Download PDF | Reuven Amitai, Michal Biran - Mongols, Turks, And Others_ Eurasian Nomads And The Sedentary World -Brill Academic Publishers (2004).
527 Pages
PREFACE
This volume is based on the work of a research group on “The Interaction of Nomadic Conquerors with Sedentary People in China and the Middle East,” which was active in the Spring of 2000 at the Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. We are grateful to the current Director of the IAS, Prof. B.Z. Kedar, and the Executive Director, Ms. Pnina Feldmann, for their encouragement and assistance. We would also like to extend our thanks to the then Director, Prof. Alex Levitski, and Executive Director, Ms. Liebe Maimon, for all of their support, which enabled us to carry out our work. Special thanks are also due to our colleague Prof. David Shulman, who earlier served as Director of the IAS, and gave us sound advice and encouragement at a preliminary stage. We are also happy to take the opportunity to express our gratitude to the staff at the IAS for all of their assistance and good cheer: Shani Freiman, Batya Matalov, Dalia Aviely, Smadar Danziger, Annette Orrelle. Finally, it is a pleasant duty to thank several of our colleagues who read various sections of this work in manuscript and made valuable comments: Israel Eph'al, Steven Kaplan, Nimrod Luz, Yuri Pines, Gideon Shelach, Michael Zand and the anonymous reviewer for Brill.
Most papers collected here were given at the weekly seminars of the group or during the conference “Euroasian Nomads and the Outside World” that was held on 4–5 June 2000 at the IAS. Nicola Di Cosmo and Liu Yingsheng have replaced their original papers with new ones. Askold I. Ivantchik kindly answered our late invitation to contribute a paper, to help round out the volume. We are also thankful to Kenneth H. Shapiro, whom we have not met and who was neither at the research group nor conference, for co-authoring the paper with Anatoly Khazanov. All authors are to be thanked for their cooperation and good will at what was an unexpectedly lengthy editorial process. R.A. and M.B. Jerusalem Spring 2004.
INTRODUCTION
One phenomenon, which unites the history of the Middle East, Europe, South and East Asia is the role of nomadic peoples from the Eurasian steppe in the affairs of the sedentary peoples in the surrounding countries. From ancient times through the Middle Ages and into the modern period, pastoral nomads conducted complex contacts and exchanges, varying from symbiosis to open conflict with their sedentary neighbors. The nomads have affected the urban and agricultural populations not only through raiding, extortion and conquest, but also through the conduct of trade and the transfer and development of ideas, religions and other cultural elements.
The sedentary populations were not the only ones to be influenced. The ongoing contact between steppe and sown in Eurasia deeply affected the nomads themselves: their economy, political frameworks, religious life, artistic expression and methods of warfare, to name some of the salient aspects. Current research is already aware of the fact that there is more in nomad-sedentary relations than the simplistic “trade or raid” formula or the barbarian paradigm.3 It is our hope that the articles in this volume will contribute to a deeper understanding of the complex interaction between the different populations in Eurasia, and show that these relationships were not always cut from one cloth. The papers presented here tackle several facets of sedentary-nomadic interaction from prehistoric times and up to the present-day in the region of the Eurasian steppe and its frontiers with China, Russia and the Middle East. Other areas, primarily the Indian sub-continent and Eastern Europe have been left for other volumes. The chronological span of the papers is over three millennia, from 1100 BCE up to a discussion of the remnants of Eurasian pastoral nomadism today.
In spite of this attempt to look at the longue durée, the majority of the papers focus on the “age of the nomads,” that is the tenth to fifteenth centuries during which nomads conquered and ruled wide swaths of the territories of the sedentary civilizations, more than at any time in history. Most important of these conquerors were the Mongols, who created the largest continuous land empire in human history. It is perhaps not a surprise, that the Mongols have the greatest coverage in this volume. The title chosen for this volume was deliberate.
