The "Shirazi" Settlement of East Africa

[James Dahl]

Boni or Waata or Gabiyo is not really a distinct people but a caste. Somali is a caste name, it's occupational it refers to the stockman occupation. Tumaal is a caste name referring to blacksmithing. Gabiyo is a caste name it means bow, refers to their occupation as hunters. Boni were fishermen originally and a slightly different caste from Gabiyo.

The caste system has slowly faded away over time but yeah. Urban Somalis for instance if you read the Futuh al-Xabasha don't refer to themselves as Somali.

They are not ethnically different from other lowland Cushitic people

 

[Sultan]

The low caste Somalis are originally called Midgaan in classical Somali but The new derogatory name (Boon) for the low caste Somalis in the south is derived from the the Booni, the Bushmen who had little or no resemblance to Somali.

I think you are confusing the low caste Boon Somalis and Boni ,the indigenous Bushmen of the south.

James,do you know Boon is normal Somali name in the northern regions and the Ogaden?

 

[James Dahl]

There are lots of pejorative terms for the occupational castes other than the stockman caste which is the highest caste. Anecdotal stories explain that most of the occupational castes have been over time absorbed into the larger clans through the sheegad system, which picked up pace quickly with modernization where the caste system broke down and clans looked to expand their numbers by absorbing clients.

The Somali rejection of kinship with Midgaan is due to prejudice, not science.

 

[Sultan]

You stubborn Gaal-cadaan ,you need to acknowledge Booni are not Somali or cushitic at all.they may have lost their original language but still have their distinctive physical characteristics. First of all,have you meet a Booni(Ree Gamuun) ? These huntsmen has nothing to do with Somalis however,the low caste Somali clans in the south were pejoratively called Boon simply they performed the lowly job of hunting and gathering which was known with the Booni,the bushmen.


Not all Somali low caste clan names are based on their occupation only a few are based on it. For example

Tumaal -Blacksmiths
Yibir - Sorcerers
Gabooye -hunters

The three above low castes are collectively called Migdo in the north or Boon in the south.the latter got its name from the aboriginal bushmen (the Booni) of the Jubaland.A more politically correct and less offensive name for the Somali low castes is the word Madhibaan .

 

[MARAQ DIGAAG]

Do you mean waradei or warra daya?

The Booni should have spoken Cushitic language having lived under the mercy of Galla(Wardei ) and then Somali for centuries.

That is not the reason the Boni speak a Cushitic language . They are a Cushitic Somaloid people whose original language Is closer to that of Rendille, Af Maay/Af Maxa Tiri . Not all caste groups or occupation groups are Khoisan . Some are Cushitic people who just have a different lifestyle to the dominant pastoralist people . The Oromo did come to occupy them , however the Boni represent an ancient split from the proto-Somali -Rendille group .

 

[Grant]

That is not the reason the Boni speak a Cushitic language . They are a Cushitic Somaloid people whose original language Is closer to that of Rendille, Af Maay/Af Maxa Tiri . Not all caste groups or occupation groups are Khoisan . Some are Cushitic people who just have a different lifestyle to the dominant pastoralist people . The Oromo did come to occupy them , however the Boni represent an ancient split from the proto-Somali -Rendille group .

Would love to see a link for this. If you google Aweer/Boni you will find many articles all claiming the Boni are Khoisan who shifted languages. Here is the Wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aweer_people

'Evidence suggests that the Aweer/Boni, along with the related Dahalo and Wata, are remnants of the early Bushman hunter-gatherer inhabitants of Eastern Africa. According to linguistic, anthropological and other data, these groups later came under the influence and adopted the Afro-Asiatic languages of the Eastern and Southern Cushitic peoples who moved into the area. Dahalo has consequently retained some of the characteristic click sounds of the Khoisan languages.[2]

The Aweer have historically been known in the literature as Boni or Sanye, both of which are derogatory terms for low-caste groups.[1][3] Their lives were drastically changed when the Kenyan government curtailed their traditional way of life in the 1960s, forcing them to settle in villages along the Hindi-Kiunga Road, between the Boni National Reserve and the Dodori National Reserve.[4] Although the majority of the Aweer settled in villages located in this corridor between the two reserves, some established themselves in nearby Bajuni villages.

