Bantu, Galla and Somali migrations in the Horn of africa: a reassessment of the Juba/Tana area

Abstract

This article offers a new reconstruction of Bantu, Galla and Somali migrations in the Horn of Africa, with particular reference to the area between the Juba and the Tana rivers. It is suggested that Garre or proto-Garre Somali gained control of the area between the Juba and the Tana rivers before the Galla arrived in this area, and that in the process the Garre were responsible for pushing Bantu-speaking peoples back to the river Tana. However, it is also argued that the area initially controlled by Bantu-speaking peoples in the Horn of Africa was much more limited than is generally assumed. It is then suggested that around the sixteenth century the Orma Galla migrated to the coast from southern Ethiopia via the Lorian Swamp and the river Tana and not by the river Juba as is generally argued. The arrival of the Orma led to a further retreat of Bantu-speaking peoples towards the Sabaki river, and then to a retreat of the Somali northwards in the direction of the Juba river. In this way the nineteenth-century Somali drive southwards can be seen to some extent as a reconquest of land occupied earlier by them.