Basseri of Iran

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Basseri of Iran

Introduction

The Basseri of Iran is tent dwelling and nomadic people, who lives in the south of the country. It is said that the origin of this tribe is unknown or uncertain; however, most of the people believe that Basseri of Iran are descendants of Arab (Amanolahi, 2003). The primary mode of subsistence of the Basseri culture of Iran is 'Pastoralism'. Where, Pastoralism is a subsistence approach that involves herding animals like goats, sheep, cattle, camels, and others, and pastorals depends on these animals for their survival. In a pastoral culture, everything moves around the capability of successfully executing economic transaction with animals that are owned. The Basseri of Iran is a native pastoralist tribe, as it depends on animals for food and has fields for grazing cattle, goats, and sheep. The animals they own is central of everything they do in their daily lives. This research paper focuses on the Basseri culture's primary mode of subsistence and its impact on various aspects of culture, specifically: kinship, political organization, and social organization.

Thesis Statement

The Basseri culture's mode of subsistence is 'Pastoral', where, this mode of subsistence impacts various aspects of Basseri culture in very specific and influential ways.

Mode of Subsistence

Pastorals are nomadic inhabitants, who go through different places in search of water and grass in order to feed their live stocks. Further, they usually change their locality with the changing seasons. As the Basseri depends on the animals like sheep and goats for meeting their daily needs, they are identified as Pastorals, who depends on live stock for fulfilling their needs. The Basseri herd goats and sheep by traveling different places of southern Iran and change the camp's locations between areas situated northeast and southeast of Shiraz, depending on the time of year (Amanolahi, 2003). Research also indicates that Basseri build up their live stock into thousands or more than that, and in order to keep safe this collected wealth they trade or sell these animals for obtaining other forms of wealth like local village's land. Hence, it is very much evident that the cultural mode of subsistence of Basseri is Pastorals, as they depend on live stock for their living and keep changing their location with respect to seasons.

Impact of Primary Mode of Subsistence of Basseri on Different Aspects of its Culture

Anthropologist have long detected association between the culture's key mode of subsistence and the aspects of culture like political organization, kinship, social organization, and others. Similar, is the case with Basseri; its mode of subsistence i.e. pastoral highly influences various aspects of its culture. Some of those are discussed below.

Kinship

In anthropology it is commonly defined that pastoralists have 'pre-state' societies and that is why they do not have a state (Scupin, 1995). Their societies are usually organized through the kinship relations between tribes, surrounding almost more than hundreds of people. In case of Basseri, they are divided into thirteen tribes, with each tribe further broken down into ...