Praxian tribes don't exist in an ecological vacuum. Many environmental factors influence them besides the predations of other tribes. In an especially bad year for hyenas, the Impala tribe is hurt far more than the Bison. When there is a severe drought, the High Llamas suffer more than the Sables. Herd predation by other tribes is just one factor in many that governs a tribe's survival.
The tribes, whether minor or major, survive because each fills a niche that is not exactly filled by the other tribes, and because each has some advantage over the others.
In addition, the small tribes are NOT inferior to the rest in terms of herd predation. You must understand that the tribes don't roam en-masse. Instead, they are subdivided into clans or septs. Take the Impalas -- the most numerous tribe of all, but that doesn't mean Impala clans are larger than anyone else's -- it means that the total number of Impala clans exceeds those of the other clans.
A typical Bison clan might get raided a dozen or more times a year (the Bison are the most-raided of all clans). Of these raids, 4-5 are probably going to be from young Impala bravos. Sables and High Llamas each account for 2-3 raids in a year, Morocanth pull off 1-2, and the remaining odd raid or two is mounted by one of the independent tribes. Some raids succeed, some fail. The bottom line is that the Bison might lose 5-10% of their animals to herd raiders in a year.
The Bolo Lizard tribe is much smaller than the Bison, but they, too, only lose about 5-10% of their animals to raiders. Hence both tribes go right on ahead and existing, though one is far smaller than the other. When raiders go out to hunt, they're about twenty times likelier to meet a Bison clan than a Bolo Lizard one, and so the Bisons get raided more often _because_ they're more numerous.
The larger tribes don't "crowd out" the smaller ones. Unlike agricultural regimes, the Praxian animals (a) don't compete for the exact same resources and (b) must keep moving in any case, so that they'd can't very well hold title to any land for long.
>the grazing is easily controlled by controlling the oases. In the desert
or >chaparral country, who controls the watering rights controls the land.
>Unwatered land is nearly worthless, no matter how much there is.
There is no irrigation whatsoever in any part of the Wastes or Prax. The oases are valuable because they hold sources of useful material -- wood, dates, fruit, slave labor. They are not essential to the herds' survival.
End of Glorantha Digest V4 #429
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