772 nomadic and pastoral societies: Africa bush Thus, the development of economies focused solely on animal tending, and particularly forms in which communities are nomadic for part or all of the year, represents a specialization to fit both an economic and environmental niche on the fringes of the mixed farming economy Pastoralism is a specialization in tending domesticated livestock such as cattle, goats, sheep, and camels for food and trade products In Africa pastoralism has long been associated with several characteristics: the habitation of dry grassland environments, mobility within those environments, and interaction with neighbors specializing in agriculture and in hunting, fishing, and foraging In addition to these characteristics, scholars sometimes associate nomadic pastoralists with expertise in warfare because the skills and organization necessary to defend large, dispersed herds from predators transfer well to those required for success in warfare Pastoralists inhabited grasslands to ensure that their livestock had access to adequate pasturage In Africa annual weather patterns concentrating precipitation into one rainy season play an important role in determining the lifestyle of pastoralists In many areas like the Sahel, the dry steppe region stretching south of the Sahara from the Atlantic to the Ethiopian highlands, herders spent the dry season in a base camp located near a permanent water hole and then moved away from this camp as grasses grew and rainy-season water holes filled This seasonal pattern of movement is known as transhumance Often some community members would stay behind in the permanent camp to cultivate a few fields Other societies, such as the Berber-speaking camel herders of the Sahara, moved constantly from one known water hole to the next in a fully nomadic pattern resembling the mobility of hunter-forager groups Generally, pastoralists in Africa emphasized herd size rather than the production of meat; archaeological remains consistently demonstrate that specialist herders slaughtered only those animals that were not in their reproductive prime As pastoralists engaged in these differing forms of mobility, they kept contact with agricultural communities on the fringes of their grassland homes Pastoralists produced a surplus of food products, such as milk, blood, and meat, and items of utility such as skins and bone tools These surpluses were traded with neighboring farming communities for grains, tools, cloth, and other products of sedentary life While cooperation characterized most interactions between pastoralists and their farming neighbors, there could also be competition between them for the control of land and sometimes trade Furthermore, both the symbiosis and the tensions between communities with different economic specializations could lead to the development of ideas about eth- The Khoi During the medieval era, the Khoi lived in the grasslands of southern Africa They were nomadic pastoralists Their movements may have taken advantage of the changes in weather during the year, especially the rainy season Their name is sometimes rendered as Khoikhoi, meaning “people-people.” Historians disagree about where the Khoi originated Their language is similar to that of the San of southern Africa, suggesting an affinity with the San, who were huntergatherers rather than herders in the medieval era Even so, some linguists believe the Khoi were related to herders of sheep in northeastern Africa Some historians suggest that the Khoi originated in what is now Botswana Archaeological evidence indicates that they were shepherding sheep in the 400s, but they may have been doing so since the first century From the 400s to about the 600s the Khoi ranged over almost the whole of Africa east of Namibia Near the end of that period Bantu-speaking peoples arrived in southern Africa and pushed the Khoi out of the eastern lands, leaving them the central plains of southern Africa These later migrants may have come south by way of the central woodlands of Africa as well as along the eastern coast of Africa It is likely that the migrants who took the coastal route are the ones who displaced the Khoi from the more fertile lowlands The early Khoi herded sheep and goats Exactly when they added cattle is not as yet known Their cattle were descended from cattle that had originated in northern Africa It is possible that cattle were at first introduced to the Khoi by way of central Africa, but evidence at present indicates that the cattle were introduced by herders from northeastern Africa The Khoi’s wealth and social status depended on how many cattle they owned If a Khoi lost his cattle, he would turn to hunting and gathering He could sell items such as feathers to the settled peoples of eastern Africa, thereby earning enough to purchase cattle and reinstate his status in his community nic identity based on subsistence practices, as was the case in 19th-century Rwanda with Tutsi pastoralists and their Hutu agriculturalist neighbors Of course, the development of ideas tying ethnic identity to economic specialization allowed for