For the History of Agricultural Life-Style in Tao-Klarjeti: Herding and Traditional Culture of Herders

Abstract

The traditional forms of historical Georgian provinces of Tao and Klarjeti located in the basin of Chorokhi
river in Turkey, was being developed along with other Georgian traditional communities and was determined
by geographical environment, along with other cultural traditional features, one can attest rather developed
forms of cattle breeding in the early period of tribe life. Many basic elements of agriculture were preserved
in an ethnographic environment thanks to the long-term maintenance of closed ravines, patriarchal lifestyle,
natural farming and traditional domestic industries. Early archeological artefacts in the territory
of Caucasus and Asia Minor – Anatoly, as well as paleontological and osteological materials of domesticated
animals, and other historic-ethnographic sources of the later period, directly indicate the highly developed
level of cattle breeding here since ancient times.
While studying the economic culture of the people of Tao and KLarjeti, it should be paid attention to the
traditional forms of farming, that represents the usage of food bank, breeding the animals in conditions of
nomadic herding, especially cattle, dairy products and its methods of storing, folk treatment of cattle diseases
and sanitary prohibitions, those details led to the variety of beliefs and ideas related to cattle breeding. Ethnology is interested in the division of animals according to the gender and age, studying the forms of labour
organizations related to agriculture and cattle-breeding, the sociocultural and linguistic analysis of the terminology denoting dairy products, describing the agricultural and socio-economic problems of cattle breeding, in particular, trading of animals, selling and buying forms, especially, because of the relations between
agricultural traditions, economic environment and trading system.