A Modern History of the Somali: Nation and State in the Horn of Africa

A MODERN HISTORY OF THE SOMALI

EASTERN AFRICAN STUDIES

Revealing Prophets

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Swahili Origins

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Islands of Intensive Agriculture in East Africa

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War in Pre-Colonial Eastern Africa

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Slavery in the Great Lakes Region of East Africa

Edited by HENRI MÉDARD & SHANE DOYLE

A Modern History of the

SOMALI

Nation and State in the Horn of Africa

FOURTH EDITION

I.M. LEWIS

Emeritus Professor of Anthropology

London School of Economics

James Currey

OXFORD

Ohio University Press

ATHENS

eBook edition published 2016

Ohio University Press

www.ohioswallow.com

James Currey

Boydell & Brewer Ltd

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© I.M. Lewis 1965, 1980, 1988 & 2002

Fourth edition published 2002

2 3 4 56 12 11 10 09 08

Originally published in

The Modern History of Somaliland: From Nation to State

Weidenfeld & Nicholson 1965 First edition

A Modern History of Somaliland: Nation & State in the Horn of Africa

Longman 1980 Second edition

A Modern History of Somalia: Nation & State in the Horn of Africa

Westview 1988 Third edition

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

available on request

ISBN 978-0-85255-483-8 (James Currey Paper)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

available on request

ISBN 10: 0-8214-1495-X (Ohio University Press Paper)

ISBN 13: 978-0-8214-1495-8 (Ohio University Press Paper)

New material typeset in 10/13pt Adobe Garamond

by Long House Publishing Services, Cumbria, UK

ISBN 978-1-78204-787-2 (James Currey eISBN)

ISBN 978-0-8214-4573-0 (Ohio University Press eISBN)

CONTENTS

Preface to the fourth edition

Maps

Photographs

Chapter

I. The Physical and Social Setting

II. Before Partition

III. The Imperial Partition: 1860–97

IV. The Dervish Fight for Freedom: 1900–20

V. Somali Unification: The Italian East African Empire

VI. The Restoration of Colonial Frontiers: 1940–50

VII. From Trusteeship to Independence: 1950–60

VIII. The Problems of Independence

IX. The Somali Revolution: 1969–76

X. Nationalism, Ethnicity and Revolution in the Horn of Africa

XI. Chaos, International Intervention and Developments in the North

Notes

Index

PREFACE

As a social anthropologist (and amateur historian), I have had the unusual experience of studying an African people whose traditional cultural nationalism has fathered more than one contemporary ‘nation-state’. In the turbulent context of northeast Africa, however, since formal independence from European rule in 1960, Somali political fortunes have experienced many vicissitudes. The passionate nationalism which brought Somaliland and Somalia together in 1960, and fuelled ambitions to extend the resulting Somali Republic to include the entire nation, unexpectedly burned itself out in the 1980s and 1990s. Then, with a reversal of external and internal pressures, the segmentary divisions within the nation reasserted themselves with an explosive vengeance.

This impressive demonstration of the continuing power of more immediate clan and kinship loyalties revealed the enduring tension, in a traditionally politically uncentralized culture, between these lower-level identities and cultural nationalism. The many attempts at different levels in society and at different times to devalue and even extirpate these internal divisions, which always threatened national solidarity, assumed many forms, ranging from denial to political suppression. The most colourful, perhaps, were the public burials (and other measures) instituted by the dictator General Siyad at the height of his powers and in his ‘Scientific Socialist’ phase. Earlier politicians had resorted to the linguistic sophistry of pretending that they had surpassed clan and tribe by substituting in spoken Somali the English (or Italian) term ‘ex’ (understood as meaning ‘ex-clan’) when identifying people. Since Siyad had banned all reference to clans, this even included this circumlocutory usage of ‘ex’. On visits to Mogadishu in this period, I thus could not resist wickedly asking my apparatchik Somali friends if one could now safely enquire about a person’s ‘ex-ex’. They were not amused.

So all embracing and insistent were these disclaimers of persisting clan realities, that even foreign academics, who should have known better (although they were usually handicapped by an inadequate understanding of Somali language), were taken in. Consequently, their writings helped to sustain this illusion, which played a significant role in mystifying Somali political realities, and encouraged their misrepresentation in the eurocentric jargon of ‘class’ and ‘class conflict’. Behind this, of course, lay the ethnocentric (Marxist) assumption that clan organization was an early, ‘primitive’ political form of organization, incompatible with modernity.

