I think..it is good if u use any somali online dictionary or get one..

Asalamu aliekum NOMADS REALIZE THAT THEY HAVE QABIIL BUT THEY DON'T REALIZE THAT THEY HAVE COUNTRY.

Asalamu aleikum..... YOU ARE TOTALLY MISSING WHAT'S GOING ON! all you need is to reach the unconscoius part of the girl and be yourself.. you know girls love strong guys and confident guys and some one that will take care of her.. so you don't need to think and talk like a girl man you can go so far with this and man she will take a wrong image of you. be yourself and confident and try to understand and listen.. girls love some one to listen them.Girls aren't attracted to those who pretend and act sweet. and make her realize that you are all she wanted and body langauge is evry important... girls can sense and read your body language so be confident and communicate with her wit the body langauge...plus somaligirls all they looking for trust and listening...so you don't need time to waste to find how girls think..man every girl is different and plus just be good moslim brother and strong and confident and try your best to understand thier drama..becuz it makes the relationship sweet than everythin will work out for you

Well that was a background check about the nomads and the title of the book is called Culture and Customs of Somalia

FESTIVALSAND COMMEMORATIVE DAYS Excessive public exuberance and displays are not part of Somali custom; this is due pardy to the ascetic nature of Somali pastoralist culture and pardy to the Islamic teachings of sobriety and piety. Public revelry is therefore unknown and the Somali night is one of silence, as one European expatriate opined. However, Somalis are not without joyous celebrations and commemorative days. These can be divided into ancient pre-Islamic, Islamic, and staterelated celebrations. Only one pre-Islamic celebration of importance exists-the dabshid (the lighting of the fire), which marks the beginning of the Somali solar calendar. The calculation of the start of the solar year is made by weather and stellar experts and has a practical value for stock-breeders and farmers.2oDuring the dabshid a small bonfire is lit in the evening and everyone is supposed to try to jump over it. Burning sticks from the bonfire are also thrown into the sky. The dabshid also has been referred to as neyruus, a Persian word for the Persian new year (nairuz), due to the use of fire in dabshid, which early Muslims probably took as a fire worship as was the case among pre-Islamic Persians. There is no other evidence of a relationship betWeen the dabshid and the Persian nairuz. The solar calendar, whose reckoning was aided by lunar and stellar observations, has been known among Cushitic groups such as Somalis and the Oromo for millennia. Somalis also take notice of the Arabic lunar calendar year, which is in use among Muslims, but they do not celebrate its start. Properly Muslim celebrations include the birth of Mohamed the prophet, mawliid, and the 'iid-al-jitar, marking the end of the annual fasting period. The prophet's birthday occasions the reading of hymns and a feast in Somali homes. Publicly, except for extra colored lights in urban centers, there are no celebrations or festivities on this occasion. The most publicly celebrated of Muslim holidays is the <iid-al-fitar, which comes at the end of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting. For that day, families who can afford to buy a sheep or goat and prepare a large feast. People dress in their best and children receive gifts from parents and relatives. Small children in bright new clothes can be seen crossing the streets bound for a relative's home where they would be received with a gift, food, and cookies. Streets, given beforehand an extra cleaning, shine with colored lights.

Today, while some areas of the former Somalia are still reeling from a continuing civil war, consensual democracy through Somali values is already at work in some areas. In the Republic of Somaliland, for example, comprising the northern regions of the old Somalia, the restoration of peace and governance has largely been achieved by rekindling and institutionalizing the guurti system. The same process has also produced good results and the retUrn of law and order in the region that now calls itself the Puntland State of Somalia and whose capital is at Garowe. SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND DIVISION OF THE SECULAR AND THE SPIRITUAL The basic unit of the Somali society is the reer, the nuclear family (the parents and the children). The same word can also be used to refer to a community or a clan (qoloor qabiil). Somali clans have developed social and penal codes to solve problems between individuals as well as between clans. This is known as heer (written in Somali as xeer). Heer is a set oflaws, seldom written, that members of a clan or neighboring clans decide to respect. Heer also means precedence; thus if someone says to someone else waa inoo xeer, it means "you have set a new precedent and you will be subject to it in turn." Rural communes have therefore always avoided setting bad precedents and have respected the existing heer. Infractions to the heer are to be brought before a selected assembly (guurti) or a committee of heerbeegti(law experts) who will hand down a verdict. The guurti is therefore a kind of tribunal for judging infractions as well as a parliament that makes political decisions. Somali traditional law (heer) always coexisted with the sharia (Islamic law), since the two met each other over a millennium ago. The two legal syste~s became complementary in many respects. For example, while homicide and rape were usually treated under the heer law, family affairs such as divorce were treated under the sharia. Traditional law has also coexisted and still coexists with statUtory or state laws introduced by the colonial regimes. The division of spheres between heer and sharia followed closely the division of secular and religious domains (i.e., state and church) in Somali life. The secular world was that of politics and governance, while the religious domain was concerned with spiritUal matters. The secular world belonged to the waranle (the spearman), while the religious domain belonged to the wadaad (the priest). This separation of church and state had, therefore, happened long before the arrival of Islam among Somalis and has continued to exist despite attempts to erase this division by foreign-inspired wadaads. Of

