Random Oromo history thread!

[Abba Sadacha]

Random Somali history/facts?


''Awdal region, populated by Dir clans: the Gadabursi and Issa, is credited as being the most stable region in Somaliland. This is mainly due to peacekeeping efforts on the part of the Gadabursi clan who dominate this region. Nevertheless, the potential for conflict and cooperation with the Isaaq-dominated administration is as uncertain as it is in the un-administered Darod regions in the east. Like the Darod, the Gadabursi are divided over the issue of independence and the border areas of Awdal are disputed between Gadabursi lineages and neighboring Isaaq groups.
Despite these still unresolved land disputes with neighboring Isaaq groups, the unwavering support given to the present administration by the Gadabursi party explains the well-established peace and stability prevailing in Awdal. The clan's cooperation with the current administration in Hargeisa seems to depend upon the following factors: First, Gadabursi clansmen view the present administration as harmless and not hostile to the rights of non Isaaq groups in contrast to its predecessor, which was suspected of Isaaq supremacy and subjugation of others. Traditional hostility between the Gadabursi and neighboring Habar Awal clan (association with the present administration) subsided as the Gadabursi armed militias rallied to the first government call for military cooperation against the Gar'xajis insurrection in late 1994.
Second, the Gadabursi share with the Isaaq common territorial interests defined by the frontiers of Somaliland, Gadabursi land lies exclusively within Somaliland. Third, the Gadabursi believe that they are the largest non-Isaaq group in Somaliland and are therefore an important constituency within the country. The present government satisfied this aspiration by letting the office of vice minister be held by the only prominent Gadabursi SNM veteran, 'Cabdiraxman Aw 'Cali.''
[What are Somalia's Development Perspectives? Science between Resignation and Hope? Proeceedings of the 6th SSIA-Congress Berlin 6-9 Dec.199
by Jorg Janzen (Author), Stella Vitzthum (Author)
Pages 132-133]

 

[Abba Sadacha]

''The great and basic trouble is not religious, but tribal----that is, the rise of the Oromo people, or as they are usually and pejoratively called, the Gallas.
The Amhara elites, who are the ruling class, are beginning to fear that the Oromos will become educated and demand a greater share in the government of the country.
This is certainly true, since already some of the educated Oromos are pushing their way upward in government circles and the Amahras are beginning to see what may happen in the years to come.
So some of the Amharas are determined keep the Oromo down.
It is not the case of the downtrodden minority, because the Oromos are far more numerous, yet most of them are considred to be illiterate Pagans.
When the Oromo's come to realize their strength and power, they may well make trouble for the Amharas.



[Adventure in Africa: The Story of Don McClure : from Khartoum to Addis Ababa in Five Decades
Book by Charles Partee, pg 259]

 

[Abba Sadacha]

''Little is known of the origin of the Somali people. At some date B.C. which is difficult to determine, the Oromo's, the stock from which the Somalis are descended, were driven from Southern Arabia into the region now known as Somaliland, where they presumably intermarried with the original negro inhabitants.
In the early years of the Prophet Muhammad's mission, about A.D. 616, there was a further influx across the Red Sea from the Arabian to the African coast; and from this date onwards Arabs settled in Somaliland and intermarried with the Oromo tribes, thus creating the Somali race.
Whatever the circumstances attending these incursions may have been, the distant affinity of the Somali language to Arabic and the merely dialectal difference from the Oromo language leaves one with no doubt that they are descended from both these races.
Both in temperament and appearance, however, the Somalis have inherited far more from their conquering Arabian forbears than from the negroes who originally inhabited their country.
They are of good physique, with heads well set on spare but athletic frames, with proud bearing and carriage bespeaking their consciousness of a racial superiority over their neighbors.
Their profile is often classic; the forehead is finely rounded and prominent; the eyes are moderately large and deep-set; the nose is usually straight, although sometimes it is snub or aquiline; the lips are not too thick and never everted as in the Negro; and the hair is never wolly, but ringlety, and sometimes even quite straight.
In colour they vary from light to dark brown, and from dark brown to black. Judged by any standard of beauty, the Somali is physically of an extremely attractive appearance...''
[Journal of the African Society, Volume 24
By African Society, MacMillan, 1925 - Africa
Pages 100-103]