Some of these writers even arrogantly asserted (without any evidence, of course) that Somalia’s European colonizers had imported the clan system as a means of divide and rule! As our oldest sources show, the reality, on the contrary, is that the Somalis invented their own clan system long before, and entirely independently of colonial intervention. Many things can be blamed on those who colonized Somali territory, but not that. Of course, the foreign administrations were forced to take note of these indigenous divisions and even exploit them: this is what the different Somali groups demanded. Each partisan division sought to bend colonial administrators to its particular cause, and the Somalis as a whole proved extremely adept at thus capturing support. Moreover, as the Somalis have so abundantly demonstrated, and as I try to record faithfully in this book, apart from the problematic area of centralized political organization, the clan system is remarkably flexible and compatible with most aspects of modern life and thus in no sense an atavistic force. Those who would impose their distorting eurocentric ideological view of the world on Somali social phenomena, thus depriving them of originality and vitality, are, in my view, engaged in an endeavour akin to racism.

Of course, clan ties remain profoundly divisive, and combined with a bellicose uncentralized political culture, create formidable obstacles to the formation of stable, hierarchically organized political units. This, I am afraid, is the price of the democratic individualism and freedom that Somalis cherish. As the turbulent politics of the 1990s and 2000s so painfully illustrates, these aspects of Somali political culture pose bitterly intractable problems for those seeking to fashion a viable future state (or states). Somali cultural nationalism, contrary to the earlier idealistic hopes of many Somalis as well as my own, does not alone suffice. If Somali history has any lessons to teach, this is one of them. Today (2002) Somalis sometimes speak about their diminished nationalism, as though Somalia had not collapsed, in a way that recalls patients whose limbs have been amputated but still ‘feel’ intact. Their phantom-limb view of their dismembered body politic, may I think, result in part from confusion between Somali ‘state’ and ‘nation’, since while the former is highly problematic, in terms of shared culture and language the latter remains very real.

My connection with this culture and some of its representatives, spans the period from the birth of modern political parties in the early 1950s until the present. I first met members of the Somali nationalist organizations campaigning for independence, before embarking on my doctoral field research in the 1950s and, during fieldwork in Somaliland and Somalia (1955–7) had the privilege of getting to know many of the future political élite. My use of both written and oral material is largely conditioned by that social anthropological field research, amplified by further field trips in 1962, 1964, 1974, and for briefer periods in intervening years up to 1992, when health problems made further visits impossible. My initial research was financed by the Colonial Social Science Research Council, then by the Carnegie Trust, the British Academy and the British Council. The U.N.H.C.R., F.A.O. and various other agencies were responsible for my shorter visits, thus also providing me with an opportunity to gain first-hand experience of the arcane world of aid and development. 1 am grateful to all these bodies and to a succession of Somali governments who generally welcomed and facilitated my work. Although the published results have not always been equally favourably received by those concerned, I have, in the main, been tolerated by most governments since independence in 1960 – and even for a considerable time, and to a surprising degree, by the regime of General Siyad. The general attitude here seems to have been that put to me once by Prime Minister ‘Abdarazaq Haji Husseyn (widely regarded as Somalia’s most effective premier) who introduced me to his cabinet as ‘that chap who writes about us. We don’t always like what he says, but the important thing is he writes about us !’*

During the military regime in Somalia, as a guest of the National Academy and the Ministry of Higher Education, I was surprised and delighted to come across a group of teachers, engaged in the preparation of textbooks in the new Somali script. They were translating passages from an earlier edition of this book. This new edition is a direct response to a request from the book retailer Mr Ismail Ahmed for copies for teaching needs in Somaliland and Somalia, as well as for Somali students in Europe. I am delighted to try to meet this flattering demand which amounts, after all, to a returning of historical material to its roots – the Somali world. I hope, however, that by the time a further edition of this book is called for, the need will have been met by a Somali historian. Many Somali friends have advised and helped me in my attempts to understand their culture and politics down the years. In the preparation of this new edition which, with the limited time allotted to me, has indeed been a ‘crash programme’, I would like particularly to thank Dr Omar Duhod, Dr Ahmad Yusuf Farah, Mr ‘Osman Ahmad Hassan, Mr ‘Abdirashid Sed, Mr ‘Abdisalan ‘Isse Salwe, Jan Haakonsen and Dr Patrick Gilkes. I have not forgotten the early encouragement and enduring support I received from Muse Galal, Muhammad Abshir Muse, Professor Said Samatar, and the remarkable self-trained Somali historian Sheikh Jama’ Omar ‘Ise. My thoughts also turn to departed friends like Anthony Mariano, B. W. Andrzejewski, and Bernhard Helander with whom I have longed to debate the arguments of my new final chapter. My wife has loyally read my final chapter and helped to lick it into shape. Working with this recent historical material, readily available from a superabundance of sources, I now more fully understand how E. H. Carr’s view of history is shaped by his predicament as a modern historian facing a surfeit of information and the problem of selection.**

