Conceptualizations and cultural labels of steppe groups have often ensnared the imagination and dragged with them, “as if in a trawling net, a whole body of shared knowledge” (Hartog 1988: 319). In this fashion of hauling, a mesh of presumptions have adhered within the political label of nomad empire (cf. Chaliand 2004) and come to categorize all steppe polities as intrinsically more militaristic yet less complex than their sedentary neighbors, and often organized within a tribal kin-based society that lacked the formal political structures to qualify it as a cohesive state. The entity which the Chinese chroniclers identified as the Xiongnu has been touted as one of the earliest examples of the quintessential nomadic empire (Barfield 1989; Chaliand 1995; Grousset 1939; Kradin 2001; Maenchen-Helfen 1973), and this model has dominated theoretical paradigms of Inner Asian states.
Historical records and historical studies alike have traditionally emphasized a pastoral economy, a mobile society, and an ephemeral political structure critically dependant on the outside when characterizing such Inner Asian polities, but more recent historical research has attempted to recognize the multifaceted nature of the steppe economies, beyond the dominant pastoral productions systems, and local stimuli for political formations in addition to exterior influence (Di Cosmo 1994, 1999b). In the process of advancing our understanding of the steppe groups and the polities they formed, I will also attempt to reach outside of archetypal characterizations and unpack the model of nomadic empires. This pursuit does not necessitate the abandonment of the individual
terms, but seeks to deconstruct their combined suppositions in order to allow for more variability in characterizations of the large conquest polities that coalesced in the steppes. I will concentrate less on the equivalency of the Xiongnu phenomenon to a circumscribed political archetype and more on characterizing the institutions and strategies of this particular polity as they are expressed and manifested in the historical and archaeological records. This dissertation thus focuses foremost on the political arena rather than the polity itself.
Economic and subsistence strategies are not the focus of this dissertation, but they deserve a brief summary as they greatly affect the nature of political structures and practices of steppe polities. I therefore first unpack the “nomad” portion into the notions of pastoralism and mobility, taking note first of the variability in economic strategies and the effect of the herd mainstays and second of the variability in habitations patterns throughout the steppes and surrounding regions of eastern Inner Asia. I then address the notion of empire and review the numerous models of empire and the ways in which scholars have defined polities labeled as such. The Xiongnu polity has been labeled with a broad spectrum of terms from tribal confederacy to empire. I do not seek here to determine whether the Xiongnu phenomenon was an empire or a different classification of political entity. Instead, I utilize the variant analytical concepts associated with the studies of polities placed under the rubric of empire to develop a paradigm of research for investigating the large political entity, known as the Xiongnu, that dominated eastern Inner Asia during the Iron Age.
The prevailing package of the nomadic empire poses problems, but the distinct concepts of mobile populations, pastoral economies, extensive strategies of conquest and
control, and even imperial and dynastic rulership still bear great significance to investigations of polities that developed in the steppes. Furthermore, the grand political phenomena of Inner Asia may be illustrated through terms broadly applicable to the formation of polities, as well as concepts common to the particular steppe contexts, and still recognize the individual configurations of different eras and areas. I therefore wish to unpack the label of nomadic empire in order to consider the concepts so often related to polities centered in the Inner Asian steppes while allowing for a variety of configurations and combinations of those concepts and traditions.
Mobile Pastoralists and the Geography of Eastern Inner Asia
Many of the Inner Asian groups of the second century BC were characterized by the Chinese chroniclers as “mobile states” (xingguo 行國) whose economy depended
solely on “herding livestock” (suichu隨畜), whose people lived by “following grass and
water when moving to change [residence]” (zhu shuicao qianxi逐水草遷徙), and whose
military was counted in numbers of “those who can draw a bow” (kongxianzhe控弦者)
[Shiji 110 and 123]. Names such as Scythian and Hu have come to signify peoples of the north, “nomads” – and eventually nothing but nomads (Hartog 1988). Steppe polities and all of their peoples become lumped through a “mistaken equation of a mode of production with a state, that is, the equation of the primary means of subsistence of one group of people in a society with the…state as a whole” (Beckwith 2009: 325). This simplistic view of steppe groups has framed the concept of nomad empires and
dominated interpretations of the historical records, the archaeological material, and investigations of steppe societies.
