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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The Origins of the Galla and Somali |
Author: | Lewis, Herbert S. |
Year: | 1966 |
Periodical: | The Journal of African History |
Volume: | 7 |
Issue: | 1 |
Pages: | 27-46 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Ethiopia Somalia |
Subjects: | Oromo Somali history ethnic groups Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/179457 |
Abstract: | This study presents a reconstruction of the origins and major movements of the Galla and Somali which departs from most of the previous literature on the subject. The traditional view has been that about the 10th century the Somali swept south and south-west from the shores of the Gulf of Aden driving the Galla before them. The Somali pressure was considered the major impetus to the Galla invasions of Ethiopia in the 16th century. It is the thesis of this paper that both the Galla and the Somali originated in southern Ethiopia, that the Somali expanded to the east and north much earlier that the Galla, and that the Galla lived only in southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya until their migrations began about 1530. These hypotheses were presented in brief form in 1962 and have since been strengthened by Fleming's work on the comparative linguistics of the Somali and by Haberland's rather similar conclusions about Galla history. Bibliography; notes; figures. |