It gives pride of place to the two nomadic groups that had the greatest impact on the surrounding lands, the Mongol and Turkic speaking peoples. Between groups of people speaking these tongues, interesting and complex relations developed, to which some allusion is made in this volume. Besides the Mongols and Turks, other nomads have appeared on the steppe, which is hinted at by the title, and to whom some reference is made in several papers found in the volume. But the “Other” of the title also—and most importantly—refers to the non-nomadic population in the urban and agricultural lands to the south of the steppe. In the introduction to an earlier volume of essays devoted to the Mongol empire, it was written: “The history of the Mongol world empire and its successor states is by nature both world history and comparative history.”4
This applies a posteriori to the history of Eurasian nomads in general, particularly with regard to their relations with the surrounding sedentary populations. It is world history since it deals with a large swath of the world, stretching from East Asia to Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean and involves thousands of years of recorded contacts and confrontations through this huge area. It is also world history, since the nomads were so instrumental in conveying ideas, merchandise, technologies and cultural artifacts from one end of Eurasia to the other. Comparative history, an interesting and heuristically useful branch of the study of world history, is certainly found in the examination of the Eurasian nomads.
We look at similar phenomena diachronically and synchronically, across vast region, including the relations to different sedentary civilizations. As a result, we can understand better a particular phenomenon in a specific historical and cultural context. The study of nomads, then, and by extension, the essays presented in this volume, can make a small—but hopefully not insignificant—contribution to the burgeoning literature on world history, for students, teachers and researchers in this important field. Eurasian nomads and their interaction with the surrounding peoples and cultures have riveted learned people since time immemorial. In the Bible, the complex relations between farmers and herders are displayed already in the story of Cain and Abel; here we also learn of Gog and Magog, wild people from the north, who will erupt upon the civilized peoples at the end of days.
Intellectuals, as disparate in time and place as Sima Qian (d. ca. 90 BCE), Ibn Khaldùn (d. 1406 CE) and many others, as the papers of Pines, Frenkel and Gammer display, report on the nomads and attempt to understand and explain their way of life, as well as their relations with the outside world, though mostly from the sedentary perspective. In the last century, several scholars, informed by history, personal travel, ethnography and the insights of social sciences, have made cogent attempts to present generalizations on Eurasian nomadic society and their multifaceted connections with nearby sedentary populations. We might mention Owen Lattimore, Joseph Fletcher, Thomas Barfield and our colleagues Anatoly Khazanov and Nicola Di Cosmo.5 Perhaps the most important insight from the work of these scholars is that there is little nomadic autarky and rarely pure nomadism. As Lattimore put it, a pure nomad is a poor nomad.
On the whole, it can be said that the nomads (and not only those of the Eurasian steppe) are largely dependent on their sedentary neighbors, possibly in ways that they are not happy to admit. Yet this dependence should not disguise the indigenous traditions of the nomads and their creative ability to borrow, adapt and innovate in their relations with their sedentary neighbors. Let us start with the economic dependence. Perhaps nomads can live without grains, raw materials, manufactured goods or just plain amenities, but it is a pretty miserable existence, one which they will attempt to ameliorate. This might be achieved through trade with nearby sedentary populations, exacting tribute, raids which resulted in booty, or conquest, which brought about the orderly extraction of surplus from the rich agricultural areas. It should be remembered, however, that the nomads can often supply their basic need for products of sedentary provenance from the small groups of sedentaries residing in their realm, or even by their own secondary agriculture.7