Numerous scholars have assumed polities formed within the steppes derived from a purely pastoral economy which necessitated wanderings and bred conflict (Kradin 2003), thus also hailing the birth of the mounted warrior, a “strategic culture of the steppe” (Chaliand 2004: xii). The oversimplifications of this model are wrapped up in the concept of the simple, or pure, pastoral nomad wandering the steppes, which has been critiqued as early as Salzman (1972) in his article on “multi-resource nomadism,” and recent scholarship has underscored broad spectrums of mobility and diversities of economies for so-called nomadic societies (Barnard and Willeke 2008; Cribb 1991; Salzman 2002) as well as emphasized variability of regional micro-niches across Eurasia (Frachetti 2008).
The word “nomad” originates from the Greek for “to pasture” and should thus denote pastoralism, but it has come to connote mobile habitation patterns (Salzman 2002: 245). The concept of a “nomad” often simultaneously contains aspects of habitation and subsistence (Khazanov 1994). Many scholars have attempted to diverge the two facets in the use of dualistic terms like nomadic pastoralist and pastoral nomad – nomadic suggesting mobility, and pastoral indicating the herding of animals (Bar-Yosef and Khazanov 1992; Cribb 1991; Renfrew 2002; Salzman 1972). Cribb (1991) proposes an intersection of these two concepts as continuums along theoretical x and y axes: modes of subsistence (agriculture to pastoralism) and degrees of mobility (sedentary to nomadic), where increased dependence on pastoral systems is directly proportional to increased mobility. Scholars such as Frachetti (2008) and Sneath (2007) have chosen instead to
employ the distinct modifiers of mobile and pastoral to talk about groups which may previously have been lumped within the category of nomad. For the purposes of this dissertation, I will simply highlight the necessity to consider modes of subsistence, patterns of habitation, and social structures as distinct yet overlapping concepts, and focus more on political implications of these issues in the example of Eastern Inner Asia.
Sinor (1990) defines Inner Asia more broadly than most scholars, delineated by climate and thus sprawling as far as the Yellow River and the Central Plains of China. Most definitions of Inner Asia connote the regions beyond the core agrarian civilizations like those born out of the Yellow River, and the similar expansive label of “the steppes” usually denotes those same regions, including the grassland steppes, forest steppes along the north, and desert zones along the southern edges. Variations of temperature, elevation, foliage, and precipitation all accompany the changes between these three regions contained within the general label of “the steppes,” and we should thus consider Inner Asia a mosaic of regional environments and correlating economic strategies spanning macro-regions and forming micro-niches (Frachetti 2008: 7).
Patterns of rainfall significantly shaped pasture quality, and thus often correlate with livestock densities (Bazargur 2005; Sneath and Humphrey 1999). These areas may also be sufficient for agriculture (Honeychurch and Amartuvshin 2007), and often exhibit shorter movement patterns, as documented by Simukov in the 1920s and 30s [Figs. 3.2]. The general characterization of herd densities does not, however, take in to account herd compositions. Different animals are optimal in different environments, and may flourish in certain areas where others do not, as is the case with goats and camels [Fig.3.3]. We must be cautious of creating static environmental reconstructions, but the point here is not
changes over time but differences across the expansive landscapes of eastern Inner Asia that greatly affected the multiplicity of lifestyles and economies. In the case of Mongolia, the highest areas of rainfall correspond to the greatest overlap in optimal areas for animals and shorter migration patterns, namely the horses, sheep, and cattle in condensed movements of the groups in Central Mongolia [Figs.3.2,3]. Dyson-Hudson and Dyson- Hudson (1980: 31) purport a pattern of increased territorial behavior with increased pasture value and the decrease in distance moved. If one equates the conflation of summer and winter pastures and decreased mobility with increases in territorialism, then one has returned to assumptions that territorialism correlates with sedentism. The persistence of territorial management by and ownership of land in the Middle Gobi, where herd densities are low and length and frequency of migrations are higher (Fernandez-Gimenz 1999; Simukov 1933), does not support such a model.