Today, the Aweer in Kenya have been encouraged to adopt farming as their main livelihood.[1] However, they also continue to engage in many of their traditional hunter-gatherer practices, utilizing the nearby forests for the collection of wild honey, plants for traditional medicine and building materials, and bush meat to supplement their diets. With laws banning the hunting of all wildlife in Kenya, the Aweer's traditional way of life is in danger.[5]"

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http://www.khoisanpeoples.org/ claims

THE SAN, HÁDZABE, SANDAWE, WATHA, AWEER, DAHALO, KILI & KHOE-KHOE

 

[Sultan]

That is not the reason the Boni speak a Cushitic language . They are a Cushitic Somaloid people whose original language Is closer to that of Rendille, Af Maay/Af Maxa Tiri . Not all caste groups or occupation groups are Khoisan . Some are Cushitic people who just have a different lifestyle to the dominant pastoralist people . The Oromo did come to occupy them , however the Boni represent an ancient split from the proto-Somali -Rendille group .

The Booni/Aweer are totally different from the Somalis.They are neither Somaloid nor cushitic.

Rendiile ,Sakuuye and Gabbra are Somali people clans who are assimilated by the Boran.They are all pastrolists and look exactly like Somalis .It is only that they separated from mainstream Somali centuries ago .

 

[Ajx]

Bro this was never in ibn batutas book

I heard a lot of scholars books were purposely mistranslated in an effort to turn African Muslims away from Islam during the African invasion period. People like ibn batutah, ibn khaldun, etc.. are quoted saying some rascist stuff in the their books when in reality the original copies say no such things. I found this out after having discussions with some African friends who try to convince me Islam and Arabs are rascist. Thankfully I’ve lived in Arab countries before and knew about these scholars before so I did research and found out about the blatant mistranslations.

 

[MARAQ DIGAAG]

Would love to see a link for this. If you google Aweer/Boni you will find many articles all claiming the Boni are Khoisan who shifted languages. Here is the Wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aweer_people

'Evidence suggests that the Aweer/Boni, along with the related Dahalo and Wata, are remnants of the early Bushman hunter-gatherer inhabitants of Eastern Africa. According to linguistic, anthropological and other data, these groups later came under the influence and adopted the Afro-Asiatic languages of the Eastern and Southern Cushitic peoples who moved into the area. Dahalo has consequently retained some of the characteristic click sounds of the Khoisan languages.[2]

The Aweer have historically been known in the literature as Boni or Sanye, both of which are derogatory terms for low-caste groups.[1][3] Their lives were drastically changed when the Kenyan government curtailed their traditional way of life in the 1960s, forcing them to settle in villages along the Hindi-Kiunga Road, between the Boni National Reserve and the Dodori National Reserve.[4] Although the majority of the Aweer settled in villages located in this corridor between the two reserves, some established themselves in nearby Bajuni villages.

Today, the Aweer in Kenya have been encouraged to adopt farming as their main livelihood.[1] However, they also continue to engage in many of their traditional hunter-gatherer practices, utilizing the nearby forests for the collection of wild honey, plants for traditional medicine and building materials, and bush meat to supplement their diets. With laws banning the hunting of all wildlife in Kenya, the Aweer's traditional way of life is in danger.[5]"

---------------------------------------------------

http://www.khoisanpeoples.org/ claims

THE SAN, HÁDZABE, SANDAWE, WATHA, AWEER, DAHALO, KILI & KHOE-KHOE

Would love to see a link for this. If you google Aweer/Boni you will find many articles all claiming the Boni are Khoisan who shifted languages. Here is the Wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aweer_people

'Evidence suggests that the Aweer/Boni, along with the related Dahalo and Wata, are remnants of the early Bushman hunter-gatherer inhabitants of Eastern Africa. According to linguistic, anthropological and other data, these groups later came under the influence and adopted the Afro-Asiatic languages of the Eastern and Southern Cushitic peoples who moved into the area. Dahalo has consequently retained some of the characteristic click sounds of the Khoisan languages.[2]

