both the ritual and also the nomadism were found in the purple passage which led the reexamining in the concept to the ritual and also to the purpose that the tribal migration that was considered to be the central rite of the nomadic society in Iran. The Basseri society expresses itself in the ritual behavior the Basseri secularity is not accepted and not attributed in what is a particular form of the social expression and the experience that is associated with the whole process. There were no correspondences between the secular groupings in the social activities and they were more frequently described as the cult groups. There was also some content that attributed to the deficiency which led to the non-corporate basis of the Marri social life in quite a similar way as it happened. Headmen The Basseri of Iran functioned through the leadership as in the case of the outlads the leader was the headman and there was also a chief of Basseri for the chiefdom and also the tiras as they had neither headmen nor the chiefs that could lead them. The relationships of the headmen to their chiefs and the camps to their outlad headmen are just like the disparate units that are at both levels of the authority. They are not the fused segments of the society which differentiates them to the other nomads of other societies that exist as the flow of communication is different when compared to others. The separate stands which are gathered in the hands of the headmen and also the chiefs have led to the attribution of the society to not as segmental but more of as a segmentary because of the way the communication takes place in the Basseri society in Iran between the headmen to the chief and then their way of communication with the other people that are part of the Basseri society of Iran. The headmen are considered to be more of the channels of communication and not the separate echelon in the chain of command from the top to the bottom of the society of Basseri. Also, the power of the chief is considered to be overwhelming in the communication process and he is the sole representative of the tribe in the relationships with the government of Iran. The Khan Each of the village of the Basseri of Iran had an official headman. If the headman turns out to be particularly healthy, he may also acquire his own personal followers along with the title of Khan. Usually the decisions of the community are taken by the councils that represent all the households of the groups. The autocratic behavior which is usually domineering is resisted heartily until and unless those dominion groups have a bigger say which is very rare in the Basseri tribe. The Khan is usually a very important figure of the tribe because he is able to have a large number of his followers in the society and also because of his wealth that distinguishes him to others in the tribe. Conclusion The Nomadic Basseri of Iran have different values compared to others living in the same country. Even though they are Moslems which is a religion with distinguishing beliefs and cultures, the Basseri tend to abide by their religion and live in their own way which is backed by the society in which they are living. Like in past traditional way, they also have a headman in their tribe and also the chief who solely represents the tribe to the government of the country of Iran. References Berman (2000). Wandering God: A Study in Nomadic Spirituality Retrieved from http://books.google.com.pk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=PND77sMoFswC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=basseri+of+iran&ots=GVFg4YUcIZ&sig=juDVB7v7izFdI3Ochval35PSnmY#v=onepage&q=basseri%20of%20iran&f=false Ahmed (1984), Islam in Tribal Societies: From the tribal to the Indus Retrieved from http://books.google.com.pk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ra89AAAAIAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA287&dq=basseri+of+iran+-+ownership&ots=2esQ3pcKW5&sig=JjhjJxGBrRS0kFPUGXlseS8t1oU#v=onepage&q=the%20khan&f=false Fazel (1977), Social and Political Status of Nomads among Pastoral Nomads Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/pss/3317168 Read More