History and Ethnography of the Hawiye clan family
The Hawiye clan has a foremost Somali presence in the Horn of Africa which has long been the study of observation on account of their culture, society and community. They have always maintained their own reputation as the most ancient, the most pure and the bravest of all. Like many Somalis they can be found participating in all forms of economic substinence - the nomad of the Mudug desert, the farmer of the Juba river, the fisherman of the Benadir coast, the agropastoralist of the Harar Babile mountains and the townsman of Mogadishu city. In many previous studies the Somalis had been grouped into 3, the Aji (Dir, Isaq, Darod), the Hawiye with their own grouping, and the Sab (Rahanweyn, Digil, Minorities). These were based on customary laws (xeer). Nello Puccioni in his book on anthropology cites their antiquity¹;
L'Hauìa, così che sembrano appartenere ad uno stesso ceppo d'origine, però la maggior preponderanza del tipo a tra gli Hauìa li indizierebbe come il gruppo più arcaico. Hauìa, che costituiscono il secondo grande ceppo dei Somali dopo il Heggi, sarebbero storicamente i più antichi di questa razza, insediatisi nella Somalia meridionale.
"The Hauia, seem to belong to the same lineage of origin, but the greater preponderance of type among the Hauia would indicate them as the most archaic group. The Hauìa, which constitute the second great stock of the Somali after the Aji, would historically be the oldest of this race, settled in southern Somalia"
The Hawiya is also closely associated with the foundings of Islam and it’s early spread in the region. In Mogadishu, known as Dār al-Islām², they legioned an army of fugitive Zaidites to fight in wars against the Ethiopians and the Portuguese. This presence of Shiite Muslims against a Sunni majority background marks a level of tolerance and co existence often seen in many medieval nations and towns.³⁴⁵
Gli Hauia sarebbero il primo risultato di un incrocio di Somali con altre poplazioni, come viene anche confermato dall'opinione corrente che stima gli Hauia il gruppo piu nobile, pel fatto che fu il primo a subire l'influenza mussulmana
"The Magadoxans hate white people so much that they seize them, rip the flesh, and consider the chunks prizes to be exclaimed over as tasty morsels to be savored. The mulatto hears that this has happened to his shipmates and spends a most miserable night”
"The great Zaidite backwash however probably flowed into the area when Imãm Yahya ibn Hussain was killed. By the end of the 15th century Zaidite Muslims sympathetic to their deceased monarch as religious and political dissidents were among the Hawiyya Somali clan; and the Mashafa Milad an Ethiopic work composed during the reign of Zara Yacob records that Muslims under the command of Shaikh Abu Bakr ibn’Umar, Sultan of Makdishu, who were Zaidites, fought against the Ethiopian Negus."
"The Hauia would be the first result of a crossing of Somalis with other populations, as is also confirmed by the current opinion that considers the Hauia the most noble group, due to the fact that they were the first Muslim influence."
