Herd men do not graze like bison or antelope. Their guts just are not capable of digesting an almost pure cellulose diet. Possibly the covenant of Waha altered them a bit, so they may have very limited ability to ferment coarse plant material, but it isn't going to be adequate for them to live on it.
I picture them as being standard savanah hominids, like our ancestors, sort of homo habilis with a higher forehead. The can eat some plant material, but it tends to be succulent leaves, seeds, berries and roots, material with a much higher nutrient content than the grass and leaves browsed by other herd beasts. They are probably the only herd beast that does dig out roots. They also eat a wide variety of animal materials, grubs, ants, lizards, snakes, small mammals and birds.
One unique capability of herd men is that they can be trained to bring food back from a foraging trip. Since most of their diet is edible by the morocanth, this is a useful talent.
They can also be trained to act as hunting packs. Wild herd men will sometimes act in concert to hunt small game. Morocanth can train them to use this natural instinct against larger game. The herd men will pursue and harry the target in shifts for a day or more until they drive the exhausted creature into a killing party lying in ambush (the morocanth wait there).
Herd men are much smarter than any other herd beast, so they can be trained for many tasks that others can not. I figure that they are smarter than chimpanzees and much smarter than dogs. They can be trained for hunting, guarding, attack, foraging, and other tasks.
Herd men may not be the most useful of herd animals, they reproduce rather slowly and are poor milkers, they have no wool, and they can't be ridden. On the other hand, they do have some unique capabilities that allow the morocanth to compete against the other tribes.
Think how useful domesticated dogs have been to primitive human societies. Now replace the dogs with a domesticated savannah ape with high intelligence and manipulating appendages. Let your imagination run with that.
The big thing that separates herd men from true men is language, IMO. Herd men are born without it, true men subjected to FIX INT lose it. What they lose is not just the capacity to speak, but they lose the ability to manipulate symbols. They can no longer even think in language. As a result they live in a here and now existance without a future. They can learn. They can recognize voice commands from a morocanth, but this is a stimulus/response type of learning, not a use of language.
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