All The Clans Wear It In The Back Hair, But Each Has
Its Own Rules; Some Make It A Standard Decoration, Others Discard It After
The First Few Days.
The learned have an aversion to the custom,
stigmatising it as pagan and idolatrous; the vulgar look upon it as the
highest mark of honor.
[37] This is an ancient practice in Asia as well as in Africa. The
Egyptian temples show heaps of trophies placed before the monarchs as eyes
or heads were presented in Persia. Thus in 1 Sam. xviii. 25., David brings
the spoils of 200 Philistines, and shows them in full tale to the king,
that he might be the king's son-in-law. Any work upon the subject of
Abyssinia (Bruce, book 7. chap, 8.), or the late Afghan war, will prove
that the custom of mutilation, opposed as it is both to Christianity and
El Islam, is still practised in the case of hated enemies and infidels;
and De Bey remarks of the Cape Kafirs, "victores caesis excidunt [Greek:
_tu aidoui_], quae exsiccata regi afferunt."
[38] When attacking cattle, the plundering party endeavour with shoots and
noise to disperse the herds, whilst the assailants huddle them together,
and attempt to face the danger in parties.
[39] For the cheapest I paid twenty-three, for the dearest twenty-six
dollars, besides a Riyal upon each, under the names of custom dues and
carriage. The Hajj had doubtless exaggerated the price, but all were good
animals, and the traveller has no right to complain, except when he pays
dear for a bad article.
CHAP. IV.
THE SOMAL, THEIR ORIGIN AND PECULIARITIES.
Before leaving Zayla, I must not neglect a short description of its
inhabitants, and the remarkable Somal races around it.
Eastern Africa, like Arabia, presents a population composed of three
markedly distinct races.
1. The Aborigines or Hamites, such as the Negro Sawahili, the Bushmen,
Hottentots, and other races, having such physiological peculiarities as
the steatopyge, the tablier, and other developments described, in 1815, by
the great Cuvier.
2. The almost pure Caucasian of the northern regions, west of Egypt: their
immigration comes within the range of comparatively modern history.
3. The half-castes in Eastern Africa are represented principally by the
Abyssinians, Gallas, Somals, and Kafirs. The first-named people derive
their descent from Menelek, son of Solomon by the Queen of Sheba: it is
evident from their features and figures,--too well known to require
description,--that they are descended from Semitic as well as Hamitic
progenitors. [1] About the origin of the Gallas there is a diversity of
opinion. [2] Some declare them to be Meccan Arabs, who settled on the
western coast of the Red Sea at a remote epoch: according to the
Abyssinians, however, and there is little to find fault with in their
theory, the Gallas are descended from a princess of their nation, who was
given in marriage to a slave from the country south of Gurague. She bare
seven sons, who became mighty robbers and founders of tribes: their
progenitors obtained the name of Gallas, after the river Gala, in Gurague,
where they gained a decisive victory our their kinsmen the Abyssins. [3] A
variety of ethnologic and physiological reasons,--into which space and
subject prevent my entering,--argue the Kafirs of the Cape to be a
northern people, pushed southwards by some, to us, as yet, unknown cause.
The origin of the Somal is a matter of modern history.
"Barbarah" (Berberah) [4], according to the Kamus, is "a well known town
in El Maghrib, and a race located between El Zanj--Zanzibar and the
Negrotic coast--and El Habash [5]: they are descended from the Himyar
chiefs Sanhaj ([Arabic]) and Sumamah ([Arabic]), and they arrived at the
epoch of the conquest of Africa by the king Afrikus (Scipio Africanus?)."
A few details upon the subject of mutilation and excision prove these to
have been the progenitors of the Somal [6], who are nothing but a slice of
the great Galla nation Islamised and Semiticised by repeated immigrations
from Arabia. In the Kamus we also read that Samal ([Arabic]) is the name
of the father of a tribe, so called because he _thrust out_ ([Arabic],
_samala_) his brother's eye. [7] The Shaykh Jami, a celebrated
genealogist, informed me that in A.H. 666 = A.D. 1266-7, the Sayyid Yusuf
el Baghdadi visited the port of Siyaro near Berberah, then occupied by an
infidel magician, who passed through mountains by the power of his
gramarye: the saint summoned to his aid Mohammed bin Tunis el Siddiki, of
Bayt el Fakih in Arabia, and by their united prayers a hill closed upon
the pagan. Deformed by fable, the foundation of the tale is fact: the
numerous descendants of the holy men still pay an annual fine, by way of
blood-money to the family of the infidel chief. The last and most
important Arab immigration took place about fifteen generations or 450
years ago, when the Sherif Ishak bin Ahmed [8] left his native country
Hazramaut, and, with forty-four saints, before mentioned, landed on
Makhar,--the windward coast extending from Karam Harbour to Cape
Guardafui. At the town of Met, near Burnt Island, where his tomb still
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.
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