THE GALL A IN NORTHERN •>

I. M. LEWIS

Riassunto.- Da tempo£ statoprovato che una volta i Galla occuparono zonedel territorioora somalo.II presentearticolo mostra che, prima dei Somali, essistanziavano in alcunipunti di quelloche oggi £ il Protettoratobritannico e ne ricostruiscel'allontanamento sotto la spintadell'espansione dei gruppisomali nella Somaliasettentrionale. R£sum£.- Depuislongtemps il est prouv£que les Galla occupaientdes par- tiesdu payssomali avant les Somali.Le presentarticle montre qu'avant les Somali ils 6taient£tablis dans certainsendroits de l'actuelProtectorat britannique et suit leurd£placement dans la Somalieseptentrionale sous la pressiondes groupesSomali avacant. Summary.- Therehas longbeen evidence that the Galla occupiedparts of Somalilandbefore the Somali. Thispaper shows that before the Somali they were stationedin partsof whatis todaythe BritishProtectorate and tracestheir with- drawalunder pressure from the expanding Somali communities inNorthern Somaliland.

That the Galla occupied what is today centraland southernSomalia prior to the Somali is securely established. Dr. Cerulli has brilliantly reconstructedthe sequence of Somali migrationswhich, fromperhaps as early as the 12th century,began to bringa medley of Somali groups fromtheir earlier positions in the north of Somaliland into the centre and south at the expense of the earlierGalla inhabitantswho were driven south-westwardsinto . In the 17th century the Galla were forcedacross the Juba River, and by about 1910 the Dar5d Somali had advanced as far south as the Tana River in where they were halted by the establishmentof fixedgrazing areas a). That at an earlier period the Galla also preceded the Somali as the inhabitants of Nor- thern Somaliland is not so well established, although it is suggested by traditionswhich trace the originsof the Galla to NorthernSomali-

x) This paper is based on materialcollected in Somalilandduring my tenureof a Colonial Social Science Research Council Fellowshipin Social Anthropology.I am greatlyindebted to the Councilfor theirgenerosity and to the Governmentof the Somaliland Protectorate. For criticismof an earlierdraft of this paper I am especiallygrateful to Mr. B. W. Andr- zejewski and to Dr. M. Pirone. 2) See B. CERUiyiyi,Le popolazionidella nella tradizionestorica locale, "RendicontiR. Accademiadei Lincei (ScienzeMorali) 1926 pp. 150- 172; I. M. Lewis. Peoples of theHorn of Africa, London, 1955, pp. 45-8; and CERUUJ,Somalia , Scritti Vari Editi ed Inediti, vol. I, Rome, 1958.

This content downloaded from 193.205.142.142 on Mon, 01 Feb 2016 09:56:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 22 I. M. I/EWIS land 1). Some evidence has also been furnishedthat the Galla formerly occupied northernMijerteinia 2) (in the northof what is today Somalia), and also parts of the presentOgaden regionof Provinceof Ethio- pia 3). In this paper I adduce new evidence which to my mind makes it almost certain that the Galla did in fact occupy much of northern Somaliland priorto|the Somali.

I.

Before presentingmy evidence, it is necessary to referbriefly to a linguisticpoint which has been a source of much confusionin evalu- ating local Somali traditionsconcerning the Galla. In contemporary NorthernSomali thereare two distinctlinguistic expressions which have oftenbeen taken as the same. These are Galla, the name by which the Galla people are known to the Amharas, Arabs, and others, and gal (PI. galo, and with the article,galada) a pagan, infidel,or non-Muslim in general4). In contemporarySomali these are separate and distinct terms; and Somali are well aware that many of the Galla people, whom they also referto collectivelyas Gallawi or if they cultivate, as Qoti), are Muslims and thereforenot galo. In Ethiopia, the word " Galla has the sense of subjects those under government5);and al- though the Galla peoples are known collectivelyto outsiders by this title, they do not apply it to themselves. Indeed, there is apparently no collective name used by all the various Galla groups to designate themselvesas a distinctcultural entity 6). It has howeverbeen suggested that this name, whichis firstrecorded in the 16th century7) and which

x)See G. W. B. HunTingford,The Galla of Ethiopia, London, 1955, p. 19. " 2) CERUI^I,Tradizioni storiche e monumentidella Migiurtinia, Africa Italiana ", iv, 1931, pp. 153-169. See M. Pirone, e tradizionistoriche dei Somali 3) Leggende" , and Le popolazionidelV Ogaden, in Archivioper l'Antropologiae 1' Etnolo- gia lxxxiv, 1954, pp. 119-143. 4) As is well-known,the wordgal is commonlyapplied by Somali to Europeans,often without any directlyderogatory intention. In NorthernSo- malilandgal in thiscontext is usedas widelyas the moreneutral word faranji . 5) B. W. Andrzejewski,personal communication. 8) The name Oromowhich includes the majorityof the Galla people does not includethe Boran Galla of the NorthernProvince of Kenya and cannot thereforebe taken as an ethnicname for the whole Galla group. B. W. Andrzejewski,personal communication. 7) It is apparentlyfirst recorded in Bahrey'sHistory of the Galla (1593). See C. F. Beckinghamand G. W. B. HunTingford,Some Records of Ethio- pia, 1^3-1646, London, 1954; The Galla of Ethiopia,cit., p. n.

