The Oromo/Gaal Question

[DonCorleone]

Upon my research I am convinced Somali oromized people or perhaps somali 'others'/ Oromos etc claim various somali lands (dire dawa jig jigga, hergeisa etc) from their somali adoptions.
Therefore I present my hypothesis. Kind of rambling/ a rant NOT AN OROMO HATE THREAD btw.

During the Awdal/Aksum wars, the Oromo expansion from the south engulfed a lot of Northern somali clans etc, and the oromo confederation grew in numbers. Because we know the oromos came from the south, how were they kicked out of gaalkacyo? When they weren't even there yet? This is what i want to know. Who were the 'gaal" that was 'risen out' of that town?

I think Gaal is a term that has changed meanings over many years. Gaal in ethiopia means an oromo slur
In Somali it used to mean non somali in the past ( who were oromo and ahmaric people)
but now it means ( non muslim)
gaal/gaalo same word. Were the 'Gaal' Kacyians somalis who were non muslims, or foreigners that were kicked out, was it a tribal thing?

If they were oromo... were they of the Qallucha? or the Qāllō?


Gurracha (Qallucha)
Son of Sāmālo
Son of Bōran
Son of Oromō (Horo)
For the Qallucha we already see a Somali/Samalo connection. but their subclans are not as familar or somali to me as Qallo.
Rāyyā
Son of Walabu (Karrayyu)
Son of Odā (Harsu)
Son of Nagawō
Son of Gurracha (Qallucha)
Son of Sāmālo
Son of Bōran
Son of Oromō (Horo)
also
Father: Walabu (Karrayyu) son of Odā
Children born by ???
Tūlama son of Rāyyā
Maččā son of Rāyyā
Wallo son of Rāyyā
Karrayyu son of Rāyyā
Unless Borana=Borama it probably wasn't them. In my opinion.

Now we look at Qāllō. The other tribe in question , their abtirsi.
Son of Barentuma
Son of Oromō (Horo)

by looking under Qallo , we see there is

Āla son of Qāllō
Daggā son of Qāllō
Obborrā son of Qāllō
Bābbille son of Qāllō

By looking under Obborra we find Akisho! Marvelous! A Dir connection, did they live in Gaalkacyo before being pushed out by other clans? Did they modify their abtirsi to 'qalla'? were they already 'qalla". More questions emerge. Their Abtirsi.
Akichu
Son of Obborrā
Son of Qāllō
Son of Barentuma
Son of Oromō (Horo)

By looking at the sub clans of Daggā son of Qāllō. we find..
Jārsō son of Daggā
Nōlē son of Daggā
Hume son of Daggā
now we know Jaarso as a somali connection what about Nole and Hume, I've heard that they came together as a confederation..is Qaala a Confederation of 'ex somalis"
We know Nole means life in somali. Were they somali also or just oromo?
Under Hume we find Hume (Son of Daggā) we find Bursuug, which is screaming somalI at me, I've read this before? Seem familiar?Let me know.

Remember Āla son of Qāllō?
His subclans are
Erer son of Āla
Abbādho son of Āla reminds me of abadir for some reason
Nūnnu son of Āla
Abbayi son of Āla
Galān son of Āla
Mēttā son of Āla
Dīramu son of Āla
Sirbā son of Āla
Arrōjji son of Āla
Tulama son of Āla

Did you see Erer son of Āla?Sounds like Irir, and also Dīramu son of Āla, from Dir?

Were the Qalla the original 'Gallas?"
Barentuma from way of James Dahl's site told me it meant East Facing.. again back to my original point if Oromos migrated northwards from the south, how could they be expelled out of northern Somalia?

[Casanova25]

The most of the up is based on conspiracy.. and let me explain why?

Oromo are not from the South originally but from the North WHO went South and then came back.. even while they came back still some of them were in the North.. Places like hargeisa, gaalkacyo, abuudwaaq, even bay and bakool were they assimilated into sab WHO were all ready there..

so the South thing is not all oromo but only those WHO came up with aggression.. they were always in there regions somehow or some way..

there was not a single samaale in the South before Ibrahim balcad and the battle of Gaalkacyo.. which happend around in the ending of the 10 Century or the beginning of the 11th..

[Casanova25]

Oromo are old people... note there abtirsi, how long it is compared to the somalis..

