Note 1390 — Chapter XVI · —Influences Of A Mountain Environment

Everywhere in mountain regions appears this repugnance to centralized authority. Protection by environment obviates the necessity of protection through combination. The spirit of clan exclusiveness, the absence of a common national sentiment, characterize equally the tribesmen of mountainous Albania, of Persian Luristan,1390 and highland Kurdistan. Along the rugged upheaved area which forms the western boundary of India from the Khaibar Pass to the sea, British officials have had to negotiate with the native Pathan and Baluch "jirgahs," assemblies of the chief men of the countless clans into which the tribes are divided, as the only visible form of authority tolerated.1391 Combination must be voluntary and of a type to exact a modicum of submission. These requirements are best answered by the confederation, which may gradually assume a stable and elaborate form among an advanced people like the Swiss; or it may constitute a loose yet effective union, as in the famous Samnite confederacy of the central Apennines; or a temporary league like that of the ancient Arcadians, or the group of confederated sheiks of Bellad el Kobail, the "Country of the Highlanders" in mountainous Yemen, who in 1790 established a republican form of union for defense against their more powerful neighbors.1392