First Footsteps in East AfricaBurton, Richard Francis, Sir
History
First Footsteps in East Africa
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Harar -- Description and travel; Harari language; Horn of Africa -- Description and travel
exists, he became the father of all the gentle blood and the only certain
descent in the Somali country: by Magaden, a free woman, he had Gerhajis,
Awal, and Arab; and by a slave or slaves, Jailah, Sambur, and Rambad.
Hence the great clans, Habr Gerhajis and Awal, who prefer the matronymic--
Habr signifying a mother,--since, according to their dictum, no man knows
who may be his sire. [9] These increased and multiplied by connection and
affiliation to such an extent that about 300 years ago they drove their
progenitors, the Galla, from Berberah, and gradually encroached upon them,
till they intrenched themselves in the Highlands of Harar.
The old and pagan genealogies still known to the Somal, are Dirr, Aydur,
Darud, and, according to some, Hawiyah. Dirr and Aydur, of whom nothing is
certainly known but the name [10], are the progenitors of the northern
Somal, the Eesa, Gudabirsi, Ishak, and Bursuk tribes. Darud Jabarti [11]
bin Ismail bin Akil (or Ukayl) is supposed by his descendants to have been
a noble Arab from El Hejaz, who, obliged to flee his country, was wrecked
on the north-east coast of Africa, where he married a daughter of the
Hawiyah tribe: rival races declare him to have been a Galla slave, who,
stealing the Prophet's slippers [12], was dismissed with the words, Inna-
_tarad_-na-hu (verily we have rejected him): hence his name Tarud
([Arabic]) or Darud, the Rejected. [13] The etymological part of the story
is, doubtless, fabulous; it expresses, however, the popular belief that
the founder of the eastward or windward tribes, now extending over the
seaboard from Bunder Jedid to Ras Hafun, and southward from the sea to the
Webbes [14], was a man of ignoble origin. The children of Darud are now
divided into two great bodies: "Harti" is the family name of the
Dulbahanta, Ogadayn, Warsangali and Mijjarthayn, who call themselves sons
of Harti bin Kombo bin Kabl Ullah bin Darud: the other Darud tribes not
included under that appellation are the Girhi, Berteri, Marayhan, and
Bahabr Ali. The Hawiyah are doubtless of ancient and pagan origin; they
call all Somal except themselves Hashiyah, and thus claim to be equivalent
to the rest of the nation. Some attempt, as usual, to establish a holy
origin, deriving themselves like the Shaykhash from the Caliph Abubekr:
the antiquity, and consequently the Pagan origin of the Hawiyah are proved
by its present widely scattered state; it is a powerful tribe in the
Mijjarthayn country, and yet is found in the hills of Harar.
The Somal, therefore, by their own traditions, as well as their strongly
marked physical peculiarities, their customs, and their geographical
position, may be determined to be a half-caste tribe, an offshoot of the
great Galla race, approximated, like the originally Negro-Egyptian, to the
Caucasian type by a steady influx of pure Asiatic blood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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