For information on the Yahar (also written Yahhar and Yibir), please find attached a copy of Responses to Information Requests Nos. SOM8655 and SOM9393 (the latter included in both English and French language versions).

Also attached, please find sections of the book Somalia: A Country Study, which provides information on occupational groups known as "sab" (low). This source states that these occupational groups (not to be confused with the Sab lineage), of which the Yibir (known as Yahhar in the South) constitute a small one, have an uncertain origin (Nelson 1982, 93). They speak, in addition to Somali, what the source describes as an occupational jargon, and have particular customs (Ibid.). The source adds that the Yibir were magicians who were given gifts in exchange for their amulets for the newborn, blessing of weddings and soothsaying (Ibid.). Finally, the source states that occupational groups such as the Yibir had lineages, although "these were not usually the foundation for dia-paying groups before Somalia's independence," adding that the Yibir moved from one group of Somalis to another (Ibid.). The source indicates that "by the end of the colonial period, change had begun to take place in the political, legal, and social status of these [occupational] groups, a process that has continued" (Ibid.).

One source, under a section titled "Sundry Small Tribes & Sections", provides the following information in an entry for the Yibir: "sorcerers, with all tribes, especially Mijertein; pre-Somali" (Hunt 1944, 32). The source gives no further details.

Another source describes the Yibir as a caste, not a tribe (Mohamed 1989, 90). For further discussion on occupational groups, castes and clan relationships, please consult the documents attached to this response and to the Response to Information Request No. SOM9848.

Further information on the requested subject could not be found among the sources currently available to the IRBDC.

Hunt, John A., ed. 1944. Genealogies of the Tribes of British Somaliland and the Mijertein. Burao: British Somaliland General Survey.

Mondes en développement. 1989. Vol. 17. Mohamed, M. A. "Structures verticale et horizontale de la société somalie."

Nelson, Harold D., ed. 1982. Somalia: A Country Study. Washington, D.C.: The American University.

Hunt, John A., ed. 1944. Genealogies of the Tribes of British Somaliland and the Mijertein. Burao: British Somaliland General Survey, p. 32.

Minority Rights Group. 1991. Somalia: A Nation in Turmoil. London: Minority Rights Group ("The Evolution and Structure of the Clan-Family System", two unnumbered pages).

Nelson, Harold D., ed. 1982. Somalia: A Country Study. Washington, D.C.: The American University, pp. 84-105.