This content downloaded from 193.205.142.142 on Mon, 01 Feb 2016 09:56:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE GAI&AIN NORTHERNSOMAIJIyAND 23 " Cerulli apparently erroneouslyrefers to as the ethnic name of the Galla has been adopted by Somali in the formgal, infidelor pagan, referringto a time when the Somali had adopted but while the Galla were still non-Muslims1). But no secure evidence has yet been adduced in proof of this theory,and the fact remains that in modern NorthernSomali, at least, galo and Galla are quite distinct,although this may of course have not been so in the past. . It is necessaryto establish this linguisticpoint because the many " stone mounds, loosely referredto as Galla graves with which Nor- thern Somaliland is studded, have often been taken as evidence that the Galla formerlyoccupied the regiona) when Somali usually attribute them not specificallyto the Galla people but ratherto unspecifiednon- Muslims or pagans (galo). Somali generallyregard them as the work " " of the people who were before - an ambiguous descriptionwhich may mean anything - and because they differin constructionfrom contemporaryIslamic burials suggest that they are the work of non- Muslims. However, a Radio Carbon analysis of wood fromone such grave which I excavated indicates that some at least of these burials are not morethan two hundredand fiftyyears old and probablycontain Somali remains8). The traditionswhich I discuss in this paper and exa- mine in the light of other evidence referspecifically to the Galla people rather than to unidentifiednon-Muslims.

n. RESIDUALGAIXA GROUPS AMONGST THE NORTHERNSOMAU.

I begin my argumentby discussingthe many small pocketsof Galla which still survive today in the Protectorateand Ogaden region of Harar Province of Ethiopia. " " In 1946, the total population of the Reserved Area of Ethiopia (then under British Administration)was estimated at 300,000 souls, of whom 5,000 were Amharas, Arabs, and Indians, mainly residentin Jigjiga. Of the remainder,10,000 were Galla, mainly Akiso, and the

x) See Ceruuj, op. cit., 1931, p. 154. a) See e. g. Huntingford,op. cit.,1955, p. 19; Ceruuj, op. cit.,1931, p. 163; and N. Puccioni, Antropologiae Etnografia delle Genti della Somalia, vol. iii, Bologna, 1936, p. 121. 8) I hope to reporton the resultof theseexcavations and the analysis of humanremains from the in a later articleon the so-called" Galla " graves graves of NorthernSomaliland.

This content downloaded from 193.205.142.142 on Mon, 01 Feb 2016 09:56:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 24 I. M. IvEWlS rest Somali l). The Akiso are a segmentof the Barentu or Eastern Galla who forma prominentelement in Harar Province of Ethiopia and who extend to the east of the ancientcity of Harar in the directionof Jigjiga towards British Somaliland. Among the Somali Yabarre, Bartirre, Geri, and Abaskul clans of the clan-family2), and the Bursukof the clan-family,today residentin the Harar-Jigjiga regionand stret- ching towards the east and south-east to the Ogaden, live small groups of Galla Waraitu, Waradayo, Asabo, and L,ehile. Further to the east in the Ogaden amongstthe Somali Darod clan of the same name (i. e. the Ogaden) live groups of Obo Galla 3); and with the Somali Habar Awal clan of the BritishProtectorate who extend into the same region live Galla Waramiyo, Warapito (or Warabito), Warakiyo, Igo, and Waralogo. Finally, the Rer Roble Bdrama living amongst the Somali Gadabursi clan of the west of the British Protectorateare said to be Galla, and there may well be other groups4) . The extent of admixture and the character of incorporationof these Galla communitiesliving amongst Somali varies very much from place to place. With the incorporationof Garso and Babile Galla, the Dardd Geri of the Jigjiga regionhave split up into two separate groups, one to the northof Jigjiga,and the otherto the south. In each the Geri Somali are politically dominant,but the Geri Garso, who in contrast to the Geri Babile are largely agricultural,are Galla-speaking5). I have directpersonal knowledge of such residualGalla communities only amongst the Habar Awal of the west and centre of the British Protectorate. Here these are not Galla-speakingand are closely assimi- lated to the Somali of the area. Indeed physically- at least to the eye - and culturallyand linguistically,they are indistinguishablefrom the Somali amongst whom they live and with whom they are heavily intermarried. Amongstthe Habar Awal Sa'd cultivatorsin the Hargaisa-Gebile-Boramaregion in the west of British Somaliland, they are distributedin small autonomous farmingcommunities, or resident as individualsin the cultivatingvillages of the local Habar Awal Somali.

" " x) These figuresare taken from the Jigjiga District Notebook with the of the DistrictCommissioner, Hargaisa. permission " " 2) I use the term clan-family to referto the largestSomali lineage divisions. Cf. Pirone, cit., 3) op. p. 141. " 4) Informationlargely taken from Jigjiga District Notebook . See R. Burton, First in East , Memorialedition, 5) Footsteps Africa " London,1894, vol. i, p. 192; B. Francoijni, I Somali del Harar, Africa Italiana ", 1938, pp. 1, 127-29.