In the pre-modern era up to the beginning of Colonial rule, those who traversed the country had written extensively on the lives and customs of the Hawiye Somali. The Hawiye maintained their dominance throughout the centuries and helped spread religion, language and trade as far south as the Pate Islands, Mozambique and the Cape Colony⁶. They were often described as belligerent and fanatical towards foreigners who were too afraid to pass through their inland territories⁷⁸ for they believed that "liberty was their birthright"⁹. Stories had reached Great Britain that "traces are still to be found of the old story of white men having been captives in Somali land" when John Kirk of the British Consulate in Zanzibar in the mid 19th century reports opening a correspondence with the neighboring Geledi Sultanate in sending representatives to the country of the Abgaal and enquire again into the kidnapping matter¹⁰. In several earlier and more detailed accounts, Captain William Owen, Commanding British Officer of HMS Leven in the Indian Ocean, gives the following remarks upon visiting the coast of Mogadishu in 1833. "Most of the Arab dhows visit this place in their coast navigation, to exchange sugar, molasses, dates, salt fish, firearms, and slaves, for ivory, gums, and a particular cloth of their own manufacture, which is much valued by the people of the Interior. The inhabitants appeared extremely jealous of strangers. Our officers, upon landing, were subjected to a series of imprisonment, being immediately shut up in a house, but with liberty to ramble about according to their inclinations within it. The only knowledge they gained of the town was, therefore, from the terrace of their place of confinement. This restraint was most respectfully but firmly enforced; and, to evince their friendly disposition towards us, a camel, a bullock, and a goat were brought to the beach for our use. The latter only was accepted by Captain Owen, to convince them that their probably necessary precautions had not produced an unfavorable impression."¹¹
Richard Burton who wrote the First Footsteps in East Africa, met with the Kazi of Zeila¹², Mohamed Khatib, a Harari man of the Hawiye tribe, in the year 1856 and gives an important description on the state of the Hawiye¹³;
The old and pagan geneaologies still known to the Somal, are Dirr, Aydur, Darud, and according to some, Hawiyah. The Hawiyah are doubtless of ancient and pagan origin; they call all Somal except themselves Hashiyah (Aji), and thus claim to be equivalent to the rest of the nation. Some attempt, as usual, to establish a holy origin, deriving themselves like the Shaykash from the caliph Abubekr; the antiquity, and consequently the pagan origin of the Hawiyah are proved by its present widely scattered state. It is a powerful tribe in the Mijjarthayn country, and yet is found in the hills of Harar.
In a short lived German expedition to East Africa, Karl Klaus von der Decken, the first European to reach Mount Kilimanjaro, travelled along the Juba River from Kismayo but was killed in 1865 by followers of the Hawiye Sheikh and Sultan of Baardheere, Abdio Osman¹⁵. Almost 20 years later, another famous explorer, Phillip Paulitschke, had travelled to Ethiopia via the port of Assab, in his notes he observes several Hawiye settlements (goriah) and their traditions.¹⁶¹⁷
Der Stamm der Hawija (Auîjja), dessen Angehörige sich gerne für die reinsten, sozusagen für die Crême der Somâl ausgeben, ist über das ganze gewaltige Terrain vom mittleren Erer-Thale von Harar und Karanle ab längs des linken Ufers des Wêbi Schabêli bis zur Küste des indischen Oceans zwischen Cap Sîf Tawîl und Maqdischu und Merka verbreitet.
"The tribe of the Hawija (Auîjja), whose members consider themselves as the purest, so to speak, and the cream of the Somâl, is spread over the whole vast terrain from the middle Erer valley from Harar and Karanle along the left bank of the Vêbi Shabêli to the coast of the Indian Ocean between Cap Sîf Tawîl and Maqdishu and Merka."
In 1884, American explorer Frank L. James met with Hawiye chief Diinle Warfaa dubbed the Sultan of the Webbe Shebeyli and Iman by his followers, whose eight ancestral predecessors had ruled over fifty six villages¹⁸¹⁹. Memoirs of his book “The Unknown Horn of Africa” describe what he calls the "greatest military parade personally witnessed in Africa" to politically settle and recover Godahali, the name of the Sultans “revolted village”. Others include Shein, Kolow, Helogorayo, Jugego, Gooliloo. This last is the largest town belonging to the Sultan, and was probably from twenty to thirty miles from the Sultan’s headquarters in Barri, modern day Kelafo. Whilst Hawiye nomads exchanged their camels, oxen and sheep for cotton coth, beads, grain, corn, maize and wheat, they also accepted dollars, ruppees and small coins for instances such as permitting access to their lands to hunt game with their expeditions including elephants, lions, leopards, giraffes, rhinoceros, zebras, and antelopes of all sorts and size.²⁰
The advent of European colonial powers installed great confidence in Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia, who conquered Harar in 1887. His rule was deeply entrenched in Ethiopian expansion that earned the ire of the Hawiye. After the defeat of Garad Omar of the Karanle by 15,000 Abyssinian troops at the battle of Harmaale²¹²², the Sultan of Barri and his son Olol Dinle attacked Harar in retaliation²³ after being furnessed with a good supply of firearms from Djbouti whose commercial industry depended on the arms traffic²⁴;
Capo di Hawiyah, assieme al figlio, per la partecipazione ai piani di Lig Jasu non fece che aggravare le violenze da una parte e dall'altra. Gli Hawiyah, per vendetta, distrussero i raccolti nei dintorni di Harar con lo scopo di fare terra bruciata e razziarono numerosi capi di bestiame, che in parte erano proprieta di Aqa Gabru. La spedizione punitiva condotta dagli Amhara dovette affrontare un'intera coalizione formata da soldati Geri, Somali e Ogaden, ma guida dagli Hawiyah.