to the people. No provisions were made for the government to consult with the people in the regions. As can only be expected in such a situation, the central government began administering the regions just as the colonial administration did-by dictating to them through directives. It sent to every region a new governor to replace the colonial governor and a new district commissioner to replace the colonial one. The new governor and the new district commissioner, most often unacquainted with the region or district they were sent to rule, put themselves up in the residences of their colonial predecessors and even retained, in most cases, the services of their European predecessors' "boys" and maids.3 When Siad Barre came into power, he inherited the existing system of governance that was extremely centralized; it suited his dictatorial temperament and his only additions to the governance system were more governors and government appointees for his loyal friends and more instruments of repression. Siad Barre himself was a product of the fascist era and his knowledge of repressive methods of governance was largely obtained during the years of fascism. The breakdown of law and order in Somalia cannot be attributed to the existence of pastoral dans, Somali republican values, or to an inborn anarchist trait of Somalis; on the contrary, today's turbulence is the result of the widespread use of violence by the Barre regime and the destruction of Somali humanitarian and republican values under the colonial regimes that had preceded it. Under Barre's two decades of brutal governance, a whole new generation of urban Somalis was born who had no benefit of the humanism, egalitarianism, and republicanism of the culture of their forefathers. Their personas took shape in an era in which experiential input came from Barre's violent state security services, and from an array of new entertainment modes such as the theaters showing films in which violence was supreme. As a result many of the youngsters that man the "technicals," a type of battle wagon bristling with machines, display bravado behavior and recklessness totally inconsistent with Somali pastoral culture. They pose for the camera in that now famous "Rambo" pose known around the world through the movie of that name starring the American actor Sylvester Stallone. (Somali nomads have no access to films at all but urban children do, and when that particular film was in theaters in 1986 in Mogadishu, police officers had to be called in to stop youngsters from breaking into already tightly packed theaters.) The Somali culture has, however, the basic elements for renewal and reconciliation. Its elements of heer (contract, common law) and guurti (assembly, parliament) are the foundations for universal democracy and with little modification they have been shown to be the means to renewal and transformation into a modern democratic society.

for example, if five Somalis from five different clans are in a foreign city and one of them needs help, the others are morally bound to act as the kith and kin of the fifth and come to his or her aid; however, if there are many Somalis, then one is supposed to seek material help first from those nearest to him or her in clan genealogy. This is a general schema and there are other venues of appeal for charity such as alms at a mosque. Against this background of Somali governance system and social solidarity, based on the principles of guurti (commission, committee, or parliament) and heer (common law), colonial rule, first imposed on Somalis in the nineteenth century, ran against the ideal of consensual governance. To the colonial power, the centralization of all powers under one governor was the most efficient way of running the colony. Centralization was therefore essential to the colonial regimes instiruted among Somalis. While both the British and the Italian colonial regimes were centralized regimes, British rule in the north was more benign and allowed some leeway for consultation with the population. In the north, district and regional governors typically consulted with the traditional leaders (akil) on important matters and with the qadi on points oflaw. Not so with the Italians, like the ancient Romans of what is now Italy, who were bent on imposing their laws through direct imposition on the Somalis-the objective being nothing less than the latinization of the Somali culture. Their system of governance was not only centralized to the extreme but was dictatorial with input always coming from the top. Additionally, the south experienced the period of Italian fascism in the 1930s when everything of Somali origin was to be replaced with Italian norms, which were thought to be superior. Colonialism, therefore, undermined the role of traditional leadership and the republican mode of governance. Somali modes of consensus building and democratization through consultations were deemed outmoded and tribal, and a system of colonial appointees and official ordinances from the top were the new norm of rule. Despite the fact that the alien norm of top-to-bottom governance was clearly a violation of Somali culture and ethos, after independence and the formation of the Somali republic, the same political system of centralized regime was kept, with the government appointing district governors. The colonial educated elites continued to function and rule in the old colonial type of administration (used largely by the Italians to govern the south as an Italian colony) with all its centralization, rigidity, and one-way communication. The government and its political appointees had all the power and the local populations had almost none. There was a parliament during the first nine civilian years, but the parliament did not initiate steps for the devolution of decision-making powers to the regions and districts, in short