The dependence of nomads on sedentary societies is therefore less crucial than is sometimes thought. Several scholars also stress the political dependence of the nomads on their sedentary neighbors, describing the creation of a nomadic empire or state as a secondary phenomenon, originating from the need to deal with more highly organized sedentary state societies. The presumption underlying this approach is that the tribal organization of the nomads usually suffices for conducting most aspects of their everyday life, including small-scale raiding into their neighbors’ realm. The (often-attested historically) creation of super-tribal units, from confederations to nomadic empires, is therefore supposed to derive only from the need to cope with a sedentary rival, and the fact that the most complex nomadic empires originated in the vicinity of China is often taken as supportive evidence for this view.8 Di Cosmo, however, recently argued that the establishment of a nomadic empire can be a process originating from internal factors, mainly a result of crisis in the nomadic society.9 Even while taking the second view, however, the successful maintenance of a united nomadic empire is often dependent on the ability of its leader to secure abeneficial relationship with its sedentary neighbors, which enables the leader to reward his followers and convince them that their submission to his authority is worthwhile. This can be done—as mentioned above—either by con-ducting trade on favorable terms (often enforced by force), by launching campaigns that bring booty, tribute and prestige, or by conquest. In founding their states and shaping their political relations with their sedentary subjects and neighbors the nomads, as shown clearly, e.g., in Standen’s article in this volume, displayed creative use of sedentary concepts and institutions, selectively borrowing and adapting them to their needs, often transforming and innovating them in due course. The nomads usually secured the relationship with the sedentaries through the tremendous military advantage they had (up to the modern period) over most of their sedentary neighbors. This advantage was due to the combination of their horsemanship which brought mobility, their skill in archery and their ability to fight in a massed, disciplined way.10 At times, however, nomads could find their military prowess checked by sedentary states, often employing the military methods of the steppes or even soldiers of steppe origin, as in the Mamluk Sultanate or in Qing China. For this reason, or due to a realization that there were benefits to be obtained also from peace (such as trade), nomadic states often moved to a state of détente or even peace with former enemies. Indeed, while warfare was certainly an important part of the “foreign policy” of the nomadic states, their range of political action also included articulated forms of diplomatic and commercial means, as shown in the articles of Amitai, Liu and Di Cosmo. Khazanov stresses that nomads depend on their sedentary neighbors not only for material and political needs but also in the realm of culture, stressing the adoption of the “sedentary” universal religions by the nomads.11
It should be noted, however, that although Christianity, Buddhism, Manichaeism and even Judaism made inroads on the steppe, in the end, it was Islam which had the greatest impact on the Eurasian nomads. Yet in the cultural realm as well, it will be misleading to display the nomads only as passive recipients of sedentary ideas. As shown in Shelach’s article in this volume, from earliest times there was a distinct nomadic identity, which later displayed its own political culture, military ethos and methods, and religious functions. Whether or not parts or even most of this culture originated in the sedentary world (certainly China and Iran were influential), at least from the time of the Xiongnu (3rd century BCE), or, as seen in Ivanchik’s article, from the earlier and more westerly Cimmerians, one can speak about an imperial nomadic worldview that saw the steppe as its center and distinguished itself from its sedentary neighbors.
The nomadic empires developed an ideology, based on a heavenly mandate given to the nomads’ royal clan by Tengri (the sky god of the steppe people). Up to the Mongols, the mandate appears to have been understood to have been limited to the steppe nomads themselves. The Mongols took it more seriously; perhaps propelled by their initial victories and conquests they understood this heavenly mission in a more literal sense: to conquer the world. This ideology legitimized the appearance and endurance of a super-tribal unit, and was fundamental in garnering legitimization among the nomadic leaders and tribesmen, and perhaps to a lesser degree among subject peoples. It acted as a unifying factor (backed up by wealth generated by raids, conquest and tribute, as well as raw military power) in what was normally a highly fissiparous society.12 Even the tacit disavowal of this ideology might prove disastrous for a state of nomadic origin, as Amitai suggests in his article.
