Land as a Golden Tent-Peg: Settlement and Change Among Nomads in Northern Afghanistan

In this chapter I argue that it is better to understand Afghan nomads as they saw themselves: as ‘pastoralists’ (mâldâr; lit. stock-owner), whose interest in nomadism was economic and ecological rather than cultural, ideological or psychological. They recognised farmland as a more secure resource—a ‘golden tent-peg’—and could be tempted by cultivation when it was shown to be as profitable as stock raising. Apart from their economic commitment as mâldâr, Afghan nomads identified ethnically and tribally with their settled fellows. Settlement and the acquisition of land of themselves involved no major change of identity, rather, it was only when population growth, pressure on resources and the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few brought political inequality and conflict into the tribal community (nomad or settled) that ethnicity and tribalism begin to shift towards class awareness. I examine these processes through the case of the Piruzai.