The Aweer have historically been known in the literature as Boni or Sanye, both of which are derogatory terms for low-caste groups.[1][3] Their lives were drastically changed when the Kenyan government curtailed their traditional way of life in the 1960s, forcing them to settle in villages along the Hindi-Kiunga Road, between the Boni National Reserve and the Dodori National Reserve.[4] Although the majority of the Aweer settled in villages located in this corridor between the two reserves, some established themselves in nearby Bajuni villages.

Today, the Aweer in Kenya have been encouraged to adopt farming as their main livelihood.[1] However, they also continue to engage in many of their traditional hunter-gatherer practices, utilizing the nearby forests for the collection of wild honey, plants for traditional medicine and building materials, and bush meat to supplement their diets. With laws banning the hunting of all wildlife in Kenya, the Aweer's traditional way of life is in danger.[5]"

---------------------------------------------------

http://www.khoisanpeoples.org/ claims

THE SAN, HÁDZABE, SANDAWE, WATHA, AWEER, DAHALO, KILI & KHOE-KHOE

Fleming Baiso and Rendille Somali outliers is a good start .

 

[MARAQ DIGAAG]

The Booni/Aweer are totally different from the Somalis.They are neither Somaloid nor cushitic.

Rendiile ,Sakuuye and Gabbra are Somali people clans who are assimilated by the Boran.They are all pastrolists and look exactly like Somalis .It is only that they separated from mainstream Somali centuries ago .

History started before the Darood and Oromo migrations . Booni are indeed Cushites and the Somalis/Rendille are closest to them.

 

[Grant]

Fleming Baiso and Rendille Somali outliers is a good start .

That's not a link, and you know it.

"Out of Print--Limited Availability."

 

[Grant]

That's not a link, and you know it.

"Out of Print--Limited Availability."

Nobody is arguing that Aweer/Boni is not Cushitic. It is. It's the people who are not.

Fleming was published in 1969, so there has been plenty of time for his data to have reached Wiki. Here is a 1978 description of it:

https://archive.org/stream/HeineThe...of+Rendille,+Boni,+and+Somali+(1978)_djvu.txt

"Two short vocabularies published in the 19th century by G.A. Fischer (1878:141-144) and
H.H. Johnston (1886:401-402), as well as a few grammatical notes (Tucker 1969:66-81) are
the only published data on this language to date. An elaborate discussion on the 19th
century vocabularies and on the position of Boni has been provided by Harold C. Fleming
(1964:71-78). Our own account of the language (Heine 1977) is based on the western
dialect (6 ' but speakers of central and eastern Boni have been consulted as well."

It is clear that Wiki has used the later Heine material and not whatever it was you think is in Fleming. Here is what Wiki says under Aweer:

"Evidence suggests that the Aweer/Boni, along with the related Dahalo and Wata, are remnants of the early Bushman hunter-gatherer inhabitants of Eastern Africa. According to linguistic, anthropological and other data, these groups later came under the influence and adopted the Afro-Asiatic languages of the Eastern and Southern Cushitic peoples who moved into the area. Dahalo has consequently retained some of the characteristic click sounds of the Khoisan languages.[2]"

 

[Factz]

Nobody is arguing that Aweer/Boni is not Cushitic. It is. It's the people who are not.

Fleming was published in 1969, so there has been plenty of time for his data to have reached Wiki. Here is a 1978 description of it:

https://archive.org/stream/HeineTheSamLanguagesAHistoryOfRendilleBoniAndSomali1978/Heine+-+The+Sam+Languages+-+A+History+of+Rendille,+Boni,+and+Somali+(1978)_djvu.txt

"Two short vocabularies published in the 19th century by G.A. Fischer (1878:141-144) and
H.H. Johnston (1886:401-402), as well as a few grammatical notes (Tucker 1969:66-81) are
the only published data on this language to date. An elaborate discussion on the 19th
century vocabularies and on the position of Boni has been provided by Harold C. Fleming
(1964:71-78). Our own account of the language (Heine 1977) is based on the western
dialect (6 ' but speakers of central and eastern Boni have been consulted as well."