1.Oromō (Horo)
2.Son of Wāqo
3.Son of Dādhī
4.Son of Uttē
5.Son of Bīte
6.Son of Walābu
7.Son of Jilicha
8.Son of Dawāro
9.Son of Ōfa
10.Son of Shara
11.Son of Hādiya
12.Son of Rābo
13.Son of Dōri
14.Son of Ḥābbo
15.Son of Mormor
16.Son of Māmma
17.Son of Warar
18.Son of Wāyyu
19.Son of Gōda
20.Son of Marī
21.Son of Galān
22.Son of Wādo
23.Son of Shunkur
24.Son of Irām

Do you know WHO Iram is.. Read the quranic verses about the people of AD' wal Iram... I believe they jumped over many forefathers to connect to this Guy which is daamn ancient..

If you ask a Oromo to recite his abtirsi he will reach maybe up to 65-70 forefathers.. thats ancient!

[Marques]

Casa, you're right. Iram was very, very ancient. Waa dad aduunyo hore ku noolaa..

OP, it is undeniable that Somalis and Oromos are related man. We even count our numbers the same. They albeit look like us, talk like us, live like us (up for debate). It is probable that assimilation took place in both sides. Whenever a clan or a party of clans were raided, their livelihoods were uprooted and forced to integrate in order to survive. Many Somali clans were lost in that way and many Oromo clans were Somalisized (parts of Bay/Bakool and the Jubbas)

[James Dahl]

Oromo practice mass adoption of clans and presumably always have done so, so it is difficult to say exactly what or even if they have a single origin. Oromo clans are confederacies, like Raxanweyn clans local groups have banded together for self defense and to support one another regardless of genealogical ties. One must tread carefully in applying the northern Somali clan system to the south and to Oromo, who use a more flexible system that sounds similar (using the same terminology) but is actually very different.

This is why Oromo clans you will often run into the same lineage, basically what would be in the northern system subclans of the same clan, split into various confederations together with other unrelated lineages who share the same region and dialect. It is all very confusing even to Oromo.

There are basically two systems, where in the north there is one system (clan and lineage are one) in the south they are two separate if related concepts.

[DonCorleone]

The most of the up is based on conspiracy.. and let me explain why?

Oromo are not from the South originally but from the North WHO went South and then came back.. even while they came back still some of them were in the North.. Places like hargeisa, gaalkacyo, abuudwaaq, even bay and bakool were they assimilated into sab WHO were all ready there..

so the South thing is not all oromo but only those WHO came up with aggression.. they were always in there regions somehow or some way..

there was not a single samaale in the South before Ibrahim balcad and the battle of Gaalkacyo.. which happend around in the ending of the 10 Century or the beginning of the 11th..

Are you saying in ahmed gureys time

there were oromo in north Somalia?

there wasnt at all
no historical records show this.

[bareento]

Greetings Don;

Oromos r not from the south.
The presence of Oromos in the present day central Oromo highlands is historically attested.
Amhara chronicles r full of Oromo/Amhra anatagoism in the thirteenth century.
The most famous Oromo tribe at the time were the Galaans. Some even conjencture that the word Gallaa comes from the misprononciation
of this word by our neighbours.
The presence of Oromos in Northern Somalia is linked with the Akkichus...a major Oromo tribe in the 16th century which now numbers merely in 10 thousands.
Basically they were thrown out of Oromo/Bareentuma confederation as a clan.
Their desintegration gave rise to the most of the present day Afran Qallo clans...and northern somali clans.
But although this is a known fact by elders , its very sensitive as it directly contradicts the national myths of many clans.

As for South Somalia, Oromos introduction to that place is very recent...every oromo child knows how Abbayi Baabboo went there with his 12 followers
and his horse whose name I now forgot. South Somalia is in no way the ancestral land of Oromos.

B.

[James Dahl]

bareento, Akkicku is a Madaxweyn Dir clan, they were absorbed into an Oromo confederacy after the fall of th Sultanate of Dawaro. You are falling into the trap of seeing the confederacy as a genealogical group. Akkichu are genealogically Dir.

[Bermooda]

If you believe in the Cushitic version Oromo and Somalis were once 1 before separating somewhere in the Ethiopian highlands

*Edited* ORIGINS, MIGRATIONS, AND SETTLEMENT

A paucity of written historical evidence forces the student of early Somalia to depend on the findings of archeology, anthropology, historical linguistics, and related disciplines. Such evidence has provided insights that in some cases have refuted conventional explanations of the origins and evolution of the Somali people. For example, where historians once believed that the Somalis originated on the Red Sea's western coast, or perhaps in southern Arabia, it now seems clear that the ancestral homeland of the Somalis, together with affiliated Cushite peoples, was in the highlands of southern Ethiopia, specifically in the lake regions. Similarly, the once-common notion that the migration and settlement of early Mus,lims followers of the Prophet Muhammad on the Somali coast in the early centuries of Islam had a significant impact on the Somalis no longer enjoys much academic support. Scholars now recognize that the Arab factor--except for the Somalis' conversion to Islam--is marginal to understanding the Somali past. Furthermore, conventional wisdom once held that Somali migrations followed a north-to-south route; the reverse of this now appears to be nearer the truth.