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In this area the Akiso,the largestGalla group,probably number no more than a fewhundred individuals and are widelydispersed. Yet they have their own headmen recognisedby the Governmentand their own inde- pendent organizationfor paying blood-compensation. They are thus a " " diya-paying group x) in their own right, but it seems that they sometimes have to depend upon the support of the strongerSomali with whom they live. They enjoy rightsto arable land which are only weaker than those of their numericallysuperior Somali hosts in virtue of their numericalweakness and inability to meet a concerted attack from their Somali neighbourswithout the assistance of the Adminis- tration. But they are not generallymolested, and usually live peacefully amongst their hosts being identifiedwith them in external political relations. As protected minoritiesthey are assigned the traditional status of clients magan)., and sometimeswith other alien minoritiesare " referredto derogativelyas gun (literally bottom") as opposed to the " " numericallystrong who enjoy the status of aristocrats {gob). The cultural and social assimilationof these Akiso minorities(and of course other, non-Galla minorities)to their strongerhosts is rarely accompanied by genealogical identification. And here it is necessary to explain that the Northernpastoral Somali have a segmentarylineage organizationin which political relations are expressed partly in gene- alogical terms, and partly througha system of political contracts (sg. her) whichcut across genealogicalrelationships 2). Minoritiescan achieve security through contract without genealogical assimilation; and this is generallythe position with the Akiso in question when they form wider alliances with neighbouringSomali. In a few cases, however,such Galla clients have been incorporated in the genealogies of their Somali hosts. Thus with the Habar Awal Rer Adan 'Abdalle, who are nomadic, Jjvea group of Akiso dependents who in 1946 were involved in a fightwith anothersegment of the Somali Habar Awal clan. Seven of the latter were killed,but only three of the Akiso who were requiredto settle fouroutstanding bloodwealths valued

*) This is the name given in the Protectorateto those agnatic kins- men who collectivelymeet theirblood debts (includingfull blood-wealth, dlya, Somali mag) in concert. The diya-paying group is the funda- mentaljural and politicalunit of NorthernSomali society. In 1958 in the Protectoratethere were over 360 such groupsin a total populationestimat- ed at about Their is discussedin 640,000. significance" my paper Clanship and Contractin NorthernSomaliland, Africa July,1959, pp. 274-293. 2) See Lewis, op. cit., 1959.

This content downloaded from 193.205.142.142 on Mon, 01 Feb 2016 09:56:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 26 I. M. IyEWIS at a hundred camels each x). This they had not the resourcesto pay, and they approached theirAdan ?Abdalle hosts seekingassistance from the latter and full genealogicalincorporation in their genealogy. Ulti- mately, after much discussion and opposition from other Akiso who wished the segmentconcerned to preserveits Akiso identity,they were fully assimilated to the Habar Awal clan and are now regarded as a segmentof the Adan cAbdalle lineage. This loss to Akiso integritystill rankles with other Akiso. Another case appears to occur with the Hinginle lineage of the Dulbahante clan in the east of the British Protectorate. Accordingto some, the Hinginle,who are an autonomousdiya-paying group and who figurein the Dulbahante genealogy,are in fact of Galla Akiso origin. But this is less well authenticatedthan the previous case. More typically, such dispersed Akiso minoritiesretain their own independent genealogies which, unlike those of the Somali, usually go back only four or five generationsto their eponym Akiso. Their short genealogies are in keeping with their small numbers and slight political significance. For in NorthernSomaliland there is a general correlationbetween the size, and thereforefighting strength, of a group, and its political importancea). A few Akiso, however, trace descent " quasi-historicallythrough many generationsfrom Samale the foun- der of the Somali nation3). The followinggenealogy of an Akiso elder of the Gebile region(to the west of Hargaisa in the BritishProtectorate) was conserved in writing(in Arabic) in a Quran. e Aqll Abu Talib 4) Samale Warre Abubakr Samale Hagi Abubakr Madahweine Hagi Mihi Madahweine

x) The standardvaluation of blood-compensationfor a man is a hun- dred camels,and fora woman,fifty. The amountsactually paid, however, vary considerablyaccording to the contextin which a homicideoccurs. Within a dia-payinggroup, blood-wealth is usually considerablyreduced in keeping with the solidarityof the group. See articleForce and Fission in NorthernSomali LineageStruc- 2)" my " ture, AmericanAnthropologist (forthcoming). 3) See 1/EWlS,The Somali Lineage Systemand the Total Genealogy, (cyclostyled),Hargaisa, 1957. 4) The majorityof the Somali people trace descentthrough cAqfl to Abu Talib who died in Mecca in A. D. 620. Interveninggenerations bet- ween Sample and eAqil have been leftout in the diagram.

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Same Mihi Mah Same 'Abdillahi Mah Si'id 'Abdillahi Ahmad Si' id eAbdi Ahmad Mubaraq 'Abdi Qalib Mubaraq Akiso Qalib - Eponytnof the Akiio Kuttaye Akiso Alio Kuttaye Dado Alio Adelle Dado Fahiye Adelle Sirwa* Fahiye fAye Sirwa' Hirsi 'Aye - Living Aki§o elder. ' Those residual Galla communitiesliving amongst the Somali of the west of the Protectorateand in Hargaisa District claim to have been the originalinhabitants of the countrybefore the Somali. Those who now cultivate amongst the agricultural Habar Awal, however, were like the latter originallypastoralists, for the cultivationof sorghum which is now extensivelypractised in the west of the Protectorateis scarcely older than fiftyor sixty years. Plough cultivation has been adopted fromthe Galla of Ethiopia throughSomali in the Harar-Jigjiga regionand has broughtvarious Galla culturetraits associated with agri- culturein its train. Thus Somali of the west of the Protectorateuse a plough of Galla type x) and sing ploughingand threshingsongs in which there are many Galla words although independent Somali versions now also exist. At harvest time, work-partiesconsisting of kinsmen and neigh- bours and called gus (cf. Galla guza) are summonedto threshthe sorghum in each farmer'sfield. Such work-partiesare not foundamong the Nor- thern pastoral Somali where most collective enterprisesare organized on a basis of clanship (tol) and contract (her). These examples of Galla influenceare all recent innovations and not evidence of an earlieroc- cupation of the area by Galla cultivators.

*) For illustrationsof Galla and Somali ploughs see Huntingford, loc. cit., 1955, p. 72.