Having had three previous publishers, this book has had a somewhat nomadic history. In welcoming it to what I hope may be its final home, my tyrannical new publisher, James Currey, has been amazingly enthusiastic and helpful. I am especially pleased that we can now again include illustrations, both those published and acknowledged in the original 1965 edition and new material. In selecting and supplying additional pictures to document recent events I am grateful to Ismail Ahmed, Michael Brophy, ‘Abdullahi Dool, Felicity Thomas and the brilliant photographer of the Somali world, Hamish Wilson.

Finally, I should warn the reader that I have limited chapter notes to a minimum, seeking only to document or dilate upon a few important points and to call attention to some of the more fruitful and interesting sources. If I have left some sources out this does not necessarily reflect my opinion of them! These end notes are nevertheless fairly extensive, and I have therefore felt that a separate bibliography would not be justified. I have transcribed Somali names generally in their usual anglicized format rather than in the orthography of the Somali script. Somalis will have no difficulty in making the necessary vowel length and other adjustments, and non-Somalis will be able to recognize and pronounce proper names in the format adopted here more easily than would have been the case if I had followed the Somali script strictly.

Ioan Lewis

London, 2002

Notes

* For further information on the circumstances of my field research, see I. M. Lewis, ‘An anthropologist at large in the ‘Cinderella of Empire’ in Blood and Bone, the Call of Kinship in Somali Society, New Jersey, 1994, pp. 1–18; and ‘Afterword’ in A Pastoral Democracy, new edition, Oxford, 1999, pp. i–xxvi.

** See E. H. Garr, What is History? London, 1964.

Bbuggan waxa aan u hibaynayaa dadka Sooomaaliyeed, kuwa taariikhdooda sameeya iyo kuwa qoraba, aniga oo galladcelin uga dhigayaa sidii wacnayd ee ay iigu soo dhaweeyeen dalkooda. Waxa kale oo aan ugu deeqayaa gabadhayda ‘Foanna’, loona yaqaan Dalmara oo ku dhalatay Soomaaliya, haatanna, ku jirta raadraaca taariikhda Afrika.

Somali ethnic and clan-family distribution 2002

Somali states and regions 2002

Partition of Mogadishu among warlords 2001 (based on map drawn by Mohamed Rashid and John Drysdale)

The Land and the Peoples

1 Family of nomads approaching a dry river bed in the early morning (Somaliland). In the dry seasons the nomads must move frequently from place to place in search of pasture and water.

2 A young herdsman with cattle watering on the Shebelle River in the south of Somalia.

3 A field of ripe sorghum in the arable zone between Hargeisa and Borama in the north-west of Somalia. This is the main grain-growing area of the north.

4 A Southern Somali tribal chief with two of his wives and a tribal policeman (Illalo). The round mud and wattle house is the typical house-style of the agricultural regions between the Shebelle and Juba Rivers in the south.

5 On the Dawa Parma River which marks the north-western boundary between Kenya and Ethiopia in the extreme north of the Somali-occupied North Eastern Region of Kenya water is abundantly available. Elsewhere in this semi-desert region water is an extremely scarce commodity.

6 Stock Inspector inoculating camels against Rinderpest.

7 A manually operated ferry carrying people and livestock across the Juba River.

8 Cattle watering in southern Somalia. At deep wells such as these, the water is raised in skin buckets attached to long drawing ropes.

Before Partition

9 A finely carved door-frame in Zanzibar style in Mogadishu.

10 A view of Mogadishu as it appeared to the French explorer Charles Guillain in 1847 (from a print in the album illustrating Guillain’s voyages). Mogadishu’s oldest mosque bears an inscription dated A.D. 1238, while the city’s earliest funeral inscription goes back to the eighth century.

