Information on the Shekesh clan or tribe [SOM9915]

As per our telephone conversation, specific references to the above-named group could not be found among the sources currently available to the IRBDC. However, please find attached some documents (listed below) that may be relevant to your request.

One of the documents contains the following entry under the heading "Sundry small tribes & sections": "Bartire ba Sheikhash, with H. Y. Musa Abdulla, Farah Mohd, Berbera" (Hunt 1944, 32). No further details on the entry are provided by the source.

The other documents deal with the role of religious men, referred to as "sheikh" on an individual basis. Although the attached section of the Somalia Cultural Profile of the IRBDC (full text available through your Regional Documentation Centre) equals the term "wadaad" to "sheikh," the attached section of Somalia: A Country Study states that the term "sheikh" is usually reserved for leaders of branches or congregations and rarely applied to ordinary "wadaddo" (Nelson 1982, 108).

Other attached sections of Somalia: A Country Study deal with specialized or occupational groups and their relation to clans and tribes.

The attached section of Mondes en développement explains that each tribe or community has a council with a leader and a religious man, referred to in the text as "buuni sheekh ah" (page 88).

Bibliography


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.

Attachments

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

Immigration and Refugee Board Documentation Centre (IRBDC). June 1991. Somalia: Cultural Profile - The Nomadic Clans of Somalia: History, Culture, Social Structure. Ottawa: IRBDC, pp. 8-9.

Lewis, I. M.. 1988. A Modern History of Somalia: Nation and State in the Horn of Africa. London/Boulder: Westview Press, pp. 15-17.

Mondes en développement. 1989. Vol. 17. Mohamed, M. A. "Structures verticale et horizontale de la société somalie," pp. 87-88.

Nelson, Harold D., ed. 1982. Somalia: A Country Study. Washington, D.C.: The American University, pp. 84-105, 108.