Increasingly, evidence places the Somalis within a wide family of peoples called Eastern Cushites by modern linguists and described earlier in some instances as Hamites. From a broader cultural-linguistic perspective, the Cushite family belongs to a vast stock of languages and peoples considered Afro-Asiatic. Afro-Asiatic languages in turn include Cushitic (principally Somali, Oromo, and Afar), the Hausa language of Nigeria, and the Semitic languages of Arabic, Hebrew, and Amharic. Medieval Arabs referred to the Eastern Cushites as the Berberi.

In addition to the Somalis, the Cushites include the largely nomadic Afar (Danakil), who straddle the Great Rift Valley between Ethiopia and Djibouti; the Oromo, who have played such a large role in Ethiopian history and in the 1990s constituted roughly one-half of the Ethiopian population and were also numerous in northern Kenya; the Reendille (Rendilli) of Kenya; and the Aweera (Boni) along the Lamu coast in Kenya. The Somalis belong to a subbranch of the Cushites, the Omo-Tana group, whose languages are almost mutually intelligible. The original home of the Omo-Tana group appears to have been on the Omo and Tana rivers, in an area extending from Lake Turkana in present-day northern Kenya to the Indian Ocean coast.

The Somalis form a subgroup of the Omo-Tana called Sam. Having split from the main stream of Cushite peoples about the first half of the first millennium B.C., the proto-Sam appear to have spread to the grazing plains of northern Kenya, where protoSam communities seem to have followed the Tana River and to have reached the Indian Ocean coast well before the first century A.D. On the coast, the proto-Sam splintered further; one group (the Boni) remained on the Lamu Archipelago, and the other moved northward to populate southern Somalia. There the group's members eventually developed a mixed economy based on farming and animal husbandry, a mode of life still common in southern Somalia. Members of the proto-Sam who came to occupy the Somali Peninsula were known as the so-called Samaale, or Somaal, a clear reference to the mythical father figure of the main Somali clan-families, whose name gave rise to the term Somali.

The Samaale again moved farther north in search of water and pasturelands. They swept into the vast Ogaden (Ogaadeen) plains, reaching the southern shore of the Red Sea by the first century A.D. German scholar Bernd Heine, who wrote in the 1970s on early Somali history, observed that the Samaale had occupied the entire Horn of Africa by approximately 100 A.D.

[bareento]

bareento, Akkicku is a Madaxweyn Dir clan, they were absorbed into an Oromo confederacy after the fall of th Sultanate of Dawaro. You are falling into the trap of seeing the confederacy as a genealogical group. Akkichu are genealogically Dir.

James U know I am not in the claiming business...I dont careless whether Akkichuus are oromos/somalis or bantus or watever.
But the fact is in the 15th/16th century they were considered as one of the sons of Bareentumaa.
Is he an adopted son? I doubt it.

As for your claim of Akkichu being Madaxweyne or Xaarweyne Dir , the problem is that I dont give any credibility to somali genealogy.
They r completely fake ...they r changing political construction.
I have seen in mylife time, tribes claiming arabs, dirs etc...Dir is non-existence clan...
For Gods sake , u even put Wardey in Dir...whereas its historically proven they r remnants of the Orma!!

B.

[LiquidHYDROGEN]

There is no such thing as "Cushitic", what nonsense. Just because some cadaan dude says Somali and oromo are related does not make it so. Somali is a language isolate and due to proximity and coexistence there were many borrowings and swapping of words with the oromos and anfars.

[James Dahl]

bareento, Akkicku is a Madaxweyn Dir clan, they were absorbed into an Oromo confederacy after the fall of th Sultanate of Dawaro. You are falling into the trap of seeing the confederacy as a genealogical group. Akkichu are genealogically Dir.

James U know I am not in the claiming business...I dont careless whether Akkichuus are oromos/somalis or bantus or watever.
But the fact is in the 15th/16th century they were considered as one of the sons of Bareentumaa.
Is he an adopted son? I doubt it.

As for your claim of Akkichu being Madaxweyne or Xaarweyne Dir , the problem is that I dont give any credibility to somali genealogy.
They r completely fake ...they r changing political construction.
I have seen in mylife time, tribes claiming arabs, dirs etc...Dir is non-existence clan...
For Gods sake , u even put Wardey in Dir...whereas its historically proven they r remnants of the Orma!!

B.

