Social Status
The Yibir belong to the category of the sab, a group of minority clans which also includes the Madhiban and the Tumaal. The sab live in subservience to the ruling clans, the Somali. They traditionally perform menial work and "lack almost all those rights common to freeborn Somali." They are peripatetic people, that is, groups who may have originally subsisted by hunting and gathering and later performed menial or sometimes specialized work, often for low wages. In addition, they sell amulets for births and marriages and produce prayer mats.
The non-food producing Yibir traditionally were itinerant peddlers and magicians. Some Yibir believe that they are descendants of Hebrews who arrived in the area long before the arrival of Somali nomads, and that the word "Yibir" means "Hebrew".
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