The Nomadic Alternative – Page 87

Jehovah called to Abraham, "and tell the stars if thou be able to
number them: and he said unto them, So shall thy seed be."

This mania for the genealogy of the male line and exhibitionistic
attitude to male potency encourages a low view of the female as a
sort of child-bearing drudge, who achieves a peak of influence -
and this is limited - only as a mother of sons, once her husband
is firmly dead. From sheer boredom this situation tempts the men
to find erotic satisfaction elsewhere. As Sultan Kabus advised his
son in The Mirror for Princes, "boys for the summer months,
reserving woman's warmth for winter cold."

But the nomad's rate of increase is never fast enough. Worse,
"the nomad is the father of the desert." Sterile sand dunes drift
over lands once green with forests. The harsh mouths of the goats
destroy young saplings and vegetation recedes. Rains wash away the
topsoil. Then the rains do not come any more and the animals starve.

(Sheep farmers in New South Wales calculate that a thirty per cent
drop in rainfall causes eighty per cent of the stock to die.) When
famine is 'grievous in the land' the nomad is dangerous to himself
and others as jealousies burn and tempers snap.

But though it may appear paradoxical, the nomad is more dangerous
when the grass is green and the animals have multiplied and grown
fat. Healthy beasts demand finer grass to maintain this health, and
the herdsmen cannot bear to see it fade. The pasture of a tribal
Il-Rah will not support them all. So to avoid family feuds, younger
sons or cousins agree to split off from the main horde. Also a
father knows that a good shepherd will only stay good if he stands
to inherit the family capital and he uses the occasion of a son's
wedding to split his flock in two. But the splinter group frequently
trespasses on its neighbours and this incursion ignites a chain
reaction. Frederik Barth found an average of 4.25 children for
every married woman among the Basseri and nomads have no reputation
for monogamy. Now one begins to understand the mechanics of nomad
invasions, their raids, counter raids and vendettas, and why Alois
Musil could write in 1928 of the Rwala Bedouin, "More than four-