The Somalis are primarily nomadic herdsmen who, because of intense competition for scarce resources, have been extremely individualistic and frequently involved in blood feuds or wars with neighbouring tribes and peoples. Government of the rer is markedly patriarchal, although the chief is chosen by a group of elders who counsel him. A Somali has obligations both to his rer and to the loosely defined tribe of which his rer is a part. The basis of Somali society is the rer or large, self-contained kinship group or clan, consisting of a number of families claiming common descent from a male ancestor. Although three great divisions of Somalis exist, roughly corresponding to the northern, central and southern parts of the region, the Somalis demonstrate considerable cultural unity. It is believed that in the 14th century the Somalis, converted to Islam by Arabs from across the Red Sea, began their expansion southward from the arid steppes to their present borders, which overflow what was traditionally known as Somaliland.
They speak a language of the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic (formerly Hamito-Semitic) family. Except for the arid coastal area in the north, the Somalis occupy true nomad regions of plains, coarse grass and streams. people of Africa occupying all of Somalia, a strip of Djibouti, the southern Ethiopian region of Ogaden and part of northwestern Kenya. A second category of Somalis are the townspeople and agriculturalists of the urban centres, especially along the coast of the Horn of Africa, many of whom act as commercial middlemen between the Arab world and the nomads of the interior.ĥ. They are primarily nomadic herdsmen who, because of intense competition for scarce resources, have been extremely individualistic and frequently involved in blood feuds or wars with neighbouring clans or peoples. All have been Muslim since at least the 14th century. Numbering more than seven million, the Somalis are divided into northern, central and southern groups. Their language is of the Cushitic branch of the Afroasiatic family. Any member of a large group of people occupying all of Somalia and parts of Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya. of or pertaining to Somalia, of or pertaining to the people or the language of SomaliaĤ. member of the Hamitic people that inhabit Somalia and nearby regionsģ.
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