On the Use of Social and Political Titles among the Nomad Society

Jacques Legrand

On the Use of Social and Political Titles among the Nomad Society

(55th Meeting, 2012)

Use of large sets of social and political terms and titles among Asian nomads’ societies, especially among the Mongols at different times deserves attention. Among those largely known terms, such as Qan, ba’atur, nojon, ezen, tajizi, jinong, etc., many are of evident or covert origin. Of special interest is to analyse their place and role in shaping the nomadic political and social order. It is assumed here that, far from being only terms describing social structure and institutions, titles, their adoption and use play of their own a strategic role, contributing by themselves in the emergence of hierarchic relationships among a largely dispersed society, in which accumulating material strength and human forces were most generally out of reach and needed substitution by symbolic though not less “real” and active.