I 
SOMALI ETHNOLOGY 
19 
Ish&k and Darud from their supposed progenitors, Sheikh Ishak 
bin Ahmed and Sheikh Jaberti bin Ismail, whose son D4rud 
is said to have been. The Habr Awal, Habr Gerhajis, and 
Habr Toljaala tribes, with whom we have most dealings in 
Berbera, belong to the Ishak group ; and the Ogaden, Bertiri, 
Abbasgul, Geri, Dolbahanta, Warsingali, Midjerten, Usbeyan, 
and Marehan belong to the Darud group. The descent of the 
Esa and Gadabursi tribes is unknown, but it is more than 
probable that they are offshoots of a great tribe called Her Ali. 
“ The tribal collective prefixes Rer, Habr, Ba, and Ba Habr 
are often met with. A wealthy Soimdi surrounds his huts, 
cattle, sheep, and camels by a zeriba of brushwood, and one of 
these, with the contents, is called a rer, being the kraal or 
temporary village. It will easily be understood, therefore, that 
all the descendants of a man called, say, Ibrahim, may be called 
the ‘ Rer ’ Ibrahim after him. 
“Every SomMi, being a Shafai Mussulman, can have four 
wives at a time, and it is each man’s object to have as many 
children as possible, to increase his own power and that of his 
tribe. Plurality of wives being allowed, the children of one 
wife must be distinguished from those of another. This is done 
by the prefix Ba. For an example of this, we have the case of 
the Rer Dahir Farah sub-tribe of the Habr Toljaala. The 
children by an Ibran woman were called the Ba Ibran ; those by 
a Habr Awal woman were called the Ba Awal ; and those by a 
woman named Gailoh, the Ba Gailoli. 
“ There are comparatively few names used among the Somalis, 
the changes being rung on different combinations of Mahomed, 
Ali, Hassan, Esa, Samanter, Ismail, Gadid, and others, many 
of which are names used in every Mussulman country. Owing 
to this scarcity of names, and to the vast number of people 
consequently named alike, the use of nicknames is very prevalent. 
A Somali will, as often as not, when asked his name, tell you 
his nickname, and I have known many a man at a loss when 
asked his real name. For instance, the descendants of Daud 
Gerhajis are called the Eidegalla, meaning 4 he who rolls in the 
mud,’ while those of Said Harti are known by his nickname, and 
are called the Dolbahanta tribe. 
“Somfili children are, as often as not, named after the circum- 
stances of their birth, unless they receive ordinary Mussulman 
names : for instance, Wa-berri means that the man bearing this 
name was born in the morning, from berri , morning. Similarly, 
