Basseri

By Teferi Abate Adem

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The Basseri are a pastoral nomadic people living in Fars Province in Southwestern Iran in land characterized by widely contrasting agro-ecological zones and heterogeneous ethnic groups. According to Fredrik Barth who worked with them in 1958, the Basseri considered themselves a clearly distinct group, despite sharing language and cultural features with several neighboring tribal groups. For many years in the past, this distinction was marked by shared allegiance to the authority of one supreme chief and the political recognition the tribe received from Iranian authorities to be a separate unit for administrative purposes. In the late 1950s, however, Iranian authorities dismissed the tribal chief from power and vested legal authority in contingents of the national army newly stationed in the area (Barth, 1961: 71). The Basseri eHRAF Collection focuses on aspects of Basseri culture as described by Barth in the late 1950s when the group was largely autonomous. Current features of Basseri life are not reliably known for lack of in-depth studies that follow up on Barth’s accounts.

As of 1958, there were an estimated 16,000 Basseri living in nearly 3000 living units or tents (Barth, 1961: 1). There are no recent estimates of the Basseri population.

The Basseri speak a dialect of Farsi which Barth found to be “very close to the urban Persian of Shiraz town” (Barth, 1961:1). Some Basseri were also bilingual in Turkish, Arabic or another Farsi dialect spoken by neighboring groups. Barth also found other tribal groups outside Basseri, such as the Bugarad-Basseri of north-west Fars, who spoke the Basseri dialect and claimed a genetic connection with them (Barth, 1961: 2).

Barth’s work provides long standing historical traditions that show significant cultural and genealogical linkages between the Basseri and a wide variety of nomadic and settled groups in Fars province and beyond. The Basseri claimed, for example, a common or collateral ancestral origin with the Yazd-e-Khast, the Bugard-Basseri of north Fars, and the Basseri near Semnan east of Tehran (Barth, 1961:2).

Historically, the Basseri were part of a larger political system called “the Khamseh confederacy.” This confederation was formed in the mid-nineteenth century by leaders of five culturally and linguistically distinct tribal groups, namely; the Arabs of Fars, the Truk Tribes of Ainalu, Baharly and Nafar, and the Persean-speaking Basseri (Barth, 1961: 86). This confederacy was especially instrumental in linking Basseri elites with influential Iranian leaders and urban merchants.

Traditionally, the Basseri lived in a relatively narrow corridor of land that stretched between low-lying deserts in the south and high mountain ranges in the north. In this land, the Basseri traveled “fairly compactly and according to a set schedule” (Barth, 1961: 1). During the rainy season, for example, Basseri families pitched their dispersed tents on mountain flanks and pastured their flocks on escarpments. In spring, however, they moved down to uncultivated valleys and camped in relatively larger temporary camps. The migration continued southward to the large summer camps, usually numbering 10-40 tents, where the populations became more stationary for a relatively longer period (Barth, 1961: 5). Barth also noted a considerable number of Basseri who shifted between nomadic and settled life with changes in their economic fortunes. Poor Basseri, for example, typically gave up nomadic life to settle among agricultural villages along the main route when they lost their livestock because of droughts and accumulated debts. Their decision was motivated by a hope to save enough money from wage labor or sharing-cropping to resume pastoralism sometime in the future. Likewise, rich Basseri whose herds prospered, try to reduce their risk of sudden loss by purchasing farm land and building a house among the settled population (Barth, 1964, Bradburd, 1989). Barth’s work emphasizes this unique movement of individuals in and out of different economic systems in shaping Basseri settlement patterns in the long run.

Like other pastoral peoples in Middle East and elsewhere, the Basseri earned their living by herding a variety of domesticated animals. According to Barth, the Basseri were particularly interested in sheep and goats which provided them with products of “greatest economic importance” such as milk, meat, wool and hides. The Basseri also raised donkeys which they used for transport and riding, especially by women and children. They also kept horses for riding (predominantly by men) and camels for heavy transport and wool. Barth also noted that some poultry were primarily kept for meat but not for eggs. Cattle were absent from Basseri herd partly because of the rocky nature of the terrain (Barth, 1961: 6). The Basseri did not also practice agriculture, despite long-established contacts with settled farmers along their routes.

