The Nomadic Past

It seems to me that the nomadic past holds a similar place in Kazakh culture as cowboys and frontiersmen do in the American West. Not only does nomadism share the romantic features of freedom, bravery, exploration and nature – nomads in Kazakhstan have the additional attraction of being once a major world power. As if painted purely to make the connection for me, here is a mural I photographed in Uralsk of a man on horseback wearing a cowboy hat and denim jacket. it is not, however, the modern idea of nomadism that interests me here. I’m interested in a much more nuts and bolt attempt to understand how nomadic society actually functioned – how the economy worked, what problems consistently appeared, how culture and institutions adapted to address these problems, etc. So, armed with a burgeoning interest in anthropology, as well as a curiosity to understand the parts of nomadic heritage that survive in Kazakh culture today, I read Nomads and the Outside World (1994) by Anatoly…