The two above statements within this quote appear in many texts about Somalis and are used as anecdotes illustrating the chaotic and anarchistic cosmos of Somalis. They have become stereotypes that serve to illustrate and perpetuate a generalization that has little sociological significance. The difference between such exotic anecdotes and the tall tales of early travelers and geographers is one of time. First, Burton's depictions in the above quote of Somalis as a "race of republicans" rather than as subjects of a king was a correct observation- Somalis never had a monarch or any rigid central government prior to the nineteenth century. But Somali republicanism is not the equivalent of anarchism- to the Somalis, anarchy is as much abhorrent as absolute totalitarianism. Somalis, as Muslims, concede authority to their representative authorities as the Koran (4:60) tells them: "0 ye who believe! Obey ALLAH, and obey His Messenger and those who are in authority among you." Additionally, Somali oral literature itself teaches in adages and proverbs the importance of leadership. One example of such proverbs gives the following wisdom: "No one can live in a country or city without a ruler or government" (Balad aan boqor lahayn laguma galo). As for the Ugandan colonial sergeant quoted above, it is essential to put his words in the context of his own culture. The sergeant was from the Buganda kingdom of what is now Uganda, a society in which the Kabaka, the king, held life and death authority over his subjects, and where the death of a king called for the sacrifice of a large number of commoners. Even the chiefs of the Buganda would have looked like tyrants to the Somalis that the sergeant met, for Somali clan chiefs, unlike the traditional chiefs in other places, were and are mere ceremonial heads of committees. Decisions are made by a committee (guddi) or by selected representatives (guurti), the pastoral parliament. No doubt then that the Ugandan sergeant was greatly astonished at the egalitarianism of Somalis who had fealty neither for kings nor for men of religion, although they had a healthy respect for just authority and pious men of religion. The Somali clan is itself a product of the pastoral democracy of Somalis. The clan, in its essence, is a minimalist association in which members agree to adopt a common social pact (heer) for dealing with community problems and for helping each other; for example, when a family loses its animals to a drought, the clan members pitch in with donated animals, or when rustlers steal a family's animals, the clan members take action to seek restitution first by negotiation. In urban areas, the clan, as an extended family, provides a social net, and sums of money are collected for an indigent person (qaadhaan). The concept of who might appeal for help is very flexible; for ex

subserviency and strong political and religious hierarchies were the norm. Even the nation-state is a new concept to the Somalis and other peoples in the Horn, the prior political history of the Horn being about loose empires, sultanates, and city-states. The nation-state is also a relatively recent concept, in comparison to the multiethnic empire-state. The prior history of Somalis is more about independent pastoral clans, sultanates, and city-states whose leaders were never absolute potentates and where there were no estates or classes of people such as nobility or commoners, but only professional classes such as religious men, blacksmiths, pastoralists, merchants, and so forth. Consensual rather than coercive governance is more appealing to Somalis, and Somalis expect their leaders to be persons capable of persuasion by having the oral skills required for "disputation, litigation, negotiation, agreement, and consensus."! Somali egalitarianism is therefore about basic rights; it does not mean equality of capital or riches, for there have always been poor and rich Somalis, whether the riches were camels or another form of wealth. Indeed, as far as capital accumulation and entrepreneurship are concerned, Somalis have always been traders, merchants, and entrepreneurs. Somali entrepreneurs and merchants are even important in the economies of East Mrican countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, and to a lesser extent in several other Mrican countries. Somali refugees who have recently immigrated to South Mrica typically started street vending enterprises to support themselves as a first step toward larger enterprises. Somalis immigrating to Western countries such as the United States have opened restaurants and markets. Entrepreneurial dynamism and adaptation are therefore elements of Somali culture. But is that enough to depict Somalis as rugged individualists who shun authority and control of any kind-in other words, as anarchists? Or are Somalis people who developed democratic norms respectful of human dignity and rights when other peoples were under feudal lords? Unfortunately, too many analysts and writers tended to see "anarchy" in Somali culture and then went on to attribute the present total collapse of the central authority as the product of the anarchistic and individualistic nature of Somalis of pastoral culture. For instance, I. M. Lewis, the best known anthropologist on Somalis, who described Somali society as a "pastoral democracy," wrote: "The first thing to understand about the Somalis is that they are not as other men. Richard Burton, the famous Arabist and explorer who trekked across their lands in the 1850s, called the Islamic Somali nomads a 'fierce and turbulent race of republicans.' More pungently, a Ugandan sergeant with the British forces fighting the Mad Mullah went on record as telling his officer: 'Somalis, Bwana, they no good: each man his own sultan.' "2

