Some of the Ghilzay have long been…

Some of the Ghilzay have long been nomadic merchants, buying goods in India, where they winter, and in summer transporting these by camel caravan for sale or barter in Afghanistan.

Afghan nomads begin to enter the central mountains of Afghanistan in the late nineteenth century, establishing several summer trading camps in the western mountains.

In a related movement, former stockbreeding nomads, who had always obtained grain and other necessities from villagers along their route, now increase their trading activities.

Some acquire land and, in summer, move from one tenant-cultivated property to another.