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With the regions of the world, both the Basseri and the Nuer live in, they’ve had to adapt to the environment they live in along with the limitations imposed by that environment. Among the differences and similarities of the Basseri and the Nuer, their subsistence strategies are the most diverse in differences and similarities. Both the Basseri and the Nuer rely on their domesticated animals as a source of subsistence. A difference between the Basseri and the Nuer is that the Basseri have goats and sheep to provide the bulk of their subsistence products, while the Nuer use cattle as a source of subsistence. Another subsistence strategy of the Basseri is foraging, which is suited well for their nomadic way of life, by hunting large game and finding plants and mushrooms in the springtime. The Nuer, on the other hand, have a mixed subsistence strategy between pastoralism and horticulture. The Nuer cannot rely solely on either one, so other than the cattle they also cultivate millet, their main crop, and a small amount of maize and beans. The social and political organization of the Basseri and the Nuer are very much different. The Basseri’s social organization is based upon that of nuclear families; they are also neolocal, meaning that upon marriage a couple starts their own nuclear family in a new tent. After marriage, in order for the couple to begin a new household, the husband usually receives part of his father’s herd and at times, if not given any animals, the husband can work and receive animals as a payment. During the spring, the nomadic tribes can be supported in large numbers in a single camp; while during the winter, camps are setup in smaller groups. The Basseri reckon descent patrilineally where inheritance is usually from father to son. A woman bestows membership rights to her own tribe or her offspring. The Basseri consider themselves one unified tribe because they are all subsumed under the authority of a single leader, the chief of all the Basseri. The chief is of noble lineage and is set apart from the other Basseri being removed from nomadic life. The Nuer have no centralized political organization, instead their society is kin-based. This kin-based society of the Nuer is the best known example of the segmentary lineage organization consisting of twenty patrilineal clans divided into maximal lineages, then into major lineages and on into minimal and minor lineages. The unique alliance forming properties of the segmentary lineage system of organization allows its members to raid nearby territories held by groups without the ability to mobilize forces. The Nuer are an aggressive people, where disputes frequently end in death; the disputes can stem from something as little as an insult and the Nuer are described as taking offense very easily. The only way the Nuer have to stop a dispute from shedding any more blood is for the one whom started the dispute, usually by murder, to go to the leopard-skin chief, a neutral outsider to the lineage network, and a ritual is performed to cleanse the killer and a reasonable compensation must be made to the family whose member was murdered. With the environment they live in, the Basseri and the Nuer have adapted to the limitations imposed on them by their environment. The Nuer live in southern Sudan on sides of the Nile river where jungles and swamps line the river and also live on out past the flood plains with a total of roughly thirty-five thousand acres in which the Nuer inhabit. Alternating floods and droughts make it impossible for the Nuer to live in one place year-round. During the rainy season, the floods come and make the Nuer retreat from the low-lying areas to their rainy season villages on higher ground. At this time they must cultivate crops in order to supplement their meat and milk products, foodstuffs provided by their cattle, which is usually millet that grows fairly well inland away from the flood plains. After the floods and rains pass, drought sets in quickly, bringing the Nuer down from higher ground to search for water and grass lands to graze their cattle and to find fish in the pools of water and small lakes caused by the flooding. The Basseri live in southern Iran, hundreds of miles from the Nuer, and are a nomadic society whose migration route is nearly three hundred miles long and almost fifty miles wide. The Basseri territory ranges from the mountains to the desert, throughout this range there is little rain. Precipitation in the mountains fall as snow, thus there is more vegetation and forested land in this area. In the flat and low-lying areas, the summer is defined by drought with a little bit of grass showing up during the winter rains. In order to keep their flocks healthy, the Basseri travel over lands owned by agriculturists whom use irrigation to supply their crops with water and after harvest welcome the nomadic people to graze their flocks, because the manure acts as an excellent fertilizer. Bibliography: Word Count: 934
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