It is clear that Wiki has used the later Heine material and not whatever it was you think is in Fleming. Here is what Wiki says under Aweer:

"Evidence suggests that the Aweer/Boni, along with the related Dahalo and Wata, are remnants of the early Bushman hunter-gatherer inhabitants of Eastern Africa. According to linguistic, anthropological and other data, these groups later came under the influence and adopted the Afro-Asiatic languages of the Eastern and Southern Cushitic peoples who moved into the area. Dahalo has consequently retained some of the characteristic click sounds of the Khoisan languages.[2]"

I thought Boni people were Cushitic native to southern Somalia and they joined the Rahanweyn clan as a confederate.

 

[MARAQ DIGAAG]

That's not a link, and you know it.

"Out of Print--Limited Availability."

The link is available if you know how to use google . I hope you are not insinuating I was being disingenuous.

 

[Grant]

The link is available if you know how to use google . I hope you are not insinuating I was being disingenuous.

I absolutely was implying that. If you can produce a link from google please do so.

 

[MARAQ DIGAAG]

I thought Boni people were Cushitic native to southern Somalia and they joined the Rahanweyn clan as a confederate.

Before the Oromo invasion in the 16th century there was a civilisation or allied settlements known as Shungwaya. Shungwaya appears in the oral histories of the Bajuni, Mijikenda, Pokomo (Bantus) and in the those of the Boni , Dahalo, Garre , Oromo etc .

Shungwaya was founded and depended on economic relationships between settled -former Somali pastoralist who had moved to towns (Garre , Tunni etc ), the pastoralists of the interior, the Bantu farmers /fishermen and finally the Boni people . All these groups engaged in mutual transactions which were necessary to their survival .The Boni specialisation since antiquity was the selling of ivory and other related items . Shunguwaya was the precursor to what became the famed Swahili civilisation .


http://danstiles.org/publications/hunter-gatherers/02a.Boni history.pdf

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=iyw-_NMk0bgC&pg=PA11&dq=Shungwaya+somali&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjTganElZDbAhUEfMAKHfrSBncQ6AEIJDAA#v=onepage&q=Shungwaya somali&f=false


Grant : http://dspace-roma3.caspur.it/bitst...f;jsessionid=0006AAE7F6A32583014D66E1E207574F

 

[Grant]

Before the Oromo invasion in the 16th century there was a civilisation or allied settlements known as Shungwaya. Shungwaya appears in the oral histories of the Bajuni, Mijikenda, Pokomo (Bantus) and in the those of the Boni , Dahalo, Garre , Oromo etc .

Shungwaya was founded and depended on economic relationships between settled -former Somali pastoralist who had moved to towns (Garre , Tunni etc ), the pastoralists of the interior, the Bantu farmers /fishermen and finally the Boni people . All these groups engaged in mutual transactions which were necessary to their survival .The Boni specialisation since antiquity was the selling of ivory and other related items . Shunguwaya was the precursor to what became the famed Swahili civilisation .


http://danstiles.org/publications/hunter-gatherers/02a.Boni history.pdf

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=iyw-_NMk0bgC&pg=PA11&dq=Shungwaya+somali&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjTganElZDbAhUEfMAKHfrSBncQ6AEIJDAA#v=onepage&q=Shungwaya somali&f=false


Grant : http://dspace-roma3.caspur.it/bitstream/2307/4912/1/Baiso and Rendille_Somali outliers.pdf;jsessionid=0006AAE7F6A32583014D66E1E207574F

Soup,

That was a neat trick. Thank you. See if you can do anything with Virginia Luling:
Somali Sultanate: the Geledi city-state over 150 years. I see books suddenly available now, but nothing online.