My dear bareento you are not wrong, but you are missing an important point. The Oromo clan structure and lineage are not linked like they are in the Arab clan system. I will address your points:

First of all, it is indeed the case that Akkichus have always been where they currently live, and indeed Somali clans are not as strictly 'Arab style' as they appear. The old adage goes "Be A Mountain, or Lean on One". If you travel to southern Somalia and talk with the Digil and Mirifle people, you will discover that the Mirifle clans are not at all Arab style clans, they are confederacies. Like the Oromo system, there are two main clans, the Sideed and Sagaal (the Seven and the Nine), but there is no man named Sagaal or Sideed, these are the names of the confederacies. Each clan in turn has a number of subclans who are and are not related to one another, but have come together to defend one another, pay Diya, and otherwise have come together to be a Mountain, or lean on a Mountain. There are members of Mirifle clans who are Hawiye, Darod, Dir, Digil and numerous small Samaale clans, even Borana clans have joined Mirifle clans. There is essentially no such thing as Mirifle as a genealogical concept, it is a political one. Genealogically, "true" Mirifle are just a subclan of Digil, the "true" Mirifle have served as essentially an anchor, the starter-mountain from whom many have "leaned".

Oromo I see as the same thing; the "True" Oromo are very small in number, essentially the conquerors who arrived and established themselves, and all the conquered have "leaned" on this mountain. Barentu means "looking west" and they are the western Oromo, and Borana means "looking East" and they are the eastern Oromo. This is not a coincidence, this is like the Sagaal and the Sideed, there was never a man named Borana or Barentu. You would be surprized to learn that among the Waaqist Borana, they maintain lineage, which do not line up at all with the Borana clan system, but are important for selecting Qallu and other important religious offices.

Oromo, like the Mirifle, are made up of every clan in Ethiopia. Xarla, Afar, Dir, Hawiye, Darod, Gurage, Sidama, Hadiya and Amhara in huge numbers along with many people who no longer have an individual identity, the Maya, Dobeya, Damot and Werjih were all strong independent tribes which are today wholly absorbed into Oromo.

Oromo is a nationality, like being French or Italian, not a tribe exactly. Oromo conquered half of Ethiopia and made it Oromo, not through slaughter and mass-repopulation, but by turning the conquered into Oromo through assimilation.

[Khalid Ali]

Oromo is not a real ethnic group the Gallas are of various ancestries some are habesha some are Rendile Masai some are afar. lol there is no one who has a chain of ancestors of 60 or above thats just an absurd statement. Oromo can easily be broken down in several ethnic groups.

[DayaxJeclee]

James U know I am not in the claiming business...I dont careless whether Akkichuus are oromos/somalis or bantus or watever.
But the fact is in the 15th/16th century they were considered as one of the sons of Bareentumaa.
Is he an adopted son? I doubt it.

As for your claim of Akkichu being Madaxweyne or Xaarweyne Dir , the problem is that I dont give any credibility to somali genealogy.
They r completely fake ...they r changing political construction.
I have seen in mylife time, tribes claiming arabs, dirs etc...Dir is non-existence clan...
For Gods sake , u even put Wardey in Dir...whereas its historically proven they r remnants of the Orma!!

B.

Calling dir xaarweyn is disingenuous of you. If any one is xaar and weyn is you kinfolk.

Chronicles of abyssinia never mention oromo as such but tribes.
other thing is amharization of you people was direct result of gaal culture of capturing location killing all male, raping women folk and adopting the victim children.

It just shows you never met wardey person, because if you did you would not compare orma.
Typical orma look like average nigerian.

[bareento]

DayaxJeclee, every oromo and somali living south of jigjiga looks Bantu.

James, u reason by analogy , but there is one cardinal point that u miss...Oromos never adopt clans as a clan...they r incorporated.
I believe in the 15th and 16th century the Bareentuma was a small confederation to incorporate a formidable force like Akkichu.

One other point Mr James...in Oromo genealogy there is a clear distinction between a confederacy and clan.
Thats something difficult for u to grasp.
The Oromo confederacy syetem is something created for specific politicla system.
Before the Borana/Bareentuma confederacies there were anaother confederacy known as Tuulam/Luullam.
This old confederacy were made up of the same clans but in different configuration.
Before the Borana/Bareentuma confederacies clans like Dawaro, Galaan, Laalo existed.

The Borana/Bareentu confederacy was purposely created for political reason at Madda Walaabu (meaning fountain of Liberty).
At the time the rising Muslim and christian kingdoms were putting pressure on Oromos and oromos ofthe time had
to come up with maverick political organisation. Thats how the Odaa Bultum was founded in early 16th century and ultimately
send the fake arab sultanates to oblivion.

B.