Barbarian Clans (Civ6)/Civilopedia

The word "barbarian" comes from Greek (with a related term, "barbara", in Sanskrit), where it refers to people who could not speak the language (and sounded like they were saying "bar bar bar"). So what "barbarians" had in common was not being of a different race or ethnicity, but being on the outside of what people thought of as the cultural center. Whether we are talking about the Gauls (barbarians to the Greeks), or the Sakas ("mleccha" to the ancient Indians), or the Xiongnu (one of the "Five Hu," or Five Barbarians who plagued Han Dynasty China), empires and states had a way of determining who was "in," and who was "out."
But despite the best propaganda efforts of empires, historical barbarians were not the savages that their settled rivals thought them to be. They were neither backwards people who had yet to progress to settled life, nor were they people that existed uncontacted by nation-states. Rather, non-state peoples existed in tandem with nations. As the geographer James C. Scott writes, early states made great efforts to control (often coercively) populations into living in close-clustered and unhealthy communities where their surplus production could be controlled and appropriated. Barbarian life, on the other hand, offered an option for freedom, and barbarian groups became both a source of raiders and pirates that preyed on the states, but also a means through which states could extend trade and diplomatic networks across territory that they did not have to control directly. Barbarian and civilized – the two are interdependent.