camels. In the south, the Digil and the Rahanweyn, sedentary agriculturalists, make up the last two of the clan families. The territories of these clans are depicted on Map 12.
Somalis identify first with their clan family, but these are very large and contain many subgroups. First among these are clans that trace their descent back to one of the larger clan families. More significant are the groupings within clans called diya-paying groups, which consist of closely related kinspeople who pay and collect diya, or“ blood wealth,” compensation against the murder of one of their members. Somali clans and diya-paying groups were historically locked in to almost continual conflict over the scarce resources at their disposal, particularly water sources and good grazing land for their animals. They also constantly raided the herds of neighboring clans and diya-paying groups. Though clans had leaders called sultans, and also elders, these people had no real power. Political power was very widely dispersed, with every Somali adult man being able to have his say on decisions that might affect the clan or group. This was achieved through an informal council made up of all adult males. There was no written law, no police, and no legal system to speak of, except that Sharia law was used as a framework within which informal laws were embedded. These informal laws for a diya-paying group would be encoded in what was called a heer, a body of explicitly formulated obligations, rights, and duties the group demanded others obey in their interactions with the group. With the advent of colonial rule, these heers began to be written down. For example, the Hassan Ugaas lineage formed a diya-paying group of about fifteen hundred men and was a subclan of the Dir clan family in British Somaliland. On March 8, 1950, t h e i r heer was recorded by the British district commissioner, the first three clauses of which read
1. When a man of the Hassan Ugaas is murdered by an external group twenty camels of his blood wealth( 100) will be taken by his next of kin and the remaining eighty camels shared amongst all the Hassan Ugaas.
2. If a man of the Hassan Ugaas is wounded by an