The nomads often supplemented their original Tengri religion with a universal sedentary religion, which was habitually also used as a unifying factor, either of the ruling nomads against their sedentary neighbors (as in the case of the adoption of Judaism by the Khazars or Manichaeism by the Uighurs) or of the nomads and their sedentary neighbors or subjects, mainly in the case of conversion to Islam.13 In either way, the nomads were not only passive transmitters: they played a key role in the spread of certain religions, most significantly Islam, and they retained elements of their indigenous religion even after their conversion, thereby creating various forms of syncretism.14 The articles of Jackson and Biran review some aspects of the relationship between nomads and religions. Besides religion, other aspects of culture were developed and spread by the nomads: recent studies by Allsen have shown that nomads (in his case, the Mongols) were not just passive transmitters or consumers of cultural items (in the fields of, e.g., textiles, medicine, astronomy, cuisine), but modified and developed them to fit their own needs and taste.15
An important distinction, stressed by Barfield and Fletcher,16 is that between the nomads of the steppe, mainly Mongolia, where the ecological boundary between steppe and sown is the clearest, and the nomads of the frontier areas—Manchuria and north China in the east and the deserts nomads of Central Asia in the west—in which various forms of nomad-sedentary coexistence prevailed. Many of the articles in this volume deal with those mixed regions, which manifest complex relations between nomads and sedentary populations. Unlike most of the steppe nomadic empires (with the notable exception of the Mongols), the states established by nomads of the frontier zones conquered parts of the sedentary civilizations that bordered the steppe, thereby creating empires in which a nomadic (or semi-nomadic) minority, backed by a strong military machine, ruled over a multi-ethnic nomad and sedentary population. This demanded the acquisition of knowledge and administrative skills required to manage the government of the sedentary areas and new forms of legitimization.17
In establishing those states, the rulers usually became closely associated with the sedentary traditions over parts of which they ruled, whether Chinese in the eastern steppe or Muslim in the western steppe (and in the case of Hungary even Christian).18 The sedentary influence played an important role in the shape of the royal institutions of these states and in their administration, which included the direct taxation of their sedentary population side by side with tribute from China (in the eastern steppe) or a variety of indirect means of revenue collection (in the western steppe). Yet those outside influences did not blot out the steppe past, which remained a major part of the elite identity and government.19 The articles of Biran, Manz, Shelach and Standen treat certain aspects of such mixed entities, while Morgan, Kim and Biran refer to certain aspects of nomadic culture in the aftermath of the establishment of nomadic rule over sedentary populations.
It seems as if part of the difference between the role of the nomads in the vicinity of China and the Muslim world also goes back to the ecological difference mentioned above: The sharp economical differentiation between China and Mongolia, now symbolized by the Great Wall, encouraged mutual hostility and a sharp distinction between “us” and “them.” In the vicinity of the Muslim world the ecological differentiation was less clear cut, encouraging symbiosis more than conflict. Moreover, the common religion that (from about 1000 CE) united nomads and sedentaries, managed to cross the boundaries between “us” and “them” and enabled sedentary populations to accept more willingly their nomadic rulers and to give them a place of honor in their scheme of government. No wonder that Ibn Khaldun defined the Turks as the saviors of Islam,20 while in traditional Chinese historiography nomadic rule was usually described as an abnormal situation, threatening the state’s existence.21
Many articles in this volume—those of Amitai, Biran, Frenkel, Jackson and Manz—treat different facets in the relations between nomads and Islam, while Endicott, Pines, Shelach, Standen, Liu and Biran tackle the question of their relations with China. Whether in the vicinity of China, the Muslim world or other areas of the steppe, after millennia of exploiting their military edge vis-à-vis the sedentary lands, the nomads found themselves in a changing world. With the development of gunpowder weapons, along with increasing demographic pressure and expansion of agriculture and agricultural technology, nomadic mobility was reduced and their incomparable “firepower” was gradually superceded. As early as the mid-eighteenth century the nomads were finished as a credible independent military force, and the advent of the machine gun, the airplane and the railroads pretty much brought the nomads of the steppe and elsewhere under the full control of sedentary states.