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The real evidence for the earlier Galla occupation of these regions is thus not the adoption of Galla culturetraits, which is recent,but the presenceof these residual Galla communitiesfar fromthe main centres of the Galla in their present distributionsupplemented by the local Somali traditionswhich regard the Galla as their predecessors. In the Jigjiga area itself,tradition still maintainsthat the Galla preceded the Somali there; and the earliest wells in Jigjiga, Marar, El Yare, and El Bahay, are all attributedto the Akiso. Further evidence is provided by a number of local place-names which are clearly Galla and which are regardedby the local Somali as Galla. Such are Tog Wa gale; I gara (perhaps fromGalla igar, to build); Taise (perhaps fromthe Galla td' to sit or settle); Gara Horato (fromgara, people, and hor, to multiply or prosper); and even Hargaysa, the capital of the BritishProtectorate (cf. Galla hargaysa, a plant) x). No doubt thereare otherexamples which I did not record but these are place-nameswhich Somali of the region single out as of Galla origin. This new material taken with the traditionsrecently reported by Dr. Pirone2) fromthe Ogaden, and by Cerullifrom Mijerteinia 3) provides substantial evidence for a prior Galla occupation of western,central, and eastern NorthernSomaliland, and is corroboratedby other local traditions which I mention presently.

III.

THE DIR AND THE GALLAWITHDRAWAL FROM NORTHERN SOMALILAND.

Having established that the Galla occupied NorthernSomaliland as well as (perhapslater) centraland southernSomalia beforethe Somali, I now seek to trace somethingof the circumstancesof their expulsion fromNorthern Somaliland. Traditionsfrom all the areas today occupied by Somali concur in regardingthe Dir clan-familyas the oldest Somali stock4). Traditionallytheir firststronghold was along the coast and inland of what is today Districtin the east of the BritishProtec-

*) Possiblya speciesof aloe. The Galla interpretationsof thesewords are based mainlyon A. W. Hodson and C. H. Walker, A Grammarof theGalla or OromoLanguage , London, 1922. Mr. B. W. Andrzejewskihas also supplied valuable comments. 2) Pirone, op. cit., 1954, PP- 120-24. 3) Cerulli, op. cit., 1931, p. 154 f¥. 4) Cf. M. Colucci, Principi di DirittoConsuetudinario della Somalia Italiana Meridionale,Florence, 1924, p. 99; Lewis, op. cit., i955> P- 25*

This content downloaded from 193.205.142.142 on Mon, 01 Feb 2016 09:56:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE GAI/I^AIN NORTHERNSOMAUI,AND 29 torate. But in this region today only a few very small Dir remnants survive. Such are the Gambelle,Magadle, Madigan 1), Irdodub, Madobe, Minsulk, Turre and Gurgure,of whom only a few individuals of each groupseem to survivetoday in Erigavo Districtwhere they are attached to, and often completelyidentified with, the strongerlocal Isaq and Darod clans with whom they live. Other strongerDir groups survive in the Her and Gadsan, both lineages of sheikhs and holymenliving as pastoral nomads and priests amongst the Dar5d Ogaden. In the west of the British Protectorate,among the Habar Awal cultivators,other small scatteredgroups of Dir survive in the Madigan who have a similar client status to the Akiso (Galla) minoritiesof the same area. To the east of Harar live the Bursuk, a small clan also of Dir originbut apparentlytoday very mixed in composition,and mainly practising cultivation2). The GurgureDir also occur in some strength in the same region8). But the strongest Dir clans today in Northern Somaliland are the 'Ise (35,000 under British Protection)and Gadabursi (45,000 under British Protection)in the west of the Protectorate,Harar Province of Ethiopia, and . The graves of theirclan eponymslie in Erigavo Districtin the east of the Protectorate,several hundredmiles to the east of theirpresent habitat. There are also various Dir commu- nities in southernSomalia, but the largest and most importantare the BImal clan of Merka region. The presentscattered distributionof the Dir raises the question of how the Dir came to vacate their original strong-holdin the north-eastof Somaliland and how theirmovements affectedthe earlier Galla inhabitants. Under pressurefrom Somali - at firstapparently mainly the Dir - the Galla moved in two directions. In a southerlydirection they moved throughcentral and southernSomalia whereat least in some areas they encountered pre-Hamitic Bantu and perhaps Bushmen-typepeoples,

x) traditionrecords a group called Madagan, of allegedly Arabian origin,as participatingin the early historyof Mogadiscio(See CERUIAI,Somalia. ScrittiVari Editi ed Inediti,vol. ii, Rome, 1959,pp. 237- 41). Since the Dir ultimatelyclaim an Arabianorigin as do otherSomali theirdescent Abu Talib, it is that groups," tracing " through'Aqll possible the Madagan may be the Dir Madigan. 2) On the Bursuk see Burton, op. cit., i, p. 193. 3) The Gurgurewho are evidentlymuch mixed with Galla are classified as EasternGalla by Huntingford(op. cit., 1955, p. 15). They are mentio- ned twice in the Futuh al-Jiaba§a (ed. and trs. R. Basset, Paris, 1897- 1909).

