Who Are The Somali People?

A portion of the ancient cave paintings in the Laas Geel Cave of Somalia.

An ancient grave with gravestones in Boroma, Somalia.

This question is often brought up in message boards, question & answer sites, other places on the Internet, and even offline. The particular question asked is often about the ancestry of Somali people, their ethnicity or race.

While there are people who may look at us and automatically see Somalis as blacks, others decide that we may be mixed race or Arab. But where does the truth lie?

If we look at the history of the Somali people, of Somali culture, religions that were embraced at different points in time in our history, and at our language - one will see, in various ways, how ancient Somali people are and how relatively similar they remain to the way their ancestors were thousands of years ago.

Somalia is one of the oldest inhabitations of modern humans. The world's first cemeteries are in Somalia, the world's oldest cave paintings, and the world's oldest fossils - while not in Somalia - are in the Horn (Eritrea and Ethiopia). Through examination of these fossils, cave paintings depicting the world's earliest modern humans, and other evidences, we clearly see a resemblance in features and, in some ways, culture of today's Horn of African people to those most ancient people. Therefore, how could people assume that Somalis - and other Horn of Africans - look the way they do because of racial admixture when they have looked like that long before there were any other people existing on earth. Clearly, it is an assumption never based on fact but rather on stereotypes and bias. People believe that each race must look a certain way or else they must be mixed. But what evidences or research do they base their ideas on race and the image they feel any individual must fit to belong completely to any one race? The reality is that they never base it on fact nor on objective and thorough study. It is usually based on stereotypes, ignorance, and bias.

But then, you may ask, how can anyone belong to any race if there are no distinct features exclusive to that race? We know that, or at least one can easily learn about online, there are individuals of each and every race who exhibit traits stereotypically believed to be the exclusive characteristics of certain races. One may observe this particularly among native sub-Saharan Africans. For example, there are individuals from all the inhabited continents who have blue or green eyes, dark-coloured hair, light-coloured hair, dark skin, light skin, and all the facial or bodily features possible for any human to have (as in almond-shaped eyes, thin lips, full lips, etc).

In short, no feature is exclusive to any so-called "race". There is not a single gene, whether the genotype be expressed through phenotype (ie. physical traits) or not, that identifies a person as belonging to any racial group. There are, however, genes that many individuals of an ethnic group may share, especially if that ethnic group is relatively homogeneous.

Despite this fact, many people still stubbornly believe that there are features that every unmixed person of a certain race always has. For example, many think that all blacks and only black naturally have kinky hair. While it is true that many black people do naturally have kinky hair, there are alos many blacks who have loosely curly hair, wavy hair, and yes, straight hair as well. There are also many non-blacks who may have kinky hair - like some Arabs, Desis, East Asians, Asians of other areas of the continent, and whites as well. The same is true for every other feature like nose size, hair colour, eye colour, and so on.

So if there are no genes or features that at all can be used to identify a person as belonging to a certain race and if there are no clear distinctions between the races, then how could anyone belong to any race? In truth, the whole racial classification system is false. There is no gene or feature that identifies someone as being "Negroid", "Caucasoid", "Mongoloid", "black", "white", and so on. Some may wonder why people continue to identify themselves or others as belonging to any racial group. Think that over carefully for yourselves. Have any of these individuals who use those labels actively researched or looked up the validity of the system they use for themselves? The answer is most likely no.

Upon examining the genes of Somalis and other Horn of African groups and comparing them with the genes of others, scientists have come to the conclusion that Somalis and other native Horn of Africans are not mixed and are a native and very ancient people. This is a fact that many Horn of Africans always knew and was proven.

So what is the identity of Somalis in terms of race and ethnicity? There is no evidence to support the continuation of the racial classification system, therefore I can only speak on our ethnicity and homogeneouity. We are a highly homogeneous people who have not been mixed with any other group outside of the Horn of Africa. We are one of the world's most ancient people living in the world's most ancient land inhabited by humans - the Horn of Africa. Contrary to what some believe, those we share the most similarities with - in terms of native culture, language, features, and in other ways - are the other ethnic groups of the Horn of Africa such as those of Ethiopia and Eritrea and of course, Djibouti, who speak Afro-Asiatic languages.