Herding, Horses and Seasonal Pastoral Life

Across the Mongol Empire, herding coordinated people, animals, pasture and water across the seasons. From 1206 to about 1260, sheep, goats, cattle, horses and camels supplied food, clothing materials and transport. William of Rubruck, a Franciscan, travelled through the western Mongol domains in 1253–55 and continued east to Karakorum, the imperial capital in present-day Mongolia. Along the route he visited Batu, ruler of the empire’s western territories, and later observed Möngke’s court at Karakorum. His account follows pastoral work from household camps to the imperial court.

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Different animals, different work

Sheep and goats supplied meat, milk, wool or hair, and hides. Wool could be felted into coverings for dwellings and carts; hides became containers, clothing and footwear. Cattle provided milk and could pull carts. Camels carried baggage on some routes, while horses supplied riding, breeding, milk and meat. The mix of animals gave households different sources of food, materials and transport.

Horses supplied riding mounts, and mares provided foals and milk. Rubruck describes a methodical milking routine: foals were tethered near their mothers, and a foal could be brought to a reluctant mare before the milker began. Milk collected in a skin was beaten with a wooden churn until it fermented and butter separated. The resulting fermented drink, kumis, was one product of the household’s seasonal work with horses.

Movement followed pasture and water

Rubruck says that Mongol groups knew the boundaries of their grazing lands and where to go in winter, summer, spring and autumn. He observed movement toward warmer southern areas in winter and cooler northern ones in summer. Rubruck notes that winter pasture without surface water could still be grazed when snow covered it, because the snow supplied water. A camp needed forage at its destination and water along the route, so knowledge of springs, rivers and seasonal grazing shaped when and where people moved.

Pasture could not feed unlimited animals in one place. Grassland contains plants livestock will not eat, and a large concentration of animals can consume the available forage. Moving herds gave grazed land time to recover. On his journey from Batu to Möngke, Rubruck says the party sometimes changed horses two or three times in a day, but sometimes went two or three days without finding a supply station. Tired horses slowed them further: travelers moved their loads onto pack animals and sometimes two riders shared one mount. The journey depended on a route that supplied both riding and pack horses.

Households organized care and transport

Animal care continued while a camp moved. People had to keep young animals near their mothers, milk animals at suitable times, gather and process products, and load the household’s dwelling and possessions. Rubruck describes felt-covered dwellings carried on large ox carts. Smaller wicker chests held bedding and valuables; families tied them to high carts drawn by camels. A difficult stretch of road could require drivers to detach carts and take them across one at a time. His account shows the work behind mobility: transport relied on animals, carts, drivers and decisions about which loads could travel together.

Rubruck describes women driving cart trains, setting up dwellings, milking cows, making butter and curds, and sewing hides and clothing. He assigns men the care and milking of horses and the making of saddles, carts and household frames. He says both sexes cared for sheep and goats, sometimes milking them, so flock work crossed those task assignments.

Products sustained people through the year

Fresh milk was seasonal, so people processed it for later use. Rubruck says cow’s milk was churned first to extract butter. The butter was then boiled until dry and packed in sheep paunches for storage. The remaining milk was left to sour, boiled until it curdled, and dried in the sun. In winter, people broke the hard curds into water and churned them into a sour drink. Mare’s milk was fermented and churned, while meat from animals that died could be cut into strips and dried in air and sun. These methods supplied food that could travel or bridge a season when fresh milk was scarce.

Rubruck says that fine wool was picked from coarser wool for clothing. The remaining wool was made into felt for houses, baggage chests and bedding; wool mixed with a third of horsehair made ropes. Rubruck’s party sometimes ate meat half-cooked when they reached camp after dark and could no longer see to gather ox or horse dung for fuel. Wood was rare along their route. At Möngke’s dwelling, Rubruck saw a cattle-dung fire burning in the center of the room. Herding therefore generated follow-on work in the camp, from collecting and preserving food to making and repairing the equipment used for travel and shelter.

Imperial camps drew on pastoral supplies

Large ruling camps required supplies on a scale that ordinary households did not. Rubruck reports that thirty men, each stationed a day’s journey from Batu’s camp, sent him milk each day from a hundred mares apiece, or 3,000 mares in all. He compares this supply to a share of produce owed by peasants elsewhere. The account places Batu’s milk collectors a day’s journey from the court, linking those supply stations to the mobile camp.

Exchange linked herders with settled communities

Pastoral production did not supply every item people needed. Rubruck says great lords had villages in the south that sent millet and flour for winter. People with fewer resources obtained these staples by trading sheep and pelts. Grain therefore reached households through different channels: a ruler could draw supplies from his southern villages, while poorer herders exchanged livestock products with settled communities.