Commercial trade in tribal rugs and wool provided substantial income for many pastoral communities in Fars but very little for the Basseri (Bradburd, 1989). According to Bradburd, the Basseri seemed less involved in this trade. The Basseri produced and sold lambskins, but not wool or tribal rugs.

According to Barth (1961), Basseri crafts were largely limited to spinning, weaving and carpet-tying. They processed wool and goat-hair for making woven fabrics and ropes. They also made saddlebags, packbags, sacks, carpets and tents. The tent-cloth they made from goat-hair was especially praised for its remarkable water-repellent and heat-retaining properties (Barth, 1961: 8).

As mentioned above, the Basseri seemed less involved in trade than other neighboring tribal groups. But this doesn’t mean that they did not obtain goods and products they needed through exchange. Instead, Barth’s work shows that the Basseri, like the Lur and other neighboring groups, took their products to local markets where they in return obtained a great variety of domestic and imported goods. According to Barth, products traded by the Basseri were almost exclusively clarified butter, wool, lambskins, and occasional live stock. In return, most Basseri purchased more things than they sold, depending on their needs and economic standing. They all purchased flour which was consumed as unleavened bread with every meal. They also purchased some sugar, tea, dates, fruits and vegetables, materials for clothes, finished clothes, shoes, and metal articles, including all cooking utensils. The list of purchased materials, especially for the richer sector of the population, also included glass, china, saddles, things, narcotics and countless luxury good from jewelry to traveling radios (Barth, 1961, 8-10). For the most part, some of these goods were also obtained on credit through long-standing commercial relationship with itinerant traders and shop owners.

Barth’s account of Basseri work habits differentiate between tasks performed by men, women and children, but few tasks were rigidly allotted by gender or age (Barth, 1961: 15). Women made rugs, saddlebags, packbags and all the sacks used in packing belongings. Women and girls performed such household duties as cooking and baking, but men provided wood and water. Both men and women participated in organizing the daily cycle of migration and in the tending and herding of animals. But men were generally responsible for defending their property against attacks of others, and for representing their household in all dealings with others.

Like other nomadic pastoralists, the Basseri needed access to extensive pastures for grazing their flocks. This was made possible by a very flexible land tenure system that recognized overlapping grazing rights over each pasture. Theoretically, the Basseri believed that all pastures belonged to some owner; “no pastures are owner-less” as they explained to Barth (1961: 54). In practice, however, these pastures were jointly “owned” by all descendants of a tribal section oulad, agnatic lineages) as opposed to individuals. Each herder, as Barth explains, maintained the right to use, as opposed to own, lineage pastures by virtue of membership. More importantly, members of different oulads simultaneously maintained grazing rights over the same pastures which they utilized by arranging different schedules across seasons. These schedules and overlapping rights also included rights to members of each oulad to pass on customarily recognized routes to pasture flocks outside cultivated fields and to draw water everywhere, except from private wells.

During his fieldwork, Barth also observed some successful Basseri household heads who purchased agricultural plots from settled farmers along the group’s migratory routes. In most case, these plots were cultivated by farmers in the villages through a variety of share-cropping arrangements (Barth, 1964).

The Basseri kinship system, as described by Barth (1961: 54), was a very flexible principle which could be strategically employed by individuals to situate themselves in structurally advantageous positions. In theory, Basseri kinship ideology consisted of three major hierarchical levels. The most inclusive of these levels to which all the Basseri belonged was called il (tribe). This il was further divided into 12 sections which were called tira (sections). Each tira was further divided into subsections called oulad (lineages, also translated as family).

