Makanne

The Makanne are an ethnic minority in Somalia . They live as arable farmers around Beledweyne in the Hiiraan region on the Shabelle River and are a kind of "client" with the Badi Adde or Badi Caddo, a clan of the Hawiye - Somali .

Like the Shidle and Kabole , they probably descend from a black African population who lived in that area before the Somali. This population is said to have been joined by escaped and released slaves over time. They are all considered different by the Somali on the basis of physical characteristics and are referred to as Jarir ("hard-haired" or "curly haired" as opposed to "soft-haired" for Somali).

In some cases, the Makanne are included in the collective term “ Somali Bantu ”, which has been in use since the 1990s, especially for the descendants of Bantu slaves and, in a broader sense, for all black African minority groups in Somalia. However, it is unclear whether they were originally Bantu-speaking . Some Makanne refuse to be called "Bantu" because they believe they have never spoken a Bantu language. Today they speak standard Somali .

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• Ken Menkhaus: Bantu ethnic identities in Somalia , in: Annales d'Ethiopie , N ^o 19, 2003
• Francesca Declich: Fostering Ethnic Reinvention , in: Cahiers d'études africaines , 2000
• Ioan M. Lewis : Peoples of the Horn of Africa: Somali, Afar and Saho , Ethnographic survey of Africa: North-Eastern Africa, Part I , International African Institute , London, 1955 (pp. 31, 41–42)