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whom they expelled, but of whom a few residual communitiesstill survivetoday 1). To the north-westthey moved into what is today Harar Province of Ethiopia. Huntingford2) argues that the Galla migration fromSomaliland began at least as earlyas the 12thcentury and describes the penetrationof the Harar Highlands by what are today the Eastern Galla, a movementwhich by the end of the 16th centuryhad taken them across the Bashilo River and into the very heart of Ethiopia. Contemporaryoral tradition in NorthernSomaliland knows little of this Galla retreatand Dir advance since these eventshave been overs- hadowed by the more recent expansion of the Darod and Isaq clan- familiesat the expense of the Dir, a phase of Somali historyto whichI referpresently. Traditionholds, however,that when Sheikh Aw Bark- hadle, of Sarif descent,arrived in NorthernSomaliland to teach Arabic " and Islam and settledat the place whichtoday bears his name - Aw " Barkhadle - some thirtymiles to the north-westof Hargaisa he fought the Galla and defeated them8). Tradition dates the] Sheikh's arrival in the i2/i3th century. But since he seems to have been, as Cerulli suggests4), one of the |ancestors of the Walasma* dynastyof Ifat, and indeed accordingto an Arabic chroniclewhich I discoveredin Somali- land 6) the fifthascending ancestor of eUmarb. Dunya-huz, the founder of the dynastywho died in 1275 A. D., it appears that his strugglewith

See Ceruuj, cit., 1926; and Gruppietnici negri nella Somalia, " x) op. Archivioper l'Antropologiae FEtnologia lxiv, 1934. See also V. L. GroTTANEI,U,Pescatori delVOceano Indiano, Rome, 1955, pp. 35-43; and Lewis, op. cit., 1955, pp. 41-44. Huntingford, cit., 19. 2) op. 1955, p. " For a briefnotice of the Sheikh's workssee Lewis, Bulletinof 3) " the School of Orientaland AfricanStudies, 1958, xxi/i. p. 135. Sheikh Aw Barkhadleis traditionallythe Arab proselytizerwho subduedthe power of the - who are now bondsmenand widelydispersed - by over- comingtheir ancestor in a sortof ritualduel. This traditionwhich confirms present-daycustomary practise, explaining the alms paid to the by Somali as part of the blood-priceowed to them in perpetuityfor the murderof their ancestor,also suggeststhat the Yibir are pre-Somaliand possiblyGalla. But I have no specificevidence of this. On this pointsee also Pirone, cit., 120• op. " 1954, P- 4) Ceruwj, RRAL Ser. 6, iv, 1931, p. 67. 5) This is a list of the rulersof the Land of Sa'd ad-Din appendedto an unpublishedhistory of Harar writtenoriginally apparently by Ibrahim Sharifof Harar. The Arabicmanuscript to whichI had access was owned by Sheikh'Ali SheikhIbrahim of the EducationDepartment of the Soma- lilandGovt and was copiedby himfrom the versionof anothersheikh taken fromthe original.I hope to publishthis documentat a later date.

This content downloaded from 193.205.142.142 on Mon, 01 Feb 2016 09:56:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE GAU,AIN NORTHERNSOMAUI,AND 31 the Galla was probably in the 12thcentury. 1). Thus if|thisis a correct interpretation,there were at this time still Galla in the vicinityof Har- gaisa whose name itselfis, as has been pointed out, probably of Galla origin. Further light on the Dir advance and Galla withdrawal seems to be affordedby an Arabic manuscriptdescribing the historyof the Gadabursi clan2). This chronicleopens with an account of the wars of Imam 'Ali Si'id (d. 1392) fromwhom the Gadabursi today trace their descent and who is describedas the only Muslim leader fightingon the Western flank in the armies of Sa'd ad-Din (d. 1415), ruler of . These campaigns were clearly against the ChristianAbyssinians, but it appears fromthe chroniclethat the Gadabursi were also fightingthe Galla. A later leader of the clan, Ugas cAli Makahil, who was born in x575 Dobo, northof the presenttown of in the west of the British Protectorate,is recordedas having inflicteda heavy defeat on Galla forcesat Nabadid, a village in the Protectorateon the boundary betweenthe Habar Awal and Gadabursiclans in theirpresent distribution. At the same time in their oral traditions,the Gadabursi record a gradual expansion with the fIse along the coast of the Red Sea from the east of Somaliland,a movementin the courseof whichthey advanced inland in the west expelling the earlier Galla Garso and Akiso of the region. This traditional account of their early movements seems to accord with the distributionof the places of birth and of burial of the early heads of the Gadabursi clan as related in the Gadabursi chronicle. For, as has been pointed out, the eponymof the Gadabursi is with the eponymof the 'Ise clan buried in the north-eastof the Protectoratenot farfrom Sheikh Isaq's tomb in Erigavo District; and later leaders of the Gadabursi are buried generallyto the north of Borama, their present headquarters in British Somaliland. I have referredto a parallel movementof the *Ise Dir fromeast to west. *Ise traditionstell of conflictbetween their ancestors and those of the Isaq clan-familyin the east of the Protectorateas a result of which the *Ise moved westwards towards their present position. If

x) See Ceruuj, op. cit., 1931,p. 40. On the Walasma*dynasty see also J. S. Trimingham,Islam in Ethiopia, Oxford,1952, pp. 58-60. 2) This is a shorthistory of the leaders of the Gadabursiclan written by SheikhAbdarahman Sheikh Nur of the GadabursiRer Ugas and based on an earlier by Sheikh BarkhadleSheikh 'Abdillahi,also of manuscript " the Rer Ugas. Sheikh Abdarahmanis the inventorof the Gadabfirsi " script",see myarticle The GadabuursiSomali Script , Bulletinof the School of Orientaland AfricanStudies ", 1958, xxi/i, pp. 134-56.

This content downloaded from 193.205.142.142 on Mon, 01 Feb 2016 09:56:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 32 I. M. IvEWIS these traditions are historicallyvalid they imply that the *Ise only expanded westwardsat a fairlylate date, subsequent to Sheikh Isaq's reputed arrival at Mait in the east in the 12/13th centuryto which I refer below.