In practice, however, the Basseri openly recognized the distinct origins of various section and sub-sections. They conceptualized the unity of these sections and the entire tribe through their common allegiance to one supreme chief. To be sure, Barth did not deny the existence of culturally recognized agnatic, matrilateral and affinal ties among most households that constituted different camps (Barth, 1961: 29). At the same time, however, Barth noted that kinship was not the only principle uniting camp members. Instead, individual members were recruited to join camps personally by their respective camp leaders based on a combination of kinship and other political considerations.

According to Barth (1961), the Basseri regarded marriage as a transaction between kin groups who constituted whole households, not as a life-cycle issue limited to the contracting spouses. Customarily, the head of a household, or tent, held the authority to sponsor marriage contracts for the members of his household. Some married man also arranged subsequent marriages for themselves, whereas all women and unmarried boys were subjected to the authority of a marriage guardian. The marriage contract was often drawn up and written by a nontribal ritual specialist, or holy man. It stipulated a cash bride-payment by the groom's father to the bride’s father. Part of this money was expected to be used for purchasing clothes, household utilities and other required items that the bride needed to bring with her (Barth, 1961: 18-19). The contrast also stipulated certain divorce or widow's insurance, which was a prearranged share of the husband's estate, payable upon divorce or in the event of his death.

The basic domestic group of Basseri society was the tent or household which, according to Barth, consisted of an independent nuclear family (Barth, 1961: 23). Each tent (khune, house) was headed by a man and was recognized as an independent unit of production and consumption. Members of each tent held rights over all movable property including flocks. Occasionally, each tent also acted as an independent political unit, interacting with others outside the knowledge of camp and lineage leaders. When they found it necessary, for example, household members could decide to leave a camp to join another one. They could also form a herding unit with other households based on personal considerations rather than kinship or other basic principles of organization.

Newly established household heads built their own herd by beginning with a handsome marriage endowment in animals received from their own parents. This practice of allocating initial endowment had been institutionalized by an “anticipatory inheritance” rule which entitled the groom to receive from his father’s herd the arithmetic fraction which he would receive as heir if this father were to die at that moment (Barth, 1961: 19). From then on, however, the new household was expected to expand the herd by its own efforts. If its herds failed, it received no second inheritance, nor was it lent animals to help it maintain itself.

As noted above, tent-dwelling households were the basic building blocks of Basseri society. But real abode of community life were camps due to their unique structural position and practical roles in herd management.

Structurally, each camp was a very clearly bounded social group which typically included households who maintained several strands of ties to one another. These ties were relatively constant, while all other contacts tended to be passing, ephemeral, and governed by chance. Practically, the size and relative cohesion of camp members allowed for unanimous agreements on several aspects of herding including questions of migration, the selection of campsites, and all other economically vital considerations in the day-to-day and season-to-season life of nomadic households. Such agreements were achieved in various ways, ranging from coercion by a powerful camp leader to mutual consent through compromise by all concerned. Barth’s analysis emphasized consensus formation as a key political process by which camp heads controlled and coordinated the movements of economically independent households. Unity of the entire Basseri society was an extension of this well managed unity at the camp level.

Unlike many pastoral societies, especially in east Africa, who tended to be egalitarian and decentralized, Barth noted that the Basseri had a hierarchical political structure united by an “autocratic” tribal chief (Barth, 1961: 71). The Basseri chief held immense authority over all members of the Basseri tribe. In his dealing with camp headmen, for example, the chief drew on their power and influence but did not delegate any of his own power back to them. He only gave them some material goods—mostly gifts of some economic and prestige value, such as riding horses and weapons.

Barth’s work placed camp headmen in a politically convenient position vis-à-vis the chief from above and ordinary Basseri from below. They could use their position to communicate much more freely with the chief than ordinary tribesmen could. They could, for example, bring up cases that were to their own advantage and, to some extent, block or delay the discussion of matters they deemed detrimental to their own interests. Nonetheless, the chief seemed strong enough to control such manipulations by systematically employing his vast and not clearly delimited field of privilege and command.

