(I) the SOCIAL STRUCTUBE of Soumn SOMALI TRIB by Virginia I?
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(i) THE SOCIAL STRUCTUBE OF SOumN SOMALI TRIB by Virginia I?lling A thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of London. October 197]. (ii) SDMMARY The subject is the social structure of a southern Somali community of about six thousand people, the Geledi, in the pre-colonial period; and. the manner in which it has reacted to colonial and other modern influences. Part A deals with the pre-colonial situation. Section 1 deals with the historical background up to the nineteenth century, first giving the general geographic and ethnographic setting, to show what elements went to the making of this community, and then giving the Geledj's own account of their history and movement up to that time. Section 2 deals with the structure of the society during the nineteenth century. Successive chapters deal with the basic units and categories into which this community divided both itself and the others with which it was in contact; with their material culture; with economic life; with slavery, which is shown to have been at the foundation of the social order; with the political and legal structure; and with the conduct of war. The chapter on the examines the politico-religious office of the Sheikh or Sultan as the focal point of the community, and how under successive occupants of this position, the Geledi became the dominant power in this part of Somalia. Part B deals with colonial and post-colonial influences. After an outline of the history of Somalia since 1889, with special reference to Geledi, the changes in society brought about by those events are (iii) described. The section on Afgoi in the nineteen-sixties deals with the developments in population, general culture, economic life, poli .- tics and law. A chapter describes the New Year customary 'stick fight', and considers the significance of this tradition in the life of Geledi. The concluding Section D siiminiiiaes the developments in this community, in its transition from an autonomous small polity to a part of a modern nation state. The old elite based on wealth, originally in slaves, was being replaced by a new one based on education; but the latter derived from the former, and the representatives of both co- operated together. (iv) C0L Page Smary (ii) Introduction 1 A. Pre-Colonial. 1. Setting and History (a) Geographical and Historical Background 9 (b) Legendary History of the Geledi 26 2. Geledi. Society in the Nineteenth Century a The Divisions of Society 30 b Settlement and Daily Life 51 o Economic Life 84 d The Slaves 117 e Lineage Groups and. Law 132 f Yiarf are 156 g The Gobron Sultaiiate 16]. B. Colonial and Modern Times. 1. Historical Outline 1889-1969 194 2. Social Changes in the Twentieth Century (a) Colonization 211 (b) De-Colonization 231 3. Afgoi in the Nineteen-Sixties a Settlement and Daily Life 236 b Economic Life 258 c Politics and Law 287 C. The Stick-Fight and New Year Festival 311 D. Conclu5ion 353 Appendices: I Genealogical Chart of Geledi. Noble Lineages 563 II Genealogy of the Gobron Dynasty 364 III Genealogical relationships of the Hawiye groups mentioned in the text. 365 IV Population of Afgoi-Geledi Town 1954 366 V Chronology of Principal events in Geledi History 367 q CONT1 (contd.) Page BiblioTaphy 368 Maps. I The Horn of Africa 8 II Afgoi-Geledi Town 63 III South Somalia 178 (a) 1. flTRODUCTION This account of a south Somali community was undertaken with two objects. The first was to carry out an intensive study of a single community, to supplement the broader and. more general studies of south Somali society made in the past by such Italian ethnographers as Cerulli and Colucci, and more recently by Prof. I.M. Lewis, and thus to carry forward the comparison between the two major divisions of the Somali people; the pastoral nomads living mainly in the north of the country, and the settled agricultural population of the south. The second, which led specifically to the town of Lfgoi-Geledi being chosen as a location, was to investigate the social background of a custom peculiar to that town and which has attracted a good deal of attention in Somalia, the annual 'stick fight' between the young men. This fight, and the festival of which it Lorina a part, are dealt with in Section C. With regard to the first object; the society of Geledi is here considered as a part of southern Somali society at large. The simple 2 and flexible political and social system of the northern, nomadic Somali (see Lewis 1961) was developed in response to the precise pres- sures of a very spare environment. It is the society of a people who are (with the exception of some quite small subsidiary groups) homo- geneous in origin and culture, and conscious of their common descent. Ties of locality play almost no part in it, and neither does fixed political subordination. It exists over a wide area with little variation, and can therefore only be suitably analysed in its full extent. It is also a society which appears to have changed very little within its known history, so that Richard Burton's book of 1856 can be described by Lewis in 1961 as still 'the best general account of northern Somali society'. (p.ln) The southern Somali show what has become of a basically similar cultural tradition in a different environment and subject to other influences. The chief of these was sedenterisation, and one of the effects of this is that we find, instead of an unbroken social fabric stretching continuously over a whole area, a collection of separate units of population, which in spite of many links of tradition and corn- munication between them, have tended as it were to shrink away from one another and concentrate their social life within themselves. Local variations are therefore much greater here than in the north. In order to describe southern Somali society in any detail, it is necessary to concentrate on one such unit, and. examine it without 3. making any assumptions as to whether or not it is 'typica]) of the rest. This must balance and. supplement broader investigations; it is to be hoped that eventually other close studies may be made of other such communities, so that a more complete picture may be built up before the whole has changed beyond recognition. In the limited field of agricultural Somalia, it would not be feasible to make an anonymous study, like the 'village studies' that have been made in India and elsewhere, taking one community which is assumed to be repreatative of many others, and describing it as an example of a type. Settlements of any size are too few in Somalia, and the differences between them too marked, to admit of this kind of treatment. There is some danger, perhaps, of moving too far the other way, from treating the community to be described as typical, to implying that it is more exceptional than it is in fact, and under-emphasizing its part in the continuous social life of the nation of which it is a part. I hope that the emphasis on history and development which is here adopted may help to avoid both dangers. Geledi is not merely a sample of the southern Somali society, but has been a political force of considerable importance within it. Life in southern Somalia has been modified much more than in the north by the historical changes which came with Italian colonization, since this more favourable environment attracted a settler population, and efforts at development during the colonial period, which the north 4. missed through its lack of natural resources. In view of this, and of the historical importance of Geledi, the present work is planned as a diachronic study in development. It is therefore divided into two main parts, the first dealing with the pre-colonial society, the second with its response to colonial and modern influences. What this means, in effect, is the incorporation of what had been an autonomous political unit, interacting with others of the same kind, into a larger state system, of which it has become merely one small part; and the modifications which this entailed in the structure of the comnmnity itself. The fieldwork for this study was carried out over sixteen months in 1966 - 68, and a further two months in the summer of 1969. The description and analysis of contemporary conditions given here are therefore based on my own observations during that time, supplemented by some statistical material taken from official records. It was three months after I finally left the country in 1969 that the military coup occurred which has changed its political structure yet again; this account therefore only applies to the situation up to that date. For conditions before the colonial period, and for developments under colonial rule, I have relied partly on what I was told by infor- mants, partly on those aspects of the older social structure which still survive, and partly on the published vritings of European etimographers, travellers and administrators of the past, who recorded what they saw in Somalia. These three sources supplement one another, and, used together, make up a fairly complete picture. In describing the particular type of social unit represented by (traditional) Geledi, a problem of terminology arises. The main groupings of the Somali nation are generally referred to in the older ethnography, English and Italian, as 'tribes' (tribi). This word. was used, for instance, to translate the Arabic loanword gabila; in those works the Geledi would have been designated a 'tribe'.