AN EGALITARIANISM CUSTOM OF GOVERNANCE SOMALIS have, perhaps too often, been described by Western writers, as an egalitarian people of nomads, or as an acephalous nation of bards, in other words as anarchists who value personal freedom and oral skills such as poetry. Indeed, to some visitors, Somali society might seem to have traversed the ages without much change in lifestyles or customs-nomads draped in flowing robes and tending sheep evoke a bucolic image right out of the Bible in most Western minds. Another recurring image of Somalis is that they are divided into independent clans headed by traditional patriarchs-again biblical imagery for Westerners. For sure, there are a lot of nomads in flowing robes tending sheep and camels; but not all Somalis tend herds of livestock, neither are stock-raising and other economic activities mutually exclusive. For example, the transport entrepreneur who owns his or her bus or the restaurant owner or even the airport official who stamps your passport might have been a former livestock owner or herder and may still keep a few sheep or camels in the country to supplement his or her income. Somali values of egalitarianism are embedded in both Islam and in Somali pastoral culture, which is itself grounded in pastoral Cushitic culture. Somalis tend to think that humans are equal before Allah, the creator, and will be rewarded or punished for their deeds. The ruler is not thought of as superior to the average individual and Somalis have never known the rule of divine kings or divine priests nor have they had slavery or institutionalized inequity of humans from birth. Somalis have never known a culture in which feudal

to do with Arabic and its use for both religious and official purposes-until the nineteenth century, the learning of Arabic and the religious books were the core of education just as learning Latin, Greek, and the scriptures were for a long time the core of European education. The average Somali, a pastoralist, had little incentive to write; if a Somali wanted to have a letter composed, he or she would turn to one of the learned men of religion who knew how to read and write. These men of religion were the custodians of the cult but also of the occult, and writing was both part of the cult and the occult. Reading and writing in Arabic was the key to their profession and to their status in the society; therefore, they saw no urgent need to vulgarize their science in the language of the common people just as the church in Europe for centuries saw no need to vulgarize its religious works in the local tongues. The lack of a strong centralized state, and it might be said that writing and accounting systems, being the backbone of a taxation system, are essential to a centralized state, contributed to the lack of a common writing code for Somali. For comparison, we may note that the largely agriculturist Amhara, neighbors of the Somalis, developed a writing system and a feudal system of governance as well as land ownership; but Somalis did not develop any powerful systems where hierarchy and class were of importance. They were, despite the existence of numerous sultanates and city-states, "a race of fierce and turbulent republicans,"until the arrivalof the colonialEuropean state.I The story of the codifiers of Somali (i.e., those who attempted to invent a script for Somali) is long and includes both Somalis and non-Somalis. Among the Somalis were Sheikh Mohamed Abdi Makahil, Muse H.I. Galal, Sheikh Abdirahman Sheikh Nur, Yusuf Keenadiid Osman, Shire Jama Ahmed, and Sheikh Ahmed Kadare. Among the non-Somalis were notably such persons as J. K. King (1887) and B. W. Andrzejewski.These variousscripts fell into three types according to the characters they used: Arabic, Latin, and unique. Sheikh Abdirahman Sheikh Nur and YusufKeenadiid Osman's systems were unique endeavors of their own making. However, the unique scripts did not make much headway, and by the 1950s, the promoters of a script for Somali were in two camps: Arabic and Latin. These two script camps began ideological battles in which linguistic and nonlinguistic arguments were exchanged.2 For example, those who were favoring the Arabic script took pleasure in pointing out that their characters had the advantage of being largely known to the public through the teaching of Arabic as a liturgical language as well as of being of Muslim origin-in fact, they predate Islam. The confrontation between the two groups, in the

baby's neck. The amulet is at once a receipt of service and a talisman (hirsi) against evil spirits. If the -aadoqaate is not paid, it is believed harm might come to the baby. According to the legend of Sheikh Y usuf al- Kownin and Mohamed Hanif, this tradition was instituted as a compensation for the death of the latter, as has been mentioned above, entombed inside a mountain by vinue of the former's prayers. However, this tradition is much older than Islam itself. Already, the ancient Egyptians knew such talismans as serna. What this tells us is that at it widest limits, traditions among the Somalis link up with those in the whole region and are due to common cultural origins that go back thousands of years, something that is not surprising as the languages of the region belong for the most pan to one super-family of languages known today mostly as the Mroasiatic family of languages.

