Introduction The Garre are of
Somali origin being descendants of
Samaale the Garre are divided into two major clans, Garre-Tuuf who are associated with the 'Pre-Hawiye' group (
Gardhere - Saransoor- Yahabur - Mayle) this was due to the fruit of nomadic life, the necessity of defense, the movement of new territory necessitated by a constant search for pasture and water have resulted over formation of new alliances and later, new clan identities. This show's indeed the Somali saying
"tol waa tolane (clan is something joined together)'' and the structure is not based on blood relationship, that is why you will find Garre is closely affiliated with
Tunni and Jiido of the
Lower Jubba Valley. Arabs, who inhabited the
Kismayu coast and islands parallel to the coast about 1660A.D, and to whom local tombs and ruins are attributed, exerted considerable influence on the formation of the present-day characteristics of the
Bajuni were also routed by the Somali Garre whom the
Bajuni claims as ancestors- perhaps they were at one time Garre clients. Support for such a thesis was mainly based on the fact that the Garre group is the most widely dispersed among the
Somali clans. The Garre are a tribe of Somali origin who entering the country from the East, extended up the right bank of the
Dawa as far as
Galgala. This place is looked on as a tribal headquarter and is the burying place of the chiefs. According to the legend,
The first Garre ancestor, Aw Mohamed, crossed the Gulf of Aden into present day Somalia in 652AD. He was an Islamic scholar and a preacher. Because he was bearded, the Somalis named him "Garrow" or "Gardheer". ''He married a Hawiye woman who sired two boys and a girl. The first-born was Tuff and the second born Qur'an, and the daughter was named Makka.'' Garre traditions generally recount movement southwards from the North-west corner of
British Somaliland. The scattering of Garre is also supported by the small remnants they supposedly left along the routes they took in their migration.The great Garre migration occurred after the fall of
Ajuuraan empire. This is soo-called Boon Garre at the
Afmadu, other Boon Garre at
Gelib near the mouth of the
River Jubba and still others on the
RIver Tana who spoke not the dialect of their
Darood neighbours rather the southern Somali dialect of the
Rahanweyn speech variety because they had lived in
Rahaweyn speaking area between the
Jubba and
Shebelle rivers, and yet other who lived around
Baardhere kept their own original
Somali like language (
Garreh Kofar-Af maahaw). In the 18th century during the
Gobroon dynasty Garre evolved a high degree of bilingualism when they controlled trade from Luuq to Boranaland, the language of trade was
Oromo language, and also when they interacted with Borana and other neighbouring community who spoke the language. The Garre are also mentioned in the
Futuh Al Habasha : Conquest of Abyssinia as source dating back as far as the 16th century, by author: ''Shihabudin Ahmad bin Abd al-Qadir 'Arab Faqih'' or
Arab Faqih. It is recorded that the Imam Mataan Bin Uthmaan Bin Khalid As-Somali - He was a Garre-Sultan who headed the Somali tribe during the invasion of Abyssinia by
Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi.
The Pre-Hawiye The
Pre-Hawiye, a much-reduced tribal-family, trace descent from an ancestor collateral to
Irir, and are accordingly genealogically anterior to the
Hawiya. Their traditions show them to have preceded the
Hawiya in the general expansions of the Northern Somali towards the south. For these reasons Colluci has coined the term 'Pre-Hawiya' to distinguish them from the
Hawiya to whom they are closely related. The term "Pre-Hawiye", invented by Colluci, is used to describe any clan that is descended from one of the brothers of
irir son of
Samaale. . They also seen as quasi-ancestors of the Hawiye clan. Garre pre-Hawiye group was the first group to occupy the land between the Jubba and Tana Rivers prior to the Oromo. The term pre-Hawiye is useful since there is no Somali equivalent; the Somali people divide the ancient Somalis into the
Dir and
Hawiya - (
The Dir are universally regarded as being the oldest Somali stock), thus the pre-Hawiya Garre, for example, regard themselves as more closely related to the
Hawiye than to the
Dir. The largest pre-Hawiye clans are the Garre,
Hawdle,
Degodia,
Galjaal and the Garre are the most ancient of all the pre-Hawiya clans. They occupied most of southern Somalia before the arrival of the
Digil/
Rahaweyn confederacy. Also,
Bale province and Kenya's
N.F.D. was inhabited by the Garre before the
Oromo Boran and
Warday entered the region. According to the Garre that inhabit the southern
Ethiopia there ancestors originally came from
Merca, on the Somali coast. Evidence for this comes from the fact that Garre tribesmen are found on the islands of
Bajun, just off the Southern Somalia coast, and they are also found in the strength near
Merca. Examination of ancient Muslim graves found in the Garre country were found to be identical to those found in the North-Western Somalia; A.I. Curle made the following observation in 1933: ...around the mosque oat Au Bakadleh in the Hargeisa District of the British Somaliland, there are many graves of this type, exact replicas of those on the Dawa some found some 500 miles distance in the Garre country. They occur in four large autonomous groups: on the lower reaches of the
Shebelle in
Audegle District around
Dolo on the upper
jubba, between the
Webi Gestro and the Webi Mana in contact and to some extent intermixed with the
Arsi Oromo, and to the south-west between the
Ajuran and
Degodia Somali and the
Boran Galla of the Northern Frontier Province of Kenya. who form the dominant eponymous clan and provide the skeletal framework in each tribe. In many cases, however, this type of organization, dependent for its structure on a dominant clan, is superseded by a system of territorial groups whose political relations are not expressed genealogically. The Garre joined
Rahaweyn constituent sub-clans of
Digil, forming a part of the
Rahaweyn confederation of clans. known as
"Toddobaadi aw Digil" == Expansion into the Boranaland ==