The chief of the Hawiyah, together with his son, by participating in the plans of Lig Jasu only aggravated the violence on both sides. The Hawiyas, in revenge, destroyed the crops around Harar in order to create a scorched earth and raided numerous cattle, which were partly owned by Aqa Gabru. The punitive expedition led by the Amhara faced an entire coalition made up of Geri, Somali and Ogaden soldiers, but led by the Hawiyah.
With British and French nominal support, at the start of the 20th century Menelik’s forces left Harar and marched down the Shabelle river, plundering and capturing many villages in sight before suffering defeat at Gumar Sheel and forced to retreat by forces of Sheikh Hassan Barsane. Gumar Sheel, a location named after a defeated Amhara General of Menelik, was said to be a day’s march away from Mogadishu, in modern-day Balcad, once a fort town named Taytayley.²⁵A poet from Afgooye who witnessed the atrocities recites this poem in deep grief and sorrow, where the war was now twofold, involving both the Europeans and the Ethiopians.²⁶
When i was still a young man into the world i loved, The Ahmara came they came from Jigjiga and the confines of Awdal crossing the Ogadeen, they killed many from the Karanle they used guns against the people of Imaan Cumar they killed many from the Jidle and Jajeele Then they arrived at Jiiciyow and at the banks of the Webi
When they reached Jibbirrow they were attacked; the Muslims confronted them and fighting began in the country near Yaaqle the Mobilayn stood firm and fought with them the Magic of Gobroon defeated them But when the Amhara left the Infidels appeared coming from every corner of the world.......
Despite claims of nominal suzerainty over the northern Somali coast from Bab el Mandeb to Ras Hafun by the Turkish Khedive at Egypt and the Southern Somali coast from Ras Hafun to Kismayo by the Omani Sultan at Zanzibar by 1872 which Britain had recognised and supported both with gunboats and bombing campaigns²⁷²⁸, the British officers however, could not validate many of these claims as Hawiye clans in the Benadir area had disputed this such as the Chiefs and Sultans of Warsheikh as well as the Shingaani Imam of Mogadishu rivalling his brother’s cadet imamate in Hamarouine who petitioned for an interference after an internal civil war²⁹³⁰. It was not until the Berlin Conference had took place in 1884 in which European powers decided to directly intervene and establish colonies on the Somali coasts for themselves.
The Italian Colonial Office refrained from earlier explorations following the highly profiled deaths of Captain Antonio Cecchi and Lieutenant Carlo Zavagli at the hands of Hawiye bedouins in Lafoole and Warsheikh respectively and the 700 fallen Italo-Eritrean troops in the 1896 Mogadishu Massacre³¹. The shock and outcry in the public spaces of Rome led to commemorations and roads named after Carlo Zavagli and Cecchi who carried an early hereoic reputation in Italy for their services in advancing the Italian East Africa empire. The Italians particularly dubbed their defeat at Lafoole as the 'Somali Adwa’³² in reference to the first Italo-Ethiopian war, the Battle of Adwa earlier in the year. Though the Italians largely refrained from the hinterlands until the 1920s when the fascists subdued Sheikh Hassan Barsane³³ - confiscating an estimated 25,500 rifles from his supporters and their clans³⁴ - they too, like other European Powers, managed to deploy a handful of successful explorers s.a. Bricchetti and Chiesi who similarly had noted the unique ferocity, valor and love for freedom among the Hawiye.³⁵³⁶
Il carattere dei Somali non é cosa tanto facile a descriversi. Sono vili, intriganti, bugiardi, egoisti, vendicatori, diffidenti, traditori. Gli Auija, che sono più espansivi e gai e di spirito vivace e penetrante, non considerano pure come un delitto nè il furto, nè il ladroneggio sopratutto se fatto su larga scala e a mano armata e a titolo di conquista, sempre pronti a qualunque delitto pur di rioscire a soddisfare la loro vendetta.