The process of the gradual loss of independence of the nomads to the sedentary states is seen in the articles by Endicott, Gammer, and Khazanov and Shapiro. Moreover, with the breaking of their military power and with the introduction of modern boundaries, the political force of the nomads was also broken.22 This leads to a huge change in the character of the tribe, which had been formerly built around the political power of its leader (often denoted in terms of invented genealogy), while in the modern period real kinship became the basic notion unifying the tribe.23 The adaptation of contemporary nomads to modernization and its implications are certainly a topic worth of further inquiry. Indeed, many themes touched upon in this collection deserve elaboration. We may note that the broad comparative approach employed in this volume, which makes use of different disciplines such as history, archaeology, philology, anthropology, ethnography and economics, seems to be an appropriate methodology to further pursue these themes. One major notion which invites further comparative inquiry is the idea of steppe identity: is there a steppe identity that can transcend local loyalties of kinship and ethnicity? Is this identity a direct reflection of the pastoral nomadic lifeway or is it an independent factor in their development? What are the effective range and the symbolic language of the steppe identity and to what extent do these change over time and across place? Those questions are closely related to the study of nomadic ideaology, which is also a fruitful line for further research. Following key concepts and terms of the steppe indigenous political culture (e.g., Tengri, Khaqan/Qaghan/Qa’an, Khan, törü, yasa) as they evolve through time and space can be a good starting point for such a line. Moving into the realm of nomad-sedentary relations, we would like to stress several fields worthy of further investigation. The first is a comparative study of sedentary efforts to co-opt nomads. This takes a variety of forms, such as ideological conversion (e.g., to Confucian norms or to Islamic belief ); the recruitment of mercenaries and slave soldiers and, most particularly in China, the frequent attempts of indigenous rebels to acquire nomadic allies in their struggle with existing governments. Whether successful or not, these efforts often had important, and sometimes unpredicted, impact on the nomads which are worth exploring further. The second field deals with adaptation of nomadic features in sedentary empires, often themselves of nomadic origin. The common Chinggisid background of such “gunpower empires” as the Safawids, Ottomans and Moguls as well as Tsarist Russia and Qing China, for example, has recently been pointed out by Perdue24 and deserves further research. A comparative study, especially of the fields of military and law, stressing the common nomadic features and the way they were adapted in different nomadic and post-nomadic historical contexts (e.g., in Mamluk Egypt, Ottoman Turkey, Timurid Central Asia and India, Yuan, Ming and Qing China as well as in Muscovy and Russia) can also contribute to better understanding of nomadsedentary interactions and of Eurasian and world history in general. The last theme we would like to stress is a comparative study of the modern use of nomadic past. While the nomads lost their political and military strength, nostalgia to their golden age is still apparent in several regions of the steppe (notably in Central Asia and Mongolia), and nomadic heroes of the past are often appropriated and used for enhancing national or political agendas, notable examples are, of course, the use of Tamerlane in Uzbekistan and of Chinggis Khan in both Mongolia and China.25 Further inquiry into the roots, development and context of appropriating nomadic heroes or other elements of nomadic past and the changes these adaptations cause to historical figures and phenomena may help in understanding the forms in which the nomadic political tradition shaped sedentary concepts of rulership and remains relevant even in the contemporary world. To conclude, the upshot of the papers in this volume is that the reality of nomadic-sedentary relations is apparently more varied than some of the models have led us to think. When we look at specific historical cases, we should be aware of the possibilities of variance, some more subtle than others. Generalizations help us think and organize vast bodies of evidence. They should not, however, blind us to concrete historical circumstances and reality. In this introduction, we have been able only to analyze certain salient features of the models suggested for steppe nomadism and its relationship with the sedentary world, and certainly not in the way they deserve. Yet we hope that even these brief summaries will indicate how the detailed studies found in this volume and the few directions depicted above might assist future scholarship in refining these insightful models and provide inspiration for both further conceptual thinking and research on more specialized topics.
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