Page:First Footsteps in East Africa, 1894 - Volume 1.djvu/117

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IV.—The Somal, their Origin and Peculiarities.

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About the origin of the Gallas there is a diversity of opinion.^[1] Some declare them to be Meccan Arabs, who settled on the western coast of the Red Sea at a remote epoch: according to the Abyssinians, however, and there is little to find fault with in their theory, the Gallas are descended from a princess of their nation, who was given in marriage to a slave from the country south of Gurague. She bare seven sons, who became mighty robbers and founders of tribes: their progenitors obtained the name of Gallas, after the river Gala, in Gurague, where they gained a decisive victory over their kinsmen the Abyssins.^[2] A variety of ethnologic and physiological reasons—into which space and subject prevent my entering—argue the Kafirs of the Cape to be a northern people, pushed southwards by some, to us, as yet, unknown cause. The origin of the Somal is a matter of modern history.

"Barbarah" (Berberah),^[3] according to the Kamus,

↑ Moslems, ever fond of philological fable, thus derive the word Galla. When Ullabu, the chief, was summoned by Mohammed to Islamize, the messenger returned to report that "he said no,"—Kál lá pronounced Gál lá—which impious refusal, said the Prophet, should from that time become the name of the race.
↑ Others have derived them from Metcha, Karaiyo, and Tulema, three sons of an Æthiopian Emperor by a female slave. They have, according to some travellers, a prophecy that one day they will march to the east and north, and conquer the inheritance of their Jewish ancestors. Mr. Johnston asserts that the word Galla is "merely another form of Calla, which in the ancient Persian, Sanscrit, Celtic, and their modern derivative languages, under modified, but not changed terms, is expressive of blackness." The Gallas, however, are not a black people.

↑ The Aden stone has been supposed to name the "Berbers," who must have been Gallas from the vicinity of Berberah. A certain amount of doubt still hangs on the interpretation: the Rev. Mr. Forster and Dr. Bird being the principal contrasts.

Rev. Mr. Forster.	Dr. Bird.
"We assailed with cries of hatred and rage the Abyssinians and Berbers. "We rode forth wrathfully against this refuse of mankind."	"He, the Syrian philosopher in Abadan, Bishop of Cape Aden, who inscribed this in the desert, blesses the institution of the faith."

[1] Moslems, ever fond of philological fable, thus derive the word Galla. When Ullabu, the chief, was summoned by Mohammed to Islamize, the messenger returned to report that "he said no,"—Kál lá pronounced Gál lá—which impious refusal, said the Prophet, should from that time become the name of the race.

[2] Others have derived them from Metcha, Karaiyo, and Tulema, three sons of an Æthiopian Emperor by a female slave. They have, according to some travellers, a prophecy that one day they will march to the east and north, and conquer the inheritance of their Jewish ancestors. Mr. Johnston asserts that the word Galla is "merely another form of Calla, which in the ancient Persian, Sanscrit, Celtic, and their modern derivative languages, under modified, but not changed terms, is expressive of blackness." The Gallas, however, are not a black people.

[3] The Aden stone has been supposed to name the "Berbers," who must have been Gallas from the vicinity of Berberah. A certain amount of doubt still hangs on the interpretation: the Rev. Mr. Forster and Dr. Bird being the principal contrasts.

Rev. Mr. Forster. Dr. Bird.

"We assailed with cries of hatred and rage the Abyssinians and Berbers.
"We rode forth wrathfully against this refuse of mankind." "He, the Syrian philosopher in Abadan, Bishop of Cape Aden, who inscribed this in the desert, blesses the institution of the faith."

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