11 Camel-operated press used for extracting sesame oil at Mogadishu in 1847 (from the album of Guillain).

12 A view of the town of Geledi (Afgoi) on the Shebelle River as it appeared at the time of Guillain’s visit in 1847 (from Guillain’s album). The Geledi Sultan was the most powerful Somali chief on the Benadir coast in the nineteenth century.

13 Sir Richard Burton, the most distinguished explorer to travel in Somaliland (from the portrait by Lord Leighton, 1876, in the National Portrait Gallery, London). Burton’s brilliant record of his remarkable journey from Zeila to Harar – the ‘Timbuctu of East Africa’, as he described it – in 1854 is the most valuable early source on northern Somali history and culture.

The Colonial Partition of Somaliland

14 Exchange of letters dated 8 February and 19 March, 1889, between the Sultan of Obbia, ‘Ali Yusuf, and the Italian Consul V. Filonardi assigning the Sultan an annuity of 1200 dollars in return for his acceptance of Italian protection.

15 Troops embarking at Mogadishu in 1925 for the operations against the Sultans of Obbia and Alula which finally incorporated these northern Italian protectorates in the colony of Somalia.

16 The ruins of Sayyid Muhammad ‘Abdille Hassan’s headquarters in Taleh, in the north-east of Somalia, as they appeared in 1950, thirty years after the aerial bombardment by the British and the collapse of the Dervish movement.

17 The Duke of Abruzzi, who founded the Societa Agricola Italo-Somala which rationalized plantation farming in the colony and revolutionized its economy. The Duke, a direct heir to the Spanish throne, died in 1933 and is buried in the plantation centre named after him (Villagio Duca degli Abruzzi) on the Shebelle River.

Somalia under Military Rule

18 Ceremony marking the end of the month of Ramadan at Government House, Mogadishu, during the last years of the British Military Administration. Facing the Chief Kadi (standing) is Brigadier-General R. H. Smith, Chief Administrator of Somalia in 1948. Although the British proposals for unifying the Somali territories failed, it was under British military rule that the first beginnings of modern Somali advancement were achieved.

19 Party of Somalia Gendarmerie collecting water from a well near Mogadishu. This British-officered armed police force played a crucial rôle in helping to foster the growth of anti-tribal sentiments in Somalia.

Preparation for Independence

20 Sir Gerald Reece, Governor of British Somaliland 1948–53, opening the Trades School at Hargeisa in 1952.

21 Somali District Commissioner greeting tribesmen in the south. Under the Italian trusteeship administration of Somalia, all expatriate District and Provincial Commissioners were replaced by Italian-trained Somali officials in 1956, four years before independence.

22 Colonel Muhammad Abshir assuming command of the Somalia Police Force from Colonel Arnera of the Italian Carabinieri at Mogadishu in December, 1958. Behind the microphone is Di Stefani; Administrator of Somalia at the time.

23 Adan ‘Abdulle ‘Osman, Somalia’s first president, (gesticulating) with prime minister Dr ‘Abd ar Rashid ‘Ali Shirmarke, surveying flood damage in southern Somalia in the early 1960s.

24 President Muhammad Haji Ibrahim Igal addressing a political rally in Hargeisa.

25 General Muhammad Siyad Barre and entourage at Mogadishu airport about to embark on an official visit to the United States. From left to right: General Muhammad Farah ‘Aideed, bodyguard, Vice President Hussein Kulmiye, Vice President Ismail ‘Ali ‘Abokor, President Siyad, Yusuf Abu Ras (mayor of Mogadishu) and ‘Omar Arte, foreign minister and the only civilian in Siyad’s government.

26 ‘Abdulqassim Salad Hassan

27 Arms market, Mogadishu 2000

28 Immobilised ‘technical’, under guard in Somaliland

29 Irregular militia in process of surrendering their ‘technicals’ and arms to Somaliland elders as demobilisation proceeds in Somaliland.

