Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/487

 SOMALI TEIBES. 800 In still greater contempt are hold the Midgans, called also Rami, that is to say trees and snakes, and eat all the prohibited food, such as fish, fowl, eggs, hares, and gazelles. They are also daring hunters, feirleisly attacking the lion and the elephant, whom they pierce with their poisoned arrows. Like the Yebirs, tho Midgans also practise medicine, and have the rcpatation of being extremely clever charlatans. According to the Somali legends, the lower castes are the issue of crossings between Abyssinian women and maleficent genii, while the Midgans are of still more degraded origin, their ancestors having been the slaves of these Abys- sinian women. The Hasiiiyas. The IlashiyaSj or Northern Somali, more commonly known by the name of Aji, have evidently been most affected by contact and family alliances with the Arabs. So far as they are concerned, tho national traditions are to some extent justified and the Hashiyas may to a certain degree trace their genealogies back to the Koreish family of the Ilashims, one of whose warriors, named Arab, is supposed to have emigrated to Africa towards the end of the twelfth century, or less than six hundred years after the Hegira. Ilis residence, which became the capital of a powerful empire, is said to have been discovered at Zeila, or in the vicinity of that place. The Hashiyas are subdivided into two main groups, respectively named Tarud (Darode), that is, the " Banished," and Ishak, from two descendants of Arab. From Tarud are descended the Mijertins, most famous of all the Ilashiya nations, comprising some thirty tribal groups under the common suzerainty of a bogltor, or sultan. To the Ishak branch belong the Issa, or better Eissa, and the Gadabursi, who occupy the shores of Tajurrah Bay and the districts about Zeila and Berbera, and are consequently of all the Somali people the best known to Europeans. With the same branch are grouped the Habr Tol, Ilabr Ghar Ilaji, Ilabr Awal, and the other tribes whose name is preceded by the word habr. In the Somali lan- guage this word habr has the meaning of " grandmother," " venerable matron," and seems to indicate a faint reminiscence of a previous social system in which descent was reckoned only through the female line, as is still the case amongst most African populations. If this conjecture be correct, traces of the matriarchal state would thus still survive amongst these fierce Somali populations who at pre- sent treat their women with so much contempt. It is noteworthy that amongst the three above-mentioned Ilabr tribes are found the very finest specimens of the Somali type. The south-western Hashiyas — Ghirri, Bersub, and Bertiri — appear to be allied to the Gallas, and jointly with the Jerso, one of the tribes of this nation, they even constitute a trorra, or political confederacy, worra being a Galla word meaning "clan," or "family." In this region commercial relations and the development of social intercourse between the conterminous tribes have arrested the devastating
 * Archers," who are universally regarded us the lowest of the low. They worship