Dan Stiles didn't have any DNA data to work with. Check this:

https://drum.lib.umd.edu/handle/1903/11443

Page 122:

"Besides the Boni and Sengwer, all current East African hunter-gatherers share common haplotypes (mtDNA L4, L3a, L0d3 and Y chromosome B2a and B2b), suggesting that the current East African hunter-gatherers might represent remnants of the previous pre-Holocene and early Holocene population in the region. The Boni and the Sengwer appear to have had substantial levels of gene flow from other neighboring populations that appear to have the hunter-gatherer “genetic signature”. In fact, the Orma and Kalenjin populations that neighbor the Boni and the Sengwer, respectively, carry hunter-gatherer haplotypes at moderate frequencies indicating possible “reverse” gene flow."

 

[Weydamal]

The translation of ibn batutas book you've got is wrong the original book says shafcy not Shiite
View attachment 45444 second of all Iran became shii in the 15th century so using that as a reason is flimsy at best. Also Ibn batuta says that the land of the Berber starts from zaylc and ends at mogdisho. View attachment 45445

The Arabic text you quote is interesting. It does say about the people of Zaylac:

Wa hum taaifa min as suudaan shaaficiyal madhab

They are one of the black nations of the Shafi'i madhab

However it continues to say in the same text:

Wa ahlu Zaylac suud al alwaan wa aktharuhum raafida

The people of Zeylac are black in color and most of them are rafidah.

Rafidah or rejectors or was a term used to signify the early Shiites who refused to recognise the caliphate of Abu Bakr and Umar.

The text is therefore on the one hand saying that the people of Zaylac were Sunni Shafi'i, but in the same breath saying that most of them were Rafidah.

Most of the Western translations only mention that the people of Zaylac were Rafidah or extremist Shia. The text you are quoting is interesting because of the Sunni Shafi'i description of the inhabitants of Zaylac. Could you tell us the source of the Arabic manuscript you quoted.

Secondly, while most of Iran was Sunni Shafi'i and Hanafi since the advent of Islam, and were forcefully converted to Shia'sm under the Safavid King Ismail Shah in the 1500's, this does not mean that Shia'sm didn't exist in early Islam. Shia'ism comes fro the word Shia'at Alia or the party of Ali. This was a group that formed during the early Caliphate to champion the notion that Ali was the rightful heir and Caliphate of Muhammad. So the roots of Shia'ism go way back to the foundation of Islam.

 

[government]

The Arabic text you quote is interesting. It does say about the people of Zaylac:

Wa hum taaifa min as suudaan shaaficiyal madhab

They are one of the black nations of the Shafi'i madhab

However it continues to say in the same text:

Wa ahlu Zaylac suud al alwaan wa aktharuhum raafida

The people of Zeylac are black in color and most of them are rafidah.

Rafidah or rejectors or was a term used to signify the early Shiites who refused to recognise the caliphate of Abu Bakr and Umar.

The text is therefore on the one hand saying that the people of Zaylac were Sunni Shafi'i, but in the same breath saying that most of them were Rafidah.

Most of the Western translations only mention that the people of Zaylac were Rafidah or extremist Shia. The text you are quoting is interesting because of the Sunni Shafi'i description of the inhabitants of Zaylac. Could you tell us the source of the Arabic manuscript you quoted.

Secondly, while most of Iran was Sunni Shafi'i and Hanafi since the advent of Islam, and were forcefully converted to Shia'sm under the Safavid King Ismail Shah in the 1500's, this does not mean that Shia'sm didn't exist in early Islam. Shia'ism comes fro the word Shia'at Alia or the party of Ali. This was a group that formed during the early Caliphate to champion the notion that Ali was the rightful heir and Caliphate of Muhammad. So the roots of Shia'ism go way back to the foundation of Islam.

It's from a book called رحلة ابن بطوطة تحفة الناظر

 

[Weydamal]

It's from a book called رحلة ابن بطوطة تحفة الناظر

You have a very good point. Sometimes Orientalist rely on a manuscript, only for another one to surface with some varient reading.

Can someone enlighten us on the different manuscripts of futuux al xabasha and the one that has been used by Orientalists?