30 Official opening of the outpatients department at ‘Edna Adan’ maternity hospital in Hargeisa 2000.

31 Loading camels for export on ship at Bossaso port, Puntland.

32 Street scene round the centre of Hargeisa (2001), capital of Somaliland Republic.

CHAPTER I

THE PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL SETTING

The Land

WITH A POPULATION numbering perhaps four and a half million, the Somali-speaking people can scarcely be regarded as a large nation. Yet they form one of the largest single ethnic blocks in Africa, and though sparsely distributed on the ground, live in continuous occupation of a great expanse of territory covering almost 400,000 square miles in the north-east corner, or ‘Horn’, of the continent facing Arabia. From the region of the Awash Valley in the north-west, this often arid territory occupied by the Somali stretches round the periphery of the Ethiopian highlands and along the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean coasts down to the Tana River in northern Kenya. This region forms a well-defined geographical and ethnic unit which Somalis see as a natural base for a sovereign state, although today it is split up into four separate parts. In the ex-French Republic of Jibuti, which became independent in 1977, Somalis make up about half the local population (c. 200,000 in 350,000); in the adjoining country of Ethiopia (mainly in Harar and Bale Provinces) they number probably almost one million; in the Somali Republic itself their strength is approximately 3, 250, 000;¹ and finally, in the North-Eastern Region of Kenya,² they number about 250,000. Outside this region, other Somali are settled as traders and merchants in many of the towns and ports of East Africa (e.g. in Nairobi); in Aden, in whose history they played an important role; and throughout Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. Farther afield, the roving existence which life at sea affords has led to the establishment of small and fluctuating immigrant Somali communities in such diverse European ports as Marseilles, Naples, London, and Cardiff.

In their dry savanna homeland, the Somali are essentially a nation of pastoral nomads, forced by the exigencies of their demanding climate and environment to move with their flocks of sheep and goats and herds of camels and cattle in an endless quest for water and pasturage. The northern coastal plains (Guban, from gub to burn) which extend from the lava-strewn deserts of the Republic of Jibuti along the Gulf of Aden shore to Cape Guardafui are especially arid. Here the annual rainfall rarely exceeds three inches and is concentrated in the comparatively cool months from October to January. In the hot months between June and September, the Guban fully lives up to its name; and except for the urban populations of such ports as Jibuti (pop. 180,000), capital of this territory, and Berbera (pop. 60,000) in the Somali Republic, at this season is generally deserted by the nomadic tribesmen for the cooler and greener hills which rise behind it. Despite its often torrid heat and low rainfall, however, the run-off from the mountains behind ensures that water is usually easily obtainable only a few feet below the Guban’s characteristically sandy soil. With these water resources, and the sometimes surprisingly generous pastures which spring up after the autumn rains, this region provides the winter quarters for the most northerly Somali clans.

The Golis and Ogo mountains, with their magnificent and often dangerously precipitous escarpments, which rise behind the coast dominate the whole physical structure of the region. This range achieves a height of almost 8,006 feet at points to the east; and, in the west where it joins the Ethiopian Highlands, rises as high as 9,000 feet near the ancient Muslim city of Harar (pop. 60,000). To the south, the mountains descend into a great tilting plateau which has an average elevation of 3,000 feet in the centre, and embraces most of the Somali hinterland. On the hills and in the north of the plateau, which includes the important centre of Hargeisa (pop. 60,000), capital of the former British Somaliland Protectorate, the rainfall is sometimes as high as twenty inches, especially in the northwest where, between Hargeisa and Harar, sorghum is cultivated. Here water is generally abundant, and the perennial wells excavated often at great depth in the dry waddies provide the winter watering-places of many of the central clans of the north. To the south of Hargeisa, the northern plateau opens into that vast wilderness of thorn-bush and tall grasses known as the Haud. In northern Somali the name ‘Haud’ means simply ‘south’; and the region, which contains no permanent water, is of indeterminate extent. The northern and eastern tips lie within the Somali Republic, while the western and southern portions (the latter merging with the Ogaden plains) form part of Harar Province of Ethiopia.

To the south of the Haud, the plateau inclines gradually from the west as it reaches out towards the south-eastern coast of the Indian Ocean. Here it is intersected by low-lying plains and valleys, lined with welcome vegetation, which are more widely spaced than in the precipitate north. The most important of these southerly valleys are those traversed by the Shebelle and Juba Rivers as they flow from their sources in the Ethiopian Highlands towards the coast. Both rivers contain water in all seasons and together make up the main river system of the whole Somali area north of the Tana.