IV. THE MIGRATIONOF THE DIR FROMTHE EAST AND THE EXPANSION OF THE DARODAND ISAQ ClyAN-FAMIUES.

The dispersal of the Dir clans to the west and to the south under pressure fromthe expanding Dar5d and Isaq communities,a phase of Somali historywhich to some extent at least coincides with the rout of the Galla and theirmigrations into Ethiopia, bringsus to a more recent stage in Somali historybut still one for which firmdates are lacking. That Darod the ancestorof the clan-familyof the same name, preceded Sheikh Isaq, founderof the Isaq clans, is universallyheld by Somali. " The precedenceof Dar5d is also reflectedin the commonphrase Dir " iyo Darod (Dir and Dardd) used still to distinguishtwo great branches of the Somali nation. Traditionally,the ancestor of the present Darod clan-family,a group over a million strongand widely distributed,was SheikhDarod Ismail, son of Ismail Gabarti,a descendentof Abu Talib through'Aqil, who is said to have crossedto the north-easternSomali coast fromAra- bia about the 10/nth century1). The exact place of his arrival varies in the traditions,but according to one generallyheld account, Darod " " firstsettled at a place called Darod Ful near Bosaso. Darod made contact with the Dir who were then still in this region and marrieda Dir woman called Donbirra fromwhose sons the present Darod clans and lineages stem 2). Tradition records the growthin strengthof the Dar5d at the expenseof the Dir, and the latter'sdispersal from the north- east cornerof Somaliland.

x) There are various hagiologiesin circulationin Somaliland,some printedin Arabic, which identifyDarod Ismail with the son of Isma'Il Gabarti,the well-knownArabian saint who died in 1403 and is buried at Zabid in the Yemen (e. g. the Mandqib as-Sayh Isma'tl bin Ibrahimal- Gabartt,Mustafa al-Babl al-Halabi Press, Cairo, 1945, writtenby Sayh Ahmad bin Husen bin Mahammad). This seemsclearly an impossiblecon- nectionsince it conflictswith the local traditionsproclaiming the antiquity of the Darod and would make the Darod later than the Isaq. 2) On the legendsconcerning Darod's receptionby the local Dir Somali, see I/EWIS,op. cit., 1955, PP- 18-19.

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As Cerulli has argued, some idea of the early distributionof the Dardd and of the directionfollowed in their expansion can probably be gained fromthe distributionof the graves of Darod clan ancestors1). The grave of Dardd himself,a roughstone structureand not an elaborate domed tomb such as that of Sheikh Isaq, lies in extremelydesolate countrysome twelve miles to the south-eastof the village of Hadaftimo in Erigavo District of the British Protectorate,and some two miles off the Hadaftimo-Buranroad. , Darod's grandson,and founderof the great Harti division of the Darod clan-familyis buried in a grave of similarconstruction but of smaller dimensionsa furthertwelve miles south-south-east.According to Cerulli,he perishedat the hands of the Galla who were contestinghis power in the area. My informantsdid not knowthis tradition,but when I visitedthe grave pointedto a mound of stones near Harti's grave in which I was told his arm was buried. He has lost his arm,they said, in a gihadwith the people of the area who were not specified (but may have been Galla) and perished shortly afterwards. The distributionof the graves of subsequent Darod ancestors, the descendantsof Harti, suggestsas Cerullihas pointed out, a gradual movementof the Dar5d to the south-east. This expansion inland must have been underwayabout the n/i2th centuryif the traditionaldate of Darod's arrival is correct2) ; and accordingto traditionscollected by Cerulli in Mijerteiniawas accompanied by the expulsion of the earlier Galla inhabitants,and (frommy own evidence) also of the Dir Somali. The great movementsof the Darod into central and southernSomalia have been charted by Cerulli,but their expansion in northernSomali- land has hardlybeen touched upon. It is this northernmigration which concerns us here. The firstsecure mention of the Darod is in Sihab ad-Din's 16th century Futiih al-HabaSa9) which constantlyrefers not to the Darod as such, but to that branch of them descendedfrom Harti, and to other

" x) Ceruuj, AfricaItaliana 1931, p. 158. 2) I have suggestedabove that the connectionbetween the eponym of the Darod clan and Isma'il GabartIof Zabid is mythical. This does not, however,necessarily invalidate their pretensions to Arabian ancestry. It is possiblethat theirancestor was of less renownthan the Zabid saint,and that they should seek to attach themselvesto the latter for the sake of prestige. And even if the traditionsof descent from an immigrantArabian are entirelyfalse, it seems to me that the traditionsthemselves must be construedas representingan expansionof the Darod at about this time. 8) Ed. and trs. R. Basset, Paris, 1897-1909. 3

