He [Bruce Chatwin] wasn’t a nomad in the sense that nomads would talk about being nomads. A real nomad would move to places that he or she knew about, would understand the space involved, would not go in search of sensations. . . . Bruce’s theory about people moving because movement is a natural condition is wrong. I’ve spent lots and lots of time with lots of groups. All say it’s nice to move on: you don’t have the quarrels you get in villages or cities, you go to pretty places, you get up in the cool mountains in summer and the plains in winter. But it’s hell on wheels doing it, taking all your possessions and children. I remember the Bakhtiari women on the last bit of their migration, a high mountain pass though snow and a woman crying, sobbing with pain: ‘Why do we have to do this?’ The prospect of Bruce offering a lift in his Land Rover would have delighted them. It meant they did not have to walk. . . . He lumps together hunters, herders, gypsies. Everyone who moves is a nomad. In fact, what separates them is greater. Nomads move because their animals require fresh pasturing, not because of an innate neurosis. It doesn’t mean movement is unimportant: it’s enshrined in their way of life and they write songs about it—but it’s secondary, something you do because your dependence on animals requires it. So many of them have said to me: ‘If there was more pasture for our animals we would move less.’ All over the world nomads are moving less and are not notably unhappy about it. Nomads have a strong sense of home and place. The notion of them moving around randomly is completely false.