Paradoxically, it was (and still is) precisely those clansmen of the nomadic areas who were least disposed to work on the land, because of their traditional contempt for cultivation, who were most anxious to obtain salaried employment. By contrast, the southern cultivating peoples, could, at this time certainly, satisfy most of their modest wants from the produce of their own fields and livestock without engaging in salaried employment except in time of scarcity and famine.

I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Som…, loc. 270