"The character of the Somalis is not so easy to describe. They are cowardly, scheming, liars, selfish, avenging, suspicious, traitors. The Hawiya, who are more expansive and kinetic and with a lively and penetrating spirit, do not even consider theft has a crime if done on a large scale at gunpoint and by way of conquest, always ready for any crime even if to be able to satisfy their revenge."
The various populations included in the zones between Uarsceik and Elhur, to the village of Barri located on the Shabelle, belong to the purest type and characteristic of the Somali breed, which is evidently more refined and purified, the more we turn away from the countries of the east coast, where more is said of Arab domination, and more swept slavery, of the Suaheli or Bantu. - The Somali region of this, physically, aesthetically, they can be counted among the best, most perfect specimens of their race. Men and women, when they are in the fullness of their youth development, and women, especially when they are not deformed by the consequences of repeated motherhood, are examples of beauty, grace, like the elegance of ancient Greek statues. Undoubtedly these Somalis, we will say so, pure, they are proud, haughty, unjealous of their individual and collective freedom; impatiently restrictive, suspicious of us, of our civilization, of our intentions, and therefore most difficult to those that govern cross breeds like the polluted Galla and Suaheli in the southernmost part.
In 1919, renowned author Enrico Cerulli in the original Italian book of How a Hawiye tribe used to live had visited the Shabelle river and documented in his collection are found the different ‘vaunts’ of the Hawiye tribes that may also be expressed in the traditional poetic form of the saddexleeye (‘By the rule of three’) on what impassions some of the subclans and their stereotypical attributes.³⁷
“The wild beasts appeared and the Murúsada flung themselves upon them”
The verse refers to the widespread belief that the Murúsada were werewolves; and thus here they seem to have stolen the ferocity of the wild beasts
“Respect appeared and the Daud flung themselves upon it”
The Daud are praised for the regard that they show toward guests.
“The purge appeared and the Hillibi flung themselves upon it”
And finally in this verse a joke is made about the frequency with which the Hillibi have recourse to a purgative beverage in their villages
“I went to raid the raw durra in the tribe of Galgä‘el”
The Galgä‘el, nomadic pastoralists — according to this verse, insulting for them — are used to eating durra, raw and not yet threshed. The unthreshed durra is called qamir in the dialect of the Hawadlä; gilqab in the Abgal dialect, whereas the Galgä‘el themselves call it addun.
“I went to raid the boiled beans in the tribe of the Abgal”
Here fun is made of the Abgäl and of their food of boiled beans (qalon)
“I went to raid the vehemence in the tribe of the Mobilen”
The Mobilen, the singer says, are famous for the qoq, that is, the facility with which they become excited (qoq), in the dialects of the Hawiyya, is properly speaking the period of heat of animals
After almost half a century of Colonialism, the Europeans (more specifically Italy) had turned their backs on the Ethiopian Emperor culminating in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. Despite the mixed loyalties among other Somalis, the Hawiye clan had supported Italy³⁸³⁹, by virtue of repelling a longer term enemy in Ethiopia, who had particularly armed their clan rivals during the early periods of what was formely Italian Somaliland.⁴⁰⁴¹⁴²⁴³
The Hawiye since their inception, have always maintained an attitude of self confidence and defiance in mobilising their forces against large enemies. In 2006, following the disintegration of the Islamic Courts Union, the Hawiye in Mogadishu declared war on Ethiopia⁴⁴, in memory of the famous US botched occupation of Black Hawk Down almost twenty years earlier⁴⁵⁴⁶ they encouraged their fellow Somalis to unite and join arms against the invasion. In 2009, a Wikileaks cable had revealed that following the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops from Mogadishu, the Kenyan Defense forces fearing an insurgency on their borders, quickly acted to secure a bufferzone in the deep southern region of Jubaland which the Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula believed at the time would "cage in the Hawiye"⁴⁷, though considered a move 'too early' by the US who supported the Ethiopians.
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