ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the nomadism by narrowing the field of study to pastoral nomads and by turning to ethnographic case studies that will serve to complicate a simple vision of nomadism through illustrating variations in many important dimensions. Baluchistan is split between southeastern Iran, western Pakistan, and southwestern Afghanistan. Iranian Baluchistan is both a distant frontier region and an ethnically distinct tribal area. The Baluchi adaptation, with its mobility and its multiple resource production, allows the Baluch to survive the worse years and to expand their production rapidly during the good. Both pastoralists and cultivators produced for their own subsistence, but they were also market oriented, selling livestock, carpets, and grain in markets where they bought staples, such as rice, and other goods. In general during the 1960s and 1970s, Baluchi herding camps remained stable during the late fall and winter; and many men were working away from the tribal territory.