Traditionally, matters of law at the levels of Basseri camps and households were informally regulated by compromise and local customs. Where disputes could not be settled informally, they were referred to the supreme chief who alone constituted the only “court” in the tribe. In both case, Basseri social control mechanisms existed only as diffused sanctions, not as widely shared rules.

Unlike in other pastoral societies in the Middle East and Africa where kinship principles bred internal tensions among different “segments” of society, the Basseri seemed less threatened by structural conflicts. Inter-personal conflicts at household and camp levels of society were easily resolved as individuals were allowed to leave one household/camp to live in another. Likewise, conflicts involving camps and oulads and other higher level tribal sections were minimized through avoidance. Barth also praised the Basseri for maintaining peaceful relations with both settled agricultural communities and urban elites though exchange, collaboration and recognition of traditional rights.

The Basseri considered themselves Shia Muslims who accept the prescriptions and prohibitions of Islam as presented in religious canons. In practice, however, most Basseri seemed not very familiar with Muslim beliefs, customs, and ceremonies. This was reflected in several ways. Many Basseri, for example, showed notable confusion surrounding the divisions and events of the Muslim year, even when they were continually reminded of them through their contacts with sedentary villages. Barth further noted that most Basseri did not constantly observe religious customs even when they were aware of them. This included Ramadan and other Islamic feast days which were rarely celebrated.

As noted above, Barth’s work did not emphasize the roles of Basseri religious and spiritual ceremonies. So it is hard to be sure that religious ceremony were relatively unimportant. However, Barth (1961) did tell us that even the fast of Ramadan and the feast of Moharram, which had been of central importance to the religiously related Komachi (Bradburd, 1989), Qashqa’i (Lois, 1986) and Shahsevan (Tapper, 1983) pastoralists, were rarely observed in Basseri. Barth also linked other Basseri rituals more with mundane life cycle events, such as birth, marriage and death, instead of Islamic traditions or other broadly shared symbolic and meaning systems.

Barth's work contains very little information on death, after life and related aspects of Basseri culture.

Documents referred to in this section are included in the eHRAF World Cultures and referenced by author, date of publication, and eHRAF document number.

In addition to this culture summary, the Basseri collection consists of two anthropological studies, both of them in English language, by Fredrik Barth. The first one is a book published in 1961 based on ethnographic materials collected in the period December 1957 to July 1958 while the author was living with the Danbar tribal section of Basseri. The book describes and analyses Basseri social and economic organization in terms of a general ecological perspective. The focus in on the processes through which the Basseri organized nomadic herding and related to one another as members of different households, herding units, camps, lineages (oulad) and tribal sections (tira). The second document is a 1964 article that discusses the nature of Basseri pastoral economy and its implications for social structure. Together, these documents provide a first hand account and analysis of Basseri economy and social organization, but contain very little information on arts, language, medicine, death and afterlife.

CAMPS – use COMMUNITY STRUCTURE (621)

CAMP LEADERS – use COMMUNITY HEADS (622)

IL (tribe) – use TRIBE AND NATION (619)

OULAD (lineage group) – use LINEAGES (613)

TIRA (tribal section) – use LINEAGES (613)

TRIBE CHIEF – use CHIEF EXECUTIVE (643)

Barth, Fredrik (1961). Nomads of South Persia. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.

Barth, Fredrick (1964). “Capital, Investment, and the Social Structure of a Pastoral Nomad Group in South Persia,” In Capital, Saving, and Credit in Peasant Societies, edited by R. Firth and B.S. Yamey, 69-81. Chicago: Aldine.

Beck, Lois (1986). The Qashqa'i of Iran. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Bradburd, Daniel (1989). “Producing Their Fates: Why Poor Basseri Settled but Poor Komachi and Yomut Did Not”, American Ethnologist 16:502-517.

Tapper, Richard, ed. (1983). The Conflict of Tribe and State in Iran and Afghanistan.

New York: St. Martin's Press.