This content downloaded from 193.205.142.142 on Mon, 01 Feb 2016 09:56:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 34 I. M. IyEWIS " individual Darod clans. In the Futuh, the Harti are describedas the people of Mait ", Mait being a small sea-port and today ruined city (probably of great antiquity)x) on the coast of Erigavo in the British Protectorate. Of the most westerlyof the Darod clans, those now living in the Harar-Jigjigaregion, the Geri (who are traditionallysupposed to have arrivedthere in the 16th centuryin the train of Imam Ahmad's victoriousarmies), the Bartirre,and Yabarre 2) are mentionedby name in the Futuh. Their whereaboutsthen is not specified,nor is it clear fromthe text, but they must have been in contact with the Marrehan Darod who today live south of the Ogaden, since a dispute between the Geri and Marrehanis mentionedin the Futuh. This suggestsI think, that the Marrehan were then north of their present position - per- haps in the Ogaden region- and expandingin the centre of Northern Somaliland while the Geri were movingfurther to the west with other Darod groups. Traditions describingthe occupation of the Ogaden region itself by the Darod clan of that name (the Ogaden) have recentlybeen pub- lished by Pirone3). From their original north-easternseat, where ac- cordingto my informantstheir ancestor is buriedto the east of Erigavo, the Ogaden had moved southwardsinto what is now the Mudug Provin- ce of Somalia, and fromthere had pressed north-westwardsalong the vallies of the Fafan and Gererto the westernextremities of the Ogaden. In this expansionthey had to strugglewith the Raitu and Arussi Galla and with groups of Dir and Hawiye 4) for possession of pasturage and wells. It would thus appear that the Darod must have occupied the Ogaden by the 17th century,and probably have been there for some time, since it was only towards the end of the next centurythat they were able to cross the Shabelle River against strongHawiye resistance and move into the Doi region of southern Somalia5). In any event, the Dir who by the 17th centuryand probablyearlier had been driven out of most of north-easternand central Somaliland, left behind them,

As well as in the Futuh,Mait is markedon some 17thcen- 1) figuring " turymaps of the (e. g. in the Blaeu Atlas Amsterdam, 1665). 2) This seems a more likelyreading for the Arabic than Bas- set's " Yibberi 3) Pirone, op. cit., 1954, P- I22- 4) As far as I knowthe only Hawiye grouptoday presentin the east of NorthernSomaliland is the Hawiye Rer Fiqi Sinni who live amongst the Dulbahante of the Protectorate. 5) See Ceruwj, op. cit., 1926.

This content downloaded from 193.205.142.142 on Mon, 01 Feb 2016 09:56:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE GAIylyAIN NORTHERN SOMAUI.AND 35 as the Galla had also done, indelibletraces of theirprevious occupation in the residual Dir groups which are today found among the Ogaden. But if local tradition is correct,despite the development of the Darod during the nth and 12th centuries,the Dir cannot have been decisivelyrouted in what is today Erigavo District of the Protectorate. For when Sheikh Isaq, the founderof the presentIsaq clans, settled in the ancient city of Mait in traditionallythe i2/i3th century,the area surroundingthe port was still in the hands of the Dir, althoughno Galla are rememberedas having still been in the vicinity*). Moreover,Isaq married a Dir woman of the Magadle clan (see above p. 29) whose progenyform one of the great divisionsof the Isaq clans - the Habar Magadle 2). It would thus seem that the Darod were then still confined furtherto the east in the northof what is now the Mijertein Province of Somalia. The ruins which lie some little distance to the west of the present port of Mait and close to Sheikh Isaq's strikingtomb whichis a famous place of pilgrimage,are traditionallythe remains of the settlement foundedby Sheikh Isaq and his followersand built probably upon ear- lier foundations8). Tradition states that when Sheikh Isaq arrived at Mait fromthe west wherehe had spent many years aftercrossing from Arabia to Zeila4), he found the Magadle Dir in possessionof Mait and

*) Some historicalconnection between the Darod and Isaq can be establishedby the fact that the Dulbahante and fourother minorDarod groupstrace descent from the unionof theircollective ancestor, Harti Kom- be, with a daughterof Arab, a son of SheikhIsaq. Accordingto present Darod genealogiesHarti Kombe is the son of Darod's grandson,Kombe Kablallah. And this suggestsa gap of at least about one centurybetween SheikhIsaq and SheikhDarod. The Habar are the mentionedin the Futuh 2) Magadle onlyIsaq " group " al-gabaSa. At least it seems that the Habr Maqadi (<3^** des- cribedin the Futuhare the Habar MagadleIsaq. The Isaq are not mentioned underthe name Isaq, nor is thereany referenceto the easterlybranch of the Isaq, the Habar Habused. 8) At Mait fragmentsof Chineseporcelain are to be foundscattered about on the topsoil roundthe ruins. These urgentlyrequire excavation, and since the portis referredto in the Futuhits excavationand the study ofits connectionswith the otherruined towns of NorthernSomaliland should throwvery important light on a little-knownaspect of Somali history. For a discussionof a preliminaryinvestigation of some of the moreimportant NorthernSomali ruins,see A. T. Curiae, The Ruined Townsof Somaliland, " Antiquity", Sept., 1937, PP- 315-*7- 4) A very circumstantialaccount of the movementsof bheikhIsaq s forefathersin Arabia and of the Sheikh'sown peregrinationsboth in Arabia

This content downloaded from 193.205.142.142 on Mon, 01 Feb 2016 09:56:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 36 I. M. I/EWIS ruling the other Dir groups whose present-dayrepresentatives in this region have been mentionedabove (p. 29). And as the Isaq expanded these earlier Dir communitieswere driven westwardsand to the south towardstheir present positions, just as previouslythey had moved from the northeastcorner of Somaliland under pressure from the growing Darod community. In their train the Isaq spread westwardsand to the south-west,but did not penetrateas far in the latter directionas the Darod. In this generalexpansion the Isaq split up into theirpresent componentsegments, one fractionof the Habar Yunis clan, the Habar Yunis Muse 'Arre, remainingbehind in the Mait regionof Erigavo Dis- trict as the custodians of the tomb of their founder,Sheikh Isaq. But it seems that if the Isaq were in fact in the Mait regionin the 13th cen- tury as their traditionsmaintain, they must later have for a time lost Mait to the Harti Darod since it is they who are describedin the 16th " centuryFutuh as the people of Mait

