Pastoral Peoples

In reading about the pastoral peoples it was very interesting how they adapted to the different regions that enveloped the Mongol Empire. Depending on their need and what was available to them by geographical region, they made different choices that changed the way they interacted with the civilization that they were interacting with.

In some instances they maintained their life on the outskirts of the civilization and only interacted when they went to gather what they required and then returned back to the steppes to live. In other instances, the Mongols actually became acclimated in the new civilization that they were conquering and took on their customs and traditions. And yet in other instances they improved the infrastructure of the civilization in order help gather support of the lands that they invaded.

In each instance though, the Mongols conquered the civilizations in a very violent way which sometimes included wiping out everyone that lived in the area they conquered. They demanded their conquered people to serve as slaves and moved the tradesman that they conquered around as they saw fit in order to do jobs that they saw as necessary. If the people did not submit then the Mongols would completely wipe them out and destroy their homes and villages.

One interesting fact was the way that the Mongols treated their females compared to other civilizations. The Mongols put the females on an equal footing and let them socialize freely. They did not seek to control their females as the conquered civilizations sought to do. The treatment of the females among the Mongols was looked at in disdain by all of the civilizations that they conquered.

In each of the different areas of the empire, it seems that the Mongols were not able to maintain their structure without having a strong leader to keep them aligned. When their strong leaders were gone, each of the tribes fell back into warring with each other which eventually ended their rule of the largest land based empire in the history of the world.