The Shebelle or ‘Leopard’ River extends for some 1,250 miles but does not enter the sea; after crossing the southern part of the Ogaden it flows eastwards as far as Balad, twenty miles from the Indian Ocean coast, where it veers to the south to cover a further 170 miles before disappearing in a series of marshes and sand-flats close to Jelib on the Juba. Only with exceptionally heavy rains does the river join the Juba and thus succeed in reaching the sea. To the south of the Shebelle, the Juba River descends much more directly from the Ethiopian Highlands to the sea which it enters as a strong stream some 250 yards wide near the port of Kismayu (pop. 60,000). It is navigable by shallow draft vessels from its mouth to the rapids a few miles beyond Bardera, in which the German explorer von der Decken’s steamship Welf perished in 1865. In contrast to the wide belts of scrub-bush and grassy plains, interspersed with lonely tall acacias, which cover so much of the country, these two rivers are lined in places by narrow lanes of attractive high forest. Here elephant and hippopotamus replace the multitude of antelope species and smaller game which are so abundant elsewhere.

In comparison with the north, the southern part of the Somali Republic between the Shebelle and Juba Rivers is relatively well-watered: and, indeed by local standards, so fecund as to constitute the richest arable zone in the whole of Somaliland. Here the principal crops are sorghum, Indian corn, sesame, beans, squashes and manioc; as well as fruits, and sugar-cane, which, however, are mainly cultivated in the plantations owned by large corporations. The chief export crop is the banana produced by a number of Italian and Somali companies on a quota system controlled by the Somali government. Outside this fertile southern zone between the rivers there are no comparable arable resources, although the north-west of the country now supplies a valuable sorghum harvest and grain production is expanding as well as date cultivation.

Despite this general division in physical features and productivity, both northern and southern Somaliland are subject to a similar cycle of seasons associated with the rotation of the N.E. and S.W. monsoons. Apart from a variety of minor local wet periods, the main rains fall twice yearly – between March and June, and between September and December – throughout the region. The dry seasons are similarly distributed: but while the hottest time of the year on the northern coast falls in the summer, the south is by contrast pleasantly cool at this period. In the volcanic wastes of the Jibuti Republic, this fairly regular cycle of seasons loses most of its coherence, and the weather is generally less predictable except in its torridity. Mogadishu (pop. 350,000), capital of the Somali Republic, and the other ports of the southern Indian Ocean coast have a climate which though often humid is pleasant in the cool season.

The People

Ethnically and culturally the Somali belong to the Hamitic ethnic group. Their closest kinsmen are the surrounding Hamitic (or as they are often called ‘Cushitic’) peoples of the Ethiopian lowlands, and Eritrea – the traditionally bellicose ‘Afar (or Danakil),³ the Oromo (Galla), Saho, and Beja. Their immediate neighbours to the north are the pastoral ‘Afar with whom they share Jibuti and who extend into Eritrea and Ethiopia. To the west, in Ethiopia, the Somali are bounded by the cultivating and pastoral Oromo; and in the south by the Boran Galla of Kenya.

Although there is much variation amongst them, the physical features which immediately strike the eye and seem most generally characteristic of the Somali people as a whole, are their tall stature, thin bone structure and decidedly long and narrow heads. Skin colour shows a wide range from a coppery brown to a dusky black. In their facial features particularly, the Somali also exhibit evidence of their long-standing relations with Arabia; and, in the south, amongst the Digil and Rahanweyn tribes, physical traces of their past contact with Oromo and Bantu peoples in this region. Traditionally, however, Somali set most store by their Arabian connexions and delight in vaunting those traditions which proclaim their descent from noble Arabian lineages and from the family of the Prophet. These claims, dismissed by Somali nationalists today as fanciful, are nevertheless part and parcel of the traditional and profound Somali attachment to Islam. They commemorate the many centuries of contacts between the Somali and Arabian coasts which have brought Islam and many other elements of Muslim Arab culture.

