Abstract
<title>Abstract</title> <p>Gujjar pastoralists of the Pir Panjal Himalaya live in continuous company with their animals and speak of them in terms ordinarily reserved for family. This article asks what that closeness consists of: which animals it extends to, what practices compose it, what it costs, and where it stops. Drawing on fourteen months of fieldwork in six settlements across Rajouri and Poonch districts, Jammu and Kashmir (n = 62), I document a materially costly repertoire of care. Core animals are named from the lexicon used for children, fed before the household eats when fodder is short, treated with local remedies and nursed through convalescence, carried when lame, not abandoned on the migration route, buried rather than disposed of, and mourned in ways that suspend household activity. Households also know their animals genealogically, tracing dams, offspring, siblings and naani (maternal grandmother) across three and four generations, and using those lines to decide which animals to retain and breed. Belonging is graded, and its distribution follows herding practice rather than species: buffalo-keeping and flock-keeping households of one community, sharing language, religion and region, accord the fullest care to different animals. Two pathways bring an animal into the household's circle of obligation — shared work, which yields a life history, and birth within the herd, which yields a line. What Gujjars extend to their animals is not a classification but the practical substance of family membership: precedence, attention, labour, grief and remembrance.</p>