 

[Abba Sadacha]

''In proposing a vote of thanks to Miss Werner, the Chairman invited remarks from those present. He remarked himself that the Oromos had played a very great part in the ancient civilization of Savage Africa.
They were one of the earliest representatives of the Caucasian race, and, through sheer force of circumstances, had lost some of their early civilization and came down in the world.

I think the race in even recent times has extended further south than we find it today. From examining vocabularies I am struck by the appearance of Oromo roots as far south as the north end of Lake Nyasa.
And, of course, in the history of East Africa we must recall that an important Oromo tribe, almost extinct at the present day-The Es-Segeju-helped the Portuguese to overcome the cannibal raid of the Bazimba.
The Bazimba seem to have started from South-west Congoland, and, after overwhelming the Portuguese almost entirely, they turned noth and sacked the Arab town of Kilwa, and were not finally disposed of until, with the assitance of the Es-segeju, they were completely exterminated near Mombasa.

All these Oromo peoples, both in Abyssinia, and, further south, in Equatorial East Africa, have been remarkably neglected by European students. The most we can glean of the language of the Southern Oromo is that work by Tutschek from 1 or more Oromo peoples of Abyssinia somewhere about 1848, and that gives one a tolerably correct impression, I am told, of some of the Southern dialects. All this has such an immensely important bearing on the past history of Africa, from ancient Egyptian days onwards, that I do hope the work of Miss Werner, when her article appears in the Journal of the African Society, will draw the attention of Governors, travellers, and missionaries to the Oromo peoples as they exist today, and, above all, to writing down their dialects.
There is no group of languages of more historical interest than the languages of the Hamites for the light they will throw on the Caucasian's relations with Africa; and yet, perhaps, there is no group more superficially studied.''


[African Affairs: Journal of the Royal African Society, Volume 13
Page 317. Published in 1913]

Further down, on page 318:

''The Oromo impinge on the Bantu negroes because the Oromos have permeated north-east Africa, and certainly seem to be the principal element in composing those Bantu aristocracies known to us mainly as the Bahima, in Uganda, and surrounding countries.
The Bahima are palpably of Oromo affinities. I have sometimes ventured to speak of them as being like the ancient Egyptians because you find among them a type of face which irresistibly recalls the portraiture of the Pharoahs. But, after all, the ancient Egyptians were closely allied to the Oromo. The Oromo seem to have been the original inhabitans of Somaliland when visited by Egyptian exploratory expeditions.
The Punt portraits which appear in engravings on stone and frescoes in Egyptian temples recall the Oromo more than anything else.
The Somali is possibly little more than a hybrid between the original nomadic population and Arab civilizers and immigrants.''

 

[𐒋𐒖𐒆𐒔𐒖𐒕𐒈]

''Little is known of the origin of the Somali people. At some date B.C. which is difficult to determine, the Oromo's, the stock from which the Somalis are descended, were driven from Southern Arabia into the region now known as Somaliland, where they presumably intermarried with the original negro inhabitants.

This is an interesting reading, and the first time I come upon the assertion being made that Somalis descend from Oromos; I did see Oromo people making the claim that ardu Somali was indeed theirs to begin with, and Somalis carved it out through successive migrations.

In the early years of the Prophet Muhammad's mission, about A.D. 616, there was a further influx across the Red Sea from the Arabian to the African coast; and from this date onwards Arabs settled in Somaliland and intermarried with the Oromo tribes, thus creating the Somali race.

Trouble is the author fails to account for the Hijra ila al-Habasha by the Sahabah from Mecca, hence making his assertions arguably dubious.