Besides better-off individuals, the community itself is an important employer, needing herdsmen, guards, and, in Elbashï water supervisors.
The duties of the village herdsmen vary with the type of animals and the season. In Sakaltutan two shepherds and two boy lamb-herds are appointed in the spring, but in the autumn, when some of the sheep are sent away to pasture elsewhere, one of each is sufficient. Goats are herded with the sheep. One man is responsible for the cows for about eight months from spring to the first snow, and a boy looks after the calves and asses. Two ox-herds work from the spring until the beginning of the harvest, taking the oxen off by night to pasture and returning them to their owners at daybreak ready to work. The water buffaloes are separately pastured in the same way. Thus a total of six men and three boys are employed for a limited period in the course of each year.
The arrangements in Elbashï are similar but on a larger scale because the village owns far more animals. They have, for example, eight shepherds and four lamb-herds as well as separate herdsmen for horses and foals. The total number employed in a year, again for varying periods, is about twenty-four.
In both villages the village as a whole employs the herdsmen for all animals except sheep and goats. In Sakaltutan they appear to carry out their duties according to their own intelligence, but in Elbashïthe headman exercises a definite control over them, directing them daily where to take their herds. The shepherds in Elbashï are employed on a private basis by leading households in each part of the village, and lesser men