Information on any documentary references to the Salhan subclan of the Majeerteen or the Horyeel in association with other clans [SOM24332.E]

Documentary references to either of these groups could not be found among the sources consulted by the DIRB. A professor of history and Somalia specialist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia suggested in a 8 July 1996 telephone interview that the Horyeel Salhan might be descendants of a lineage of former slaves, or freed slaves, who were found among the Majeerteen. The professor stated that the Majeerteen sultans sometimes employed men from outside the ranks of the Majeerteen as body guards, or paid them as mercenary soldiers (ibid.). Numerically insignificant groups were used because it was thought that their dependant status, and their lack of status in Somali society made them more trustworthy than men from the Majeerteen subclans (ibid.).

Additional and/or corroborating information could not be found among the sources consulted by the DIRB. For a chart of the Majeerteen lineages, please consult pages 102 and 103 of the "Supplement to Information Session on Country Conditions on Somalia," which is available at Regional Documentation Centres.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the DIRB within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. Please find below the list of sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

Sources Consulted


Blood and Bone: The Call of Kinship in Somali Society. 1994. I.M. Lewis.

Ethnic and Political Movements in Ethiopia and Somalia. 1992. Patrick Gilkes.

Généalogie du peuple Somali. n.d. (Compiled in Documentation, Information and Research Branch (DIRB), Immigration and Refugee Board. Feb. 1996. "Supplement to Information Session on Country Conditions on Somalia."

Information Session on Somalia. 1996. IRB.

A Modern History of Somalia. 1988. I.M. Lewis.

Networks of Dissolution: Somalia Undone. 1995. Anna Simons.

The Price of Peace: Somalia and the United Nations 1991-1994. 1994. Patrick Gilkes.

The Shaping of Somali Society. 1982. L. Cassanelli.

Somalia: Nation in Search of a State. 1987. D. Laitin and S. Samatar.

Vulnerable Minorities in Somalia and Somaliland. 1995. B. Helander.