V. CONCLUSIONS.

The material presentedin this paper makes it fairlycertain that the people whom we now know as Galla did in fact occupy much of NorthernSomaliland before the Somali. But by the time of Sheikh Darod's traditionalarrival fromArabia in the 10/nth century,(or the growthof the Darod communityabout this time) the north-easternco- astal strip was occupied not by the Galla but by the Dir Somali who priorto his arrivalin Somalilandand in Ethiopia and Somalilandsurvives in local tradition.These traditionsare recordedin Arabicin severalmanus- criptand publisedhagiologies. One of the mostrecent of the latteris the amgad of Sayh Husen bin Ahmad Darwis al-Isaqi as-Somali,Aden, 1955* For a life of the saint by one who has spent many years collectingthese traditions,see cAu Sheikh Mahammad,The Origin of the Isaq peoples, " The SomalilandJournal ", Vol. 1, 1954, PP- 22-6 (Hargaisa, BritishSo- maliland). So far these traditionshave not been corroboratedby any ex- ternalevidence, and in the opinionof my friendProf. R. B. Serjeantof the School of Orientaland AfricanStudies, London, would not be acceptedas historicallyvalid by Arabian historians. Thus, as in the case of Sheikh Darod, it seemsunlikely that the historicalorigins claimed for Sheikh Isaq are authentic.Nevertheless, I believethat they have an importanthistorical contentat least in the sense that theyrepresent an earlyexpansion of the Isaq groupand bringthis into some sort of historicalrelationship with the earlierextension of the Darod.

This content downloaded from 193.205.142.142 on Mon, 01 Feb 2016 09:56:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE GAU,AIN NORTHERNSOMAIJI,AND 37 still lived in the Mait regionfurther to the west whenSheikh Isaq settled there in the i2/i3th century. The Galla would seem thus to have al- ready begun their westerlymigrations at about this time as Hunting- ford suggests: certainlythey were no longer dominantalong the north- eastern coast of NorthernSomaliland. But they were still apparently to be foundin the Hargaisa regionin the 12th century. And inland they must also have still been in the east if the Dardd traditionsof conflict with them are valid. They would appear, however,to have been driven furtherwestward not long after. And later, the majority of the Dir were also expelled fromnorth-eastern Somaliland, probably in the 13th and 14th centuries. By the 17th century at least, the Darod and Isaq seem to have taken over much of north-easternand central NorthernSomaliland and also the Ogaden region. Other Darod had by this time penetratedas far west as Harar, where there were already Dir Somali established; and in the Jigjiga regionthe Galla who had earlierdominated the area were outnumberedby Somali immigrants. Thus the present distributionof the seems to have been assumed by the i6/i7th century,as is to be expectedconsider- ably earlier than in the south where many of the Somali movements of expansion are much more recent. It is of interestthat I found no record in British Somaliland today of any of the other Somali groups who traditionallycame fromNorthern Somaliland to settle in the south, except in the case of the Hawiye of whom a small group - the Rer Fiqi Sinni - are found amongst the Dulbahante (Dardd) clan of the east of the Protectorate. The southwards expansion of the Somali from the shores of the Gulf of Aden still continues despite the establishmentof international frontiersand Administrativecontrol. It is very evidentin the Northern Province of Kenya, and in the BritishProtectorate the Isaq now appear to be pushingoutside the territoryat the expense of the Darod into the Ogaden and Haud. The briefchronicle presented here of some of the more important population movementsin NorthnerSomaliland must remain tentative in the extreme. It is still unfortunatelyimpossible to establishbeyond doubt the validity of even the few key dates referredto. And there are also other very considerable difficultieswhich beset any attempt to disentanglethe historyof the Galla and Somali. Even the precise ethnicrelationship of the two peoples remainsobscure. It is sometimes held, forinstance, that the Somali are merelypeople of Galla originwho have been Arabized by the incorporationof Arab immigrantsand by

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long and fairlyintense contact with Arabian Islam *). And it is certain that there has in fact been Arabian influenceof this kind. The difficul- " " " " ties are not eased by the fact that the names Galla and Somali are firstrecorded only in the late 16th and early 15th centuriesrespec- tively; and it may be quite illegitimateto project them into the past with the assumption that they had the same ethnic and cultural con- notations which they have today. The truthis that at presentthere seems no means of tellingwhether the Somali of today are as a whole derived fromthose whom we now know as Galla, or whetherthey representdifferent branches of a com- mon stock which,over a long period, has become increasinglydifferen- tiated. Some Galla in contact with Somali claim to be Dir in origin, statingthat the Galla are Dir; and the Galla and Dir are certainlysome- times confusedin local Somali traditions2). But whethersuch claims are historicalor merelyunderstandable attempts by the Galla to equate themselveswith the Somali 8) for reasons of prestigeappears impossible to determineat the moment. Certainlyexisting Galla groups do not, as far as I know, figurein Dir genealogies today.

x) This is the view of Burton,op. cit.,and of R. E. Drake- Brockman, British Somaliland, London, 1912, p. 68; and of others. a) Cf. PlRONE,op. cit., 1954, P- 119- 8) The Midganbondsmen who are mainlyleather-workers and barbers and generallydespised by Somali, sometimesproduce genealogies tracing descentfrom Dir Somali. These are regardedas fictionsby noble Somali. Cf. K. Iy. G. GoiyDSMiTHand I. M. Lewis, A PreliminaryInvestigation " of the Blood Groupsof the sab Bondsmenof NorthernSomaliland , Man ", December 1958, pp. 188-190.

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