the relatives of an executed warrior could openly complain after the martial law was lifted and question the marshal’s decision. If the marshal was found to exceed his powers, he would either pay the compensation fee per generally accepted rate, or could even be reelected. If the insulted party wasn’t happy with the ruling, they could take upon themselves to carry on bloody vendetta and seek to kill the said Khan or marshal, often successfully. The life of a nomadic Khan was dangerous.
In case of successful military raids or campaigns, the spoils of war were divided among the nomads honestly and democratically. The Khan would receive the biggest part, since he carried the most risks in case of a failure and because he had to feed his own guardsmen and their families. The tribal militia would receive parts of the spoils proportional to their quantitative input. Ideally, all of the participants would get their fair share, even if they didn’t play a decisive part in the overall success. But the honor and glory would go to those who did, and this is why everybody tried hard.
Judicial system
Courts didn’t exist in nomadic society in the same form as they did in SC nations. Instead, the nomads had arbitrary judges, who were among the most honorable and distinguished members of EN society. In order to become a judge, one must have had a life-long impeccable record of honest behavior and good judgement. If one didn’t meet these requirements, he simply would never see any clients, as they would choose to go to somebody with a better reputation.
If there was a dispute between two parties related to murder, theft, or pastures, and they couldn’t come to an agreement on their own, they could come to a judge they trusted, and he or she for a percentage of the settlement amount would listen to both sides, counsel them, and offer a solution to their dispute. If both parties were satisfied, the judge’s reputation grew, and he would find more clients.
But judges’ role wasn’t just to be arbiters for disputes. Best judges were so influential because of their practical wisdom that they became advisors to tribal leaders or even Khans. Some judges even were asked to take over the leadership of entire tribes or tribal confederations, which almost equaled them to the status of Khans. A status of a judge wasn’t passable to their children, it could only be earned by a person’s own merits and deeds. No wonder Ancient Greeks called the EN «the most decent of men».
In traditional ENC law, the criminal penalties never contained long-term imprisonment. In traditional society there were only two ways of dealing with criminals: material penalty and death. For each type of the crimes there was a universally agreed fee. Injuring a person cost a certain amount of cattle or money, killing a person would cost much more, and etc. And if, on rare occasions, the affected party didn’t accept the penalty for their killed member for some reason, they could choose «death for death» penalty instead. The execution of this sentence was up to the affected party, who would try hunting down and killing the violator.
Healthcare, education, and pensions
Of course, no society could exist without some form of healthcare system. The nomads never had hospitals, clinic, or medical schools. Instead, every nomads since the childhood was taught basic medical literacy. The parents were the doctors in their family, capable of curing most of the common ailments by themselves, using homemade remedies, such as sheep far, herbs, warms, horse milk, and etc.
In case if the disease was serious, they could visit or invite a tribal medicine man or a woman, who was a person of particular aptitude and knowledge in curing people. There were a few types of these nomadic «doctors», some specializing in herbal medicine, others in injuries and surgeons, some could fix broken bones and dislocations, and correct skeletal problems, and some could even cure the non-physical and mental illnesses, similar to shamans. These skills could be passed from generation to generation.
It must be noted that historically the EN were very healthy, comparing to the SC nations, as it was noted by European and Russian travelers in Modern Era who visited the nomadic tribes of Kazakhstan and Mongolia. They reported that the nomads don’t have any diseases, except for those caused by traumas, poisonous bites, infections, or age. Therefore, the traditional EN medicine was mostly geared towards treating these conditions.
The EN did not have formal education institutions with proper courses, syllabuses, and degrees. Instead, the entire adult population of the Great Eurasian Steppe was faculty, and all of the youth were students. The process of education took place «on the job» as the children grew older, learned new skills and with their increasing knowledge could take up on more responsibilities.
In day time adult nomads taught their youth practical skills: feeding, watching after, and milking the cattle; sewing, weaving, fixing clothes, making household objects; as well as riding horses, shooting bows and fighting with and without weapons. And by night the most knowledgeable adults would tell their children amazing educational stories of the past, fairy tales with moral twists, or share common knowledge in geography, natural sciences, math, astronomy, and etc.
The EN never had pensions or social security systems. Instead, their elders relied on help of their children. Basically, it was universally accepted that if parents did a good job raising their children, left them good material inheritance, brought them up as good, decent people, and taught them to fend for themselves, then they would be automatically rewarded by having a secured golden age, provided by their offspring.
At the same time the elders weren’t useless dead weight enjoying a free ride. They were busy till their last breath: they picked up the slack after busy and inexperienced young parents in rearing and educating their grandchildren and helping with the house chores. The elders usually lived with the youngest son till their death, and in return he inherited all their main estate, including the emblematic father’s yurt.
The nomadic elders were actively involved in social life: advised the active adult population on matters of Kóshes and wars, formed an elderly assembly called aq-saqaldar (the white beards) which was so vital that for many common questions people went directly to them first for answers. Very often the aq-saqaldar were able resolve small disputes, consul the couples, convince youth to avoid making rushed decisions, and even prevent inter-tribal conflicts. At the same time, their voice could be decisive in times of wars and conflicts, and make adult population take weapons in their hands.
The social status of elders was elevated and they played a significant integral part in EN societies in all times.
Distribution of wealth and religions
One of the most interesting and incredible features of the EN society was the absence of sharp stratification and the poor.
The former was due to a fact that every man and woman were warriors and had a right to defend their honor with weapons in their hands. This was a society of free men and women after all. And they could unite and protect their rights quite remarkably, so any leader would have to think twice before trying to instill unjust ruling. And in case if the disagreed party was too small to use force, they could simply pack their yurts and kósh to another place or join another leader to avoid exploitation.
The absence of poor was because the nomadic lifestyle is only possible with a certain minimal amount of wealth. As minimal requirement, any nomadic family needs a yurt or two, a certain amount of horses and camels to carry the people, their yurts and possessions from one seasonal camp to another, and, of course, enough meat cattle to sustain the entire family with nutrition.
If a nomadic family had lost their cattle, horses, camels, and yurt, it automatically meant that they are no longer fit to carry on with the nomadic lifestyle. Hence they became jataqs, which literally translates as «lying in one place» meaning that a person or a family became settled. Other nomads looked down at these unfortunates, who would dream of ways to acquire the necessary amount of nomadic wealth to get back into nomadic game. Clearly, falling as low as to become jataq and lose the status of a free nomad was considered one of the worst misfortunes that any nomad could think of.
The