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Somalia Riverine and Coastal People of Non-Somali Origin
Along the southern coast, in the valleys of the Jubba and
Shabeelle rivers and in a few places between the rivers, live
small groups--probably totaling less than 2 percent of the
population--who differ culturally and physically from the
Somalis. Some are descendants of pre-Somali inhabitants of the
area who were able to resist absorption or enslavement by the
Somalis. The ancestors of others were slaves who escaped to found
their own communities or were freed in the course of European
antislavery activity in the nineteenth century. The Somali term
for these people, particularly the riverine and interriverine
cultivators, is habash.
The relations of the habash communities with
neighboring Somali groups varied, but most have traditional
attachments of some sort to a Somali lineage, and members of all
but a few communities along the coast speak Somali as a first
language. In earlier times, whereas some habash
communities had considerable independence, in others
habash were much like serfs cultivating land under the
patronage of a Somali lineage. In such cases, however, it was
understood that habash could not be deprived of their
land, and there was little reason for the pastoral Somalis to do
so. Somalis and habash did not intermarry; nor would a
Somali eat a meal prepared by habash. As these
restrictions suggest, Somalis--whether Samaal or Sab--considered
the habash their inferiors. Nevertheless, the political
relationship of some habash groups to neighboring Somali
groups was that of near-equals.
The attachment of habash groups to sections of Somali
society usually entailed the participation of the habash
community in the diya-paying group of Somali lineages or
clans. Like the Somali, all but a few habash had been
converted to Islam, and some of them had become leaders of
religious communities in the interriverine area.
Most non-Somali peoples were primarily cultivators, but some,
like the Eyle, also hunted, something the Somalis would not do. A
few groups, including the Boni, remained primarily hunters into
the twentieth century and were accordingly looked down on by the
Somalis. By midcentury most of these peoples had turned to
cultivation, and some had moved into the towns and become
laborers.
Along the coast live the Bajuni and the Amarani. They are
fishermen, sailors, and merchants, derived from a mixture of
coastal populations. Their ancestors included Arab or Persian
settlers and seafaring peoples of India and the East Indies. Both
the Bajuni and the Amarani speak dialects of Swahili. The
Amarani, who were estimated to number fewer than 1,000 in the
early 1990s, inhabit small fishing communities in and near
Baraawe, Mogadishu, Merca, and the inland town of Afgooye on the
Shabeelle River. The Bajuni inhabit the East African coast and
Bajun Islands near Chisimayu in a continuous strip from Chisimayu
southward into Kenya as far as Lamu, and maintain scattered
communities as far away as Mozambique. Both the Amarani and the
Bajuni have little contact with outsiders except in towns.
Partial geographical isolation and an active ethnic consciousness
distinguished by differences in languages separate them from the
Somalis.
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