Fig.3.2 Annual precipitation, in increments of 50mm (Tsanjid 2004)
Fig.3.3 Optimal herding areas for variant animals (after Bazargur 2005).9
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These are patterns of optimal herding regions, and not the distribution of animal densities. Furthermore, they are based on modern herding strategies and the character of the present environments and should thus not be used as a direct correlate of herd strategies in ancient times. Again, the purpose of mentioning such studies is to emphasize the variability of environments and subsistence strategies across the regions of the historic steppe polities.
While the overlap observed in Central Mongolia should not inherently be equated with an increase in territorialism, it does correlate to an increase in the diversity of resources, both in herd compositions and the presence of greater potential for agriculture. Any observed increases in territorial claims in this region may be a result not of increased herd density but of increased economic diversity, which itself ensures greater economic stability.
Sneath (2007) contends that mobile pastoral ways of life have exhibited no intrinsic limits to political control in any of the historical states of Inner Asia, though the nature of pastoral management and production has been shown in various periods of the twentieth century to greatly affect the character of social networks and economic systems (Fernandez-Gimenez 1999; Sneath 1999a). The household (ger) of shared dwelling and shared meals constitutes the smallest social unit. These form residential family groups (khot-ail), usually headed by a leader (darga) with wealth or experience, that jointly herd livestock and share labor tasks.10
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Fernandez-Gimenz (1999) provides a range of two to twelve households per khot-ail encampment. Simukov’s (1933) ethnographic surveys across all of Mongolia documented most encampments between two to eight household, with a cluster around five or six.
A complimentary balance often exists within a residential group between animal rich households and those with available labor but few animals. According to the demand for production tasks or the need for extensive herding, the size and makeup of residential groups will vary according to the season. A third group type proposed by Sneath (1999a: 140) is the “ritual family” – a kin-based social category that gathers for significant ritual events but is often otherwise split between residential groups. Since it is constantly changing in size and character, according to kin or
economic relationships, the residential family group constitutes an institution only as a formative process rather than sets of rigid groups (Sneath 1999a:175).
Fig.3.4 Family groups and kin networks (Sneath 1999a: 140)
The fluctuating residential family groups, though defined in kinship terms, are guided by economic demands. Certain times of the year, more households cluster together in order to pool labor for the increased demands of procuring pastoral products, such as cheese, yoghurt and sheered wool. In other instances, large herds, which cannot be collected in a single area for risk of overgrazing, are divided up through the practice of “leasing out” to separate residential groups. The presence of “ritually” defined groups that congregate in certain places (nutga) for particular social reasons, however, demonstrate the coexistence of identities and socio-political networks that might be open to (re)interpretation between and at gatherings. These distinctions are the sort that were manipulatable in the realm of power politics, and present the spheres of interest for the present study of steppe polities.
The regions of eastern Inner Asia are here collectively referred to as “the steppes,” but we should not consider it a geographically unchanging region. The
occurrence of numerous micro-regions (Frachetti 2008) remind us of the extensive environmental and economic variability which Inner Asian states such as the Xiongnu surely capitalized upon in the creation and maintenance of empires centered around the steppes. I have spent the above discussion clarifying the varied nature of mobile and pastoral societies, but do not wish to ignore the potential for and presence of agricultural communities in certain areas of Inner Asia, including some of the steppe regions (Di Cosmo 1994; Honeychurch and Amartuvshin 2007). Though mobile habitation patterns and pastoral strategies appear to have been the overwhelming foundation of the steppe societies and economies, neither of these were inherently hindrances to political cohesion or economic stability. I will return to these geographic, economic, and social particularities of the steppes of eastern Inner Asia in the forming of political institutions, but first turn to the models of political structure from which we might draw concepts to analyze the case study of the Xiongnu empire.