Divination, Magic, and Myth Traditional diviners, faaliye ifaaliso for a female), practice the art of faa4 divination, and use different mediums to interpret the esoteric and the future. Among these mediums are cowrie shells, geometric designs on fine sand, and smoke from burning incense. Crystal balls and palm reading are unknown among Somalis. Certain women diviners known as taawilo make noises and belches while in the process of divination. Officially, religious leaders frown upon faal; but nevertheless, it continues uninterrupted as it did centuries ago, mainly because it is seen as harmless and not a threat to Islam. Especially, in southern Somalia, among the riverine populations or people from a Bantu cultural heritage, one finds persons who openly claim to be sorcerers and sorceresses. For a fee, they would perform magic (sihir) or cast a spell (qataar) on a third person. The magicians (sihirlow) keep a low profile and would not confess to engaging in magical practices in public for fear they would run afoul of religious authorities or local administrations. Some riverine villages are well known or feared for their magicians. A small group of riverine dwellers, also Bantu of origin, are feared for their crocodile cult. They are believed to communicate with the crocodiles of the Shebelle and J uba Rivers. A typical myth related to them is that a crocodile man (bihar) may send his favorite crocodile to fetch the lady of his desire. First, the crocodile man casts a spell on the unfortunate lady who develops an irresistible urge to go bathe in the river where the crocodile is patiently waiting to whisk her promptly to its master. Among pastoralist Somalis, a dying practice of magic is attributed to those who claim to understand the language of the hyena {waraabe-la-hada/}; by listening to the howls of the hyena prowling around settlements, they are said to be able to understand the speech of the hyena and in turn they learn about misfortunes that might lie ahead for the area. Another mythical tra- dition among Somalis concerning hyenas is that of the hyena-man, qori- ismaris (literally he who rubs a stick on himself). As the name indicates, the hyena-man, who is the Somali equivalent of the Western werewolf, trans- mogrifies himself into a hyena by rubbing a magical stick on his hindquarters at nightfall, and before dawn he does the same action and is reversed into his human shape. A living tradition that certainly comes out of the pre-Islamic age is the giving of the samayo (birth gift) to a member of the Yibir clan, as had been mentioned earlier. The person who collects the samayo is appropriately known as "aadoqaate, the collector of tradition. In exchange, after being paid in kind or cash, the "aadoqaate gives the parent an amulet to be worn on the

surrounding regions. It is a lasting witness to a common culture of the region. In southern Somalia, among the Bantu villagers and also among the Ben- idiris of the Benadir, a different kind of spirit possession known as lumbi, from the Swahili umbia, is practiced. Lumbi differs from zaar in several ways. First, unlike zaar, which is held inside homes, lumbi is held outside in the open or in the public square of villages. Second, in lumbi the objective is to : drive away the evil spirit from the body of the possessed, and toward that end, the lumbi leader strikes repeatedly the body of the possessed with a whip. Third, the possessed dances alone in the middle of the ring until he or she falls into a trance and then falls down. Spirits that existed in the old Cushitic menagerie of evil fairies are no longer in use among today's Somalis. The name for such evil spirits was busha, which today, as an archaic word, means only disease; among the Ra- hanwein the word bushi also means just disease and no longer evil spirit. However among the Oromo, the word bushi still refers to evil spirits. One well-known evil spirit is Hanfaley. If something disappears mysteriously, peo- ple say that Hanfaley must have taken it. Prayers and incantations existed to dispel evil spirits and the following cultural relic is an old prayer meant to ward against evil spirits. . Evils lurking behind us, be ye halted there, Evils waiting before us, be ye forced to flee, Evils hovering above us, be ye suspended still, Evils rising beneath us, be ye blunted of spear, Evils treading beside us, be ye thrust afar.5 Today among Somalis, evil spirits are generally referred to as jinn, a word used among all Muslims. The jinn, the Semitic counterpart of the Cushitic ayaana, are mentioned in the Koran. They are said to be descendants oflblis, an angel who fell from God's grace. Iblis was the only one of God's angels who refused to bow to Adam as God ordered. Iblis stated, as a creation from light, that he would not bow to a creation from mud, Adam. God punished him for his pride and banished him from heaven; ever since, Iblis had made it his endeavor to lead as many astray as he could until the day of judgment. Iblis is also popularly known as Shaitan (Satan). The pious Somali utters the Arabic formula a'adu bilahi mini sheydani rajiim (Oh Allah I seek protection from Satan) to banish the ever present evil spirit from his or her surroundings. This is the equivalent of the making of the sign of the cross by Catholic Christians.