Baraawe is a town located in the lower shabelle province in Somalia and is known to be the most southern town of the benadir coast. The city welcomed various settlers throughout history until to this very day, but in this thread I want to describe the main groups that lived within the old city before the 20th century ( the part that is surrounded by the city walls and is made up of the quarters Mpai and Biruni, as modern-day barawe is much larger). Reason for making this thread is, that there seems to be much discussion on this site on who the old inhabitants of the benadir coast were and I wanted to shed some light on this subject as a native of the area myself.
The Hamarani and The Ashraaf
The Hamarani are descendants of arab settlers in the region and speak a dialect of Swahili known as Chimwiini. In their language they identify themselves as "Wantu wa Mwiini"/ "people of Baraawe". They are divided into two groups, the Bidaa and the Hatimi. The Hatimi claim desced from the Hatim tribe of Yemen and the Bidaa are a confederacy of several arab clans that claim descend form many arab tribes like the Amawi, Qahtani and several others. They used to make up half of the population of the city in the beginning of the 20th century but nowadays are minority only found in the Mpai quarter.
A much smaller community that also claimed arab descend are known as the Ashraaf. They are mostly very recent immigrants from the 17th century and claim to be descendants of Ali and Fatima.
The Tunni
In the 19th century, the Tunni clan of the Somali made up half of the population of Baraawe. They are known as Shan Gamas (the five subclans) and these subclans were the Dafaradhi, Goigali, Dakhtira, Wirile, and Hajuwa. The urban Tunni retained close ties with their brethren outside the city walls that constituted the bulk of the population of the surrounding areas. But there were big cultural differences between the urban Tunni and the rest of the Tunni clan, as the former intermarried with the Hamarani and spoke the Swahili dialect Chimwiini and not Af Tunni.
Who used to rule the city?
It seems like Baraawe was a city state for most of its history and was jointly ruled by a council of elders of the different groups of people that lived there. In the 19th century, the council consisted of seven groups known as the "toddoba tol". These were made up of the five subclans of the Tunni, the Bidaa and Hatimi. It seems that under the rulership of the portugese and omanis the city still had its autonomy and the system of governance stayed the same in the city over the hundreds of years up to the 19th century. It was only in the 1880's that the sultanate of zanzibar appointed a man from the Dafaradhi subclan of the Tunni, who traditionally are the leaders/"sultans" of the Tunni people, as a representative of all groups in the city and this position was called the "shaykh al-balad" and exists to this very day.
Sources:
I mostly used these two texts and my own knowledge on the traditions of the city I got from my parents.
Kassim, M., 1993. The Banadir Coast Its Peoples and Their Cultural History.
Vianello, A. and Kassim, M., 2006. Servants of the Sharia
The Hamarani and The Ashraaf
The Hamarani are descendants of arab settlers in the region and speak a dialect of Swahili known as Chimwiini. In their language they identify themselves as "Wantu wa Mwiini"/ "people of Baraawe". They are divided into two groups, the Bidaa and the Hatimi. The Hatimi claim desced from the Hatim tribe of Yemen and the Bidaa are a confederacy of several arab clans that claim descend form many arab tribes like the Amawi, Qahtani and several others. They used to make up half of the population of the city in the beginning of the 20th century but nowadays are minority only found in the Mpai quarter.
A much smaller community that also claimed arab descend are known as the Ashraaf. They are mostly very recent immigrants from the 17th century and claim to be descendants of Ali and Fatima.
The Tunni
In the 19th century, the Tunni clan of the Somali made up half of the population of Baraawe. They are known as Shan Gamas (the five subclans) and these subclans were the Dafaradhi, Goigali, Dakhtira, Wirile, and Hajuwa. The urban Tunni retained close ties with their brethren outside the city walls that constituted the bulk of the population of the surrounding areas. But there were big cultural differences between the urban Tunni and the rest of the Tunni clan, as the former intermarried with the Hamarani and spoke the Swahili dialect Chimwiini and not Af Tunni.
Who used to rule the city?
It seems like Baraawe was a city state for most of its history and was jointly ruled by a council of elders of the different groups of people that lived there. In the 19th century, the council consisted of seven groups known as the "toddoba tol". These were made up of the five subclans of the Tunni, the Bidaa and Hatimi. It seems that under the rulership of the portugese and omanis the city still had its autonomy and the system of governance stayed the same in the city over the hundreds of years up to the 19th century. It was only in the 1880's that the sultanate of zanzibar appointed a man from the Dafaradhi subclan of the Tunni, who traditionally are the leaders/"sultans" of the Tunni people, as a representative of all groups in the city and this position was called the "shaykh al-balad" and exists to this very day.
Sources:
I mostly used these two texts and my own knowledge on the traditions of the city I got from my parents.
Kassim, M., 1993. The Banadir Coast Its Peoples and Their Cultural History.
Vianello, A. and Kassim, M., 2006. Servants of the Sharia