Delineating Imperial Entities
Notions of political entities, empires or otherwise, should serve as heuristic tools rather than categories for comparisons of social-evolutionary complexity (Goldstone and Haldon 2009: 5). I have stated that I do not wish to construct my analyses around a classificatory discussion of whether or not the Xiongnu polity was an “empire.” I do, however, wish to bring together different attempts to define empires, since they may collectively serve to construct a paradigm of research concepts related to large political entities. For these reasons, and others which I will now address, I chose to adopt the word “empire” as a suitable term, and not categorical type, to refer to the Xiongnu polity.
Flannery (1999) advocates studies of the “creation” of polities by agents in society rather than the systematic “evolution” of polities from one level of complexity to the next. The latter implies a systematic progression or trajectory while the former emphasizes active roles of political agents, not just in the moments, or ephemera (Braudel 1949), of “creation” but in the changes that occurred during the life of the polity. It is precisely the changes that occur within the life of a polity, rather than simply its origins, that I wish to address. The sentiment in opposition to functional developments schemes is echoed in recent arguments against classification of societies according to categories of social evolution. Sneath (2007) argues against the social evolutionary models associated with distinctions of tribe or tribal confederacy. These present dichotomies of kin-based non-state versus bureaucratic state societies, divisions in which steppe societies occupy the former category. He instead emphasizes a substantive tradition of aristocratic orders and principles of descent in steppe societies that form the basis of states. In this model of state formation, the majority of power and operations remain at the local level independent of a central authority, allowing for the existence of a “headless state.” Sneath does not argue that Inner Asian states necessarily were “headless” in nature, but that such headless states occurred quite often, and their occurrence informs us of the political base upon which states that do grow heads develop. The polities which rose under charismatic leaders and engaged in expansive conquests indubitably bore heads and established dynastic regimes in Inner Asia.
Many of the concepts of Inner Asian states have classified them as emerging supra-tribal networks couched in social evolutionary trajectories (cf. Kradin 2002, 2003). Di Cosmo (2002: 184-5) argues that the Xiongnu polity, though not a tribe, was tribal in
nature – “a state that was structured like a tribe in terms of hierarchies and access to power.” Scholars have for several decades called for an abandonment of the label tribe (Fried 1975; Sneath 2007) in discussions of states for all its inherent assumptions of the preeminence of kinship in socio-political networks. However, Parkinson (2002) rightfully argues against complete abandonment of the concept of “tribe” in descriptions of sociopolitical entities. The concept of tribe is not without use, though perhaps not applicable in the traditional socio-evolutionary sense as a term to label the Xiongnu entity.11
Smith (2003) further argues that the category of state, from traditional social evolutionary trajectories, positions all political actions within universal structures of power. The chief contention here is that studies should focus more on political strategies than political categories. There may often be a “misplaced concreteness” for the categories of state and empire in the process of evaluating a checklist of properties to determine whether the society in question qualifies (Morrison 2001: 4-5). There seems to be a recent consensus on the need to address not what these political entites were but on their practices and how they behaved (Morrison 2001; A.Smith 2003; M.Smith 2001). As such, I will not focus on the conventional determination of whether steppe polities, in general or on a case by case basis, qualify as one of the distinct categories of tribal confederacy, state, or empire. The rubric of empire and the associated models, however, I chose to avert the use of this term insofar as it applies to the branding of the large political entities which spanned vast regions of eastern Inner Asia as less formidable entities than states.
11
Yoffee (1993) places the notions of tribes, chiefdoms and states in branching alternate trajectories rather than along a ladder of social evolution. This perhaps provides an opportunity to utilize these concepts without asserting one as more or less “complex” than another neighboring or preceding entity.
contain numerous divisions and elements which may be broadly addressed in the characterization and explanation of strategies observed in large steppe polities.
Empires, not surprisingly, have been set along spectrums of degrees of control and integration, and steppes empires have without fail been placed at the lower end of the spectrums. The most frequent dichotomy, which relies chiefly on the Old World empires of the Middle East and the Mediterranean, compares hegemonic empires of loose military control to territorial empires of more structured political control (Mann 1986; Santley and Alexander 1992). Such classifications pose hegemonic empires as lacking a unified political system and relying on compulsory cooperation enforced through strong military force. The opposing category of territorial empires instead relies on a class culture and formalized bureaucracy to rule directly over vast territories with a single empire-wide