NOMADS OF SOUTH PERSIA: THE BASSERI TRIBE OF THE KHAMSEH CONFEDERACY (THE LITTLE BROWN SERIES IN ANTHROPOLOGY)
by Fredrik Barth
Category: Baseri tribe

This study is based on the author’s three-month-stay among the Basseri nomads in Iran in 1958. Before the publication of this book, there were few previous studies in the literature on any of the nomadic groups in the Middle East, and none on the Khamseh. From a general ecologic viewpoint, Barth describes the different kinds of pastoral adaptation in the South Persian environment - starting with the elementary units of tents, or households, a description is given of the progressively larger units of herding groups, camps, the whole tribe and its major divisions, and the unifying political structure of the tribe and the confederacy.