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Ethnic Music of Iran for your listening pleasure.
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Iran Ethnic Music - Historic and Cultural of the Islamic Republic of Iran it’s People
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Iran Ethnic Music Coming Soon . . . in the meantime, Nomads of Iran
 In the central Asian, the mountainous regions of the Middle East, Arabian Desert and the Semi Arid regions of Africa, migration has been adopted as an historical way of life and complement to sedentary living. Pastoral, migratory style of living has existed in Iran since the ancient times.
Despite the fact that Iran is considered to be one of the most ancient centers of agriculture and sedentary settlement a particular way of life characterized by migration has developed in this land due to ecologic and socio-economic conditions.
This country has been inhabited by different people since the old days. By the time the Iranians reached this land, they faced communities that had settled down there since 7th millennium. B. C. and were skilled in farming, cattle-raising and working with brass.
Although settling in villages and valleys was quite prevalent when the Aryans reached Iran, people used to live a pastoral life in many regions: they used to live in tents in summers and sere even considered and tribesmen, yet they were not nomadic, migratory people. Cattle-raising and tribal structure of the society were both attributed to migratory way of life, yet they were not the only characteristics. The only factor distinguishing them from sedentary communities was the seasonal migrations and the lack of specific village settlements.
 Regions where tribal cattle raising are common in Iran are the attitudes where rich pasture lands are formed upon the thawing of the snow. These are cold regions known as “Sard Sir”. All mountainous regions in Iran as suitable raising cattle with the exception of a small area. However, cattle-raisers are forced to leave the high altitudes because of the hard winter conditions and move to the lower lands called “Garmsir” where the winters are mild. Again in summer, the heat and their cattle are constantly on the move to make the best use of the unstable natural conditions. In addition, the Iranian geo-political factor and its location on the junction going the central and western Asian, together with the existence of the steppes and vast deserts much suited to the nomadic way of life, have made the herss-keeping tribes to invade this land in search of grass and water and thus encourage nomadic and migration.
In spite of the long history of migratory way of living in this land, there is not much access to information regarding the nomadic tribes in Iran before Islam. However, pastoral life is believed to have been important in those days too, due to the ecologic conditions.
In the Islamic era, Iranian tribes consisted of the Kurds, Lurs, Baluchis, Arabs, Turks, Turkmans, and the Barahuis. All these groups had a tribal structure with some living in villages and others partly migrating. In fact, this style of living gained importance in Seljuk period (11th - 14th century) and after the Mongol invasion in particular, and many Turkish speaking tribes descended to Iran gaining military control over the Iranian society from the 11th until 19th century, most ruling dynasties of this era were from among the tribal chiefs.
Since the beginning of the present century, tribes have undergone many changes due to political (power of the central government) and economic conditions (the expansion of the trade and industry in the world). Destruction of the tribal structure and the chief mane’s military power in conflict with the central governments speeded up to process of settlement among them.
 Tribes consisted of the tribal structure -a patrilineal organization based on blood relations ensuring the solidarity within the group and connecting the nuclear family to the tribe as a whole. Families would form in administrative, political units around this axis with the lower ranks showing a more realistic kinship relation thank the idealistic higher ones. The same organization with some differences existed between the Arabs, Lurs, Kurds, Turks, Turkamans, Baluchis and the Barahuis. Tribal organizations forming military unions would also bring different tribes closer together. Tribe members classify their community of the basis of partilineal groups, with smallest being “the brother’s group” (the sons of the same father). The next group is “the brothers and boys” (the sons of the same father’s father). And the third group consists of the sons of the same father’s grandfather. This classification goes as far back as the common ancestor of all members of the tribe. This organizational structure is seen among most Iranian tribes with minor differences. Among the “Qashqais”, for example, tribes are usually divided into a few clans. Clans in turn consist of a few sects, which are further divided into “Bonkus” consisting of a few families called “obehs”, moving together and having a common pasture. “Bonkus” can also be divided into smaller cattle-raising cooperatives called “Baillehs”. All Bailleh’s families set up their tents close to each other and take their herds grazing together. At migration, however, all “Baileh” belonging to the same “Bonku” join together. The tribe as a whole can function in harmony to stage wars, ensures security, divide pasture lands, and raise cattle and move, through this organization.
The power structure in the Iranian tribes usually consists of a pyramid headed by a leadership based on kinship. Distribution of political and administrative powers within the “II-kahn” on top and the “kalantars” heading each clan and so on.
Due to common interests, tribes act as an organized whole with regard to the path ways and pasture lands belonging to one tribe of clan only, their paramilitary organizations with their extensive power distinguishes them from the villagers and town dwellers.
Migratory tribes in Iran live along the Zagros mountain range and in West and East Azarbaijan in the western part of Iran as well as in Kermanshahan, Khuzestan, Luristan, Illam and “Charhr-Mahal-e-Bakhtiyari”, “Kohkiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad”, Fars, Khorassan, Sistan and Baluchistan, Semnan and the central regions of Iran.
According to recent census taken in Iran, tribes consist of people related through tribal dependence with a pastoral, migratory style of living. The 1988 census reveals 94 tribes and 547 independent clans with the total population of 1,152,099.
Meat and dairy products constitute the main economic activities of the migratory tribes; Handicrafts well known in the world also play a major role in the economy of the tribal family. Agricultural products and hunting and gathering rank next, looting the city dwellers as a means of fulfilling the tribal requirements is no longer exercised today due to the destruction of the military power of the tribes and their disarmament.
 Tribes often define their groups and clans in terms of tents (the singular “tent” denotes the word “home”). An independent primary family occupies each tent. Tent is the apparent external sign of such social unit. The partrilineal family is endogamous and patrilocal. Marriage is based on a caste system.
Iranian tribes are the followers of Islam of both Suni and Shiite sects. “’Ali-Allahis” constitute a small minority. There is also a group worshipping the Satan (Yazidis). At times primitive beliefs and ceremonies such as worshipping animals (Totems) regarded as the tribal ancestors or the stones and rocks and trees and springs are observed among them.
Depending on their ethnic background, tribes residing in Iran speak Persian, Kurdish dialect, Luri, Lak, Baluchi, Arabic, Turkish and Turkamani.
 Education among the tribes exists on a low level due to differences in language (the formal language used at schools is Farsi only), working children, and the lack of access to educational facilities, long distance almost deprive these people to receive health care from the adjacent towns and villages.
Today, remnants of large tribal unions move in scattered groups in paths now engaged by villagers and town dwellers towards their ancestral pastures to which they have a legal right. Many are the families whose pictures taken in the by gone days remind us of their old way of life, who have now settled down at the edge of a village for good. Tribes’ people refer to the villagers as “land-bound” and call themselves “of the wind”.
There will come a day when the only legacy left by the tribe is the colorful hand-woven crafts, each symbolizing a tribe’s color, their land and myth in the design.
--Ziba Arshi
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