HERDER

Maasai man, Eastern Serengeti

A herder is a worker who lives a pastoralist life gathering and caring for a herd of domesticated livestocks. Different to a husbandry worker, who works at fixed (and often fenced) grazing settlements known as ranches, herders move with the livestocks wandering around open wild pastures in a nomadic/semi-nomadic fashion.

Overview :

A herdboy with his sheep in search of fodder at Chinawal, India

Shepherd sheep in Patagonia, Argentina

Usually if the person is a minor, he is called herdboy, an adult male herder is usually called a herdsman and a female herder by contrast is also called a herdswoman. Because their work is necessarily mostly outdoors, they move around from place to place in the course of their labours. The possibility exists that the lands upon which their beasts graze are not claimed as any single person's property.

A number of romantic legends have sprung up around some aspects of their way of life. Some herders whose lifestyles have become mainstays of fiction include :

• The shepherd, featured in pastoral literature

• The cowboy, hero of Western movies and fiction, featured in romantic tales from the United States

• The gaucho, who in the Pampas of Argentina, Uruguay, and the Southernmost Brazil, plays a similar role to the cowboy.

Other names :

• A campino is a cattle herder in the Portuguese region of Ribatejo.

Source :

https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Herder