Thus, the Somali language⁴ contains a considerable number of Arabic loan-words, and Arabic itself is sufficiently widely known to be regarded almost as a second language. Nevertheless, although unwritten until 1972,⁵ Somali retained its distinctiveness as a separate and extremely vigorous tongue possessing an unusually rich oral literature. Within Somali, the widest dialect difference is between the speech of the northern pastoralists and of the Digil and Rahanweyn cultivators. These differ to much the same extent as Portuguese and Spanish. Yet, since many of its speakers are also familiar with standard Somali, the existence of this distinctive southern dialect does not alter the fact that, from the Jibuti Republic to Garissa on the Tana River in Kenya, standard Somali provides a single channel of communication and a common medium in which poems and songs compete for popularity. Poetry, it should be added, today as much as in the past, plays a vital part in Somali culture, and the extensive use of radio broadcasting has enhanced rather than diminished its significance. Often a poem is not merely the private voice of the author, but frequently the collective tongue of a pressure group, and propaganda either for peace or for war is more effectively spread through poetry than by any other means.⁶

The distinction between the speech of the Digil and Rahanweyn and their more nomadic countrymen to their north and south is one feature of the wider cultural, geographic, and historical primary division in the Somali nation between the ‘Samale’ or Somali proper and the Sab. The former make up the bulk of the nation, and their name (Samale) has come to include the Sab, perhaps in the same fashion as the word ‘English’ is applied by foreigners to all the inhabitants of the British Isles. This larger fraction of the Somali nation consists of four principal groups of clans or ‘clan-families’. Descent in Somaliland is traced in the male line, and each of these units has a separate founding ancestor from whom, traditionally, its members trace their descent and take their collective name.

The Samale clan-families comprise the Dir, Isaq, Hawiye, and Darod, all of whom are primarily pastoral nomads and variously distributed throughout the land. The Dir clans (‘Ise and Gadabursi) are mainly concentrated in the western part of the northern regions of the Somali Republic (the former British Somaliland), in the Jibuti Republic, and the east of Harar Province of Ethiopia: a smaller nucleus also occurs in the south in Merca District, and between Brava and the Juba River. The Isaq (who in conjunction with the Dir probably number almost three quarters of a million) live mainly in the centre of the northern regions of the Republic, but in their grazing movements extend also into the Ethiopian Haud. To their east, the Isaq mingle with the Dulbahante and Warsangeli divisions of the Darod who, with a strength of perhaps one and a half million, are the largest and most widely distributed of all the Somali clan-families. As well as the eastern part of the former British Somaliland Protectorate, the Darod occupy the Eastern, Nugal and Mudug Regions, most of the Haud and Ogaden; and finally, although interrupted by a large wedge of Hawiye in the centre of the Republic and the Digil and Rahanweyn between the rivers, extend eventually into the North-eastern Region of Kenya. The Hawiye, who boast probably more than half a million persons, live to the south of the Majerteyn Darod in Mudug, Hiran, and round Mogadishu. They extend some way across the Shebelle basin where they mingle with the Sab tribes, and also, like the Darod, are found again in strength in the northern part of Kenya.

With a total population of little more than half a million, the Sab tribes are less numerous, less widely distributed, and contain only the two major divisions already mentioned. Having a stronger cultivating bias than any other Somali group, their habitat is primarily restricted to the fertile region between the two rivers where their pastoral and cultivating sections mingle not only with each other but also with pastoral nomads of the other Samale clans.

In addition to these divisions of the Somali nation whose distribution and relative strengths are vital to an understanding of both past and present events, there are a number of smaller ethnic communities which require to be mentioned. The most numerous (some 80,000 strong) are Somalized Bantu scattered in cultivating villages along the Shebelle and Juba Rivers and in pockets between them. These derive in part from earlier Bantu and Swahili-speaking groups, as well as from former slave populations freed by the suppression of slavery at the end of the nineteenth century. Although they still retain today much of their physical distinctiveness, socially these communities are becoming increasingly absorbed in the wider Somali society. The best-known groups are the Shidle, and Shabelle on the Shebelle River, and the Wa-Gosha (or Gosha) and Gobaweyn on the Juba. Less numerous but economically and politically more important is the immigrant Asian community (some 40,000 in the Republic, about 12,000 in the Jibuti Republic) which consists chiefly of Arabs (many of families domiciled on the coast for centuries) and a smaller number of Indians, Pakistanis, and Persians. Similarly largely occupied in trade and commerce and also in development and technical aid is the small European community, numbering about 5,000 in Somalia and 15,000 in the Republic of Jibuti. The few permanent European settlers live mainly as farmers and estate owners in the south of Somalia.

Mode of life and social institutions

Although the proportion of people who practise some form of cultivation is higher, probably not much more than an eighth of the total Somali population are sedentary cultivators, and these mainly the southern Digil and Rahanweyn tribes. Thus for the majority, in the arid conditions of the north, centre,