Editing Nomad (section)

==Common characteristics==
[[File:Hungarian Gypsy Mother and Child NGM-v31-p563.jpg|thumb|[[Romani people|Roma]] mother and child]]
[[File:Nomads on the Changtang, Ladakh.jpg|thumb| Nomads on the [[Changtang]], [[Ladakh]]]]
[[File:Rider in Mongolia, 2012.jpg|thumb|left| Rider in [[Mongolia]], 2012. While nomadic life is less common in modern times, the horse remains a national symbol in Mongolia.]]
[[File:Bedscha.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|left| [[Beja people|Beja]] nomads from [[Northeast Africa]]]]

Nomads are communities who move from place to place as a way of obtaining food, finding pasture for livestock, or otherwise making a living. Most nomadic groups follow a fixed annual or seasonal pattern of movements and settlements. Nomadic people traditionally travel by animal, canoe or on foot. Animals include camels, horses and alpaca. Today, some nomads travel by motor vehicle. Some nomads may live in homes or homeless shelters, though this would necessarily be on a temporary or itinerant basis.{{citation needed|date=June 2021}}

Nomads keep moving for different reasons. Nomadic foragers move in search of game, edible plants, and water. Aboriginal Australians, [[Negrito]]s of Southeast Asia, and [[San people|San]] of Africa, for example, traditionally move from camp to camp to hunt and gather wild plants. Some tribes of the Americas followed this way of life. Pastoral nomads, on the other hand, make their living raising livestock such as camels, cattle, goats, horses, sheep, or yaks; these nomads usually travel in search of pastures for their flocks. The [[Fula people|Fulani]] and their cattle travel through the grasslands of [[Niger]] in western Africa. Some nomadic peoples, especially herders, may also move to raid settled communities or to avoid enemies. Nomadic craftworkers and merchants travel to find and serve customers. They include the [[Gadia Lohar]] blacksmiths of India, the Roma traders, Scottish travellers and Irish travellers.{{citation needed|date=June 2021}}

Many nomadic and pastorally nomadic peoples are associated with [[Semi-arid climate|semi-arid]] and [[desert climate]]s; examples include the [[Mongolic peoples|Mongolic]] and [[Turkic peoples|Turkic]] peoples of [[Central Asia]], the [[Plains Indians]] of the [[Great Plains]], and the [[Berbers|Amazigh]] and other peoples of the [[Sahara|Sahara Desert]]. Pastoral nomads who are residents of arid climates include the [[Fula people|Fulani]] of the [[Sahel]], the [[Khoekhoe|Khoikhoi]] of [[South Africa]] and [[Namibia]], groups of [[Northeast Africa]] such as [[Somali people|Somalis]] and [[Oromo people|Oromo]], and the [[Bedouin]] of the Middle East.

Most nomads travel in groups of families, bands, or [[tribes]]. These groups are based on kinship and marriage ties or on formal agreements of cooperation. A council of adult males makes most of the decisions, though some tribes have chiefs.{{citation needed|date=June 2021}}

In the case of Mongolian nomads, a family moves twice a year. These two movements generally occur during the summer and winter. The winter destination is usually located near the mountains in a valley and most families already have fixed winter locations. Their winter locations have shelter for animals and are not used by other families while they are out. In the summer they move to a more open area in which the animals can graze. Most nomads usually move within the same region and do not travel very far. Since they usually circle around a large area, communities form and families generally know where the other ones are. Often, families do not have the resources to move from one province to another unless they are moving out of the area permanently. A family can move on its own or with others; if it moves alone, they are usually no more than a couple of kilometres from each other. The geographical closeness of families is usually for mutual support. Pastoral nomad societies usually do not have large populations.

One nomadic society, the [[Mongols]], gave rise to the largest land empire in history. The Mongols originally consisted of loosely organized nomadic tribes in Mongolia, Manchuria, and Siberia. In the late 12th century, [[Genghis Khan]] united them and other nomadic tribes to found the [[Mongol Empire]], which eventually stretched the length of Asia.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Weatherford |first=Jack |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A8Y9B5uHQcAC |title=Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World |date=2005-03-22 |publisher=Crown |isbn=978-0-307-23781-1 |language=en}}</ref>

The nomadic way of life has become increasingly rare. Many countries have converted pastures into cropland and forced nomadic peoples into permanent settlements.<ref>{{Cite journal|url= https://www.jstor.org/stable/41145912|title= Nomadism and Desertification in Africa and the Middle East|journal= GeoJournal|jstor= 41145912|access-date= 2021-02-17|last1= Johnson|first1= Douglas L.|year= 1993|volume= 31|issue= 1|pages= 51–66|doi= 10.1007/BF00815903|bibcode= 1993GeoJo..31...51J|s2cid= 153445920|archive-date= 2022-03-13|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20220313160236/https://www.jstor.org/stable/41145912|url-status= live|url-access= subscription}}</ref>

Modern forms of nomadic peoples are variously referred to as "shiftless", "[[Romani people|gypsies]]", "[[rootless cosmopolitan]]s", hunter-gatherers, refugees and urban [[Homelessness|homeless]] or [[Street people|street-people]], depending on their individual circumstances. These terms may be used in a derogatory sense.

According to [[Gérard Chaliand]], [[terrorism]] originated in nomad-warrior cultures. He points to [[Machiavelli]]'s classification of war into two types, which Chaliand interprets as describing a difference between warfare in sedentary and nomadic societies:<ref>{{cite book |last=Chaliand |first=Gerard |title=The History of Terrorism: From Antiquity to Al Qaeda |publisher=University of California Press |date=2007 |pages=85–86}}</ref>

<blockquote>There are two different kinds of war. The one springs from the ambition of princes or republics that seek to extend their empire; such were the wars of Alexander the Great, and those of the Romans, and those which two hostile powers carry on against each other. These wars are dangerous but never go so far as to drive all its inhabitants out of a province, because the conqueror is satisfied with the submission of the people... The other kind of war is when an entire people, constrained by famine or war, leave their country with their families for the purpose of seeking a new home in a new country, not for the purpose of subjecting it to their dominion as in the first case, but with the intention of taking absolute possession of it themselves and driving out or killing its original inhabitants.</blockquote>

Primary historical sources for [[nomadic steppe-style warfare]] are found in many languages: Chinese, Persian, Polish, Russian, Classical Greek, Armenian, Latin and Arabic. These sources concern both the true [[steppe nomads]] ([[Mongols]], [[Huns]], [[Magyars]] and [[Scythians]]) and also the semi-settled people like [[Turkish people|Turks]], [[Crimean Tatars]] and [[Russians]], who retained or, in some cases, adopted the nomadic form of warfare.<ref>{{cite web |title=Steppe Nomadic Warfare |website=Oxford Bibliographies |url=https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199791279/obo-9780199791279-0119.xml |access-date=2021-09-13 |archive-date=2021-09-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210913175313/https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199791279/obo-9780199791279-0119.xml |url-status=live }}</ref>