3.2 Pastoral Society

The way of life: herding as the core — cattle, camels, sheep/goats, yaks; nomadism ortranshumance (vertical seasonal movement in mountains); wealth on the hoof (living capital: divisible, raidable, bride-wealth-payable). Social organisation: larger and more stratified than the band: segmentary lineages — descent groups nesting (family → lineage → clan → tribe) that fuse and segment by the situation (Evans-Pritchard's Nuer: "I against my brother; my brother and I against my cousin; the family against the world") — the stateless order that anthropology contributed to legal theory (Unit 2.3); honour and feud as political currencies (the raid and the counterraid — livestock warfare's rules); age-sets and warrior grades (East Africa); patriarchy firm. Order institutions: the feud regulated (mediation by lineage elders; compensation — the Nuer's cattle-payments, the Middle-Eastern diya); custom as law; prophets and curse as sanctions (the elders' curse feared beyond police). Nepal's cases: the trans-Himalayan herders — yak and sheep transhumance of Humla, Dolpa, Mustang (the agro-pastoral mix at altitude — the khyalpo? use the general form: seasonal movement between high pastures and valley farms); the impacts of closures (conservation areas restricting movement) and climate on the vertical economy.