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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Famous quotes related to social status:
“Anthropologists have found that around the world whatever is considered ‘men’s work’ is almost universally given higher status than ‘women’s work.’ If in one culture it is men who build houses and women who make baskets, then that culture will see house-building as more important. In another culture, perhaps right next door, the reverse may be true, and basket- weaving will have higher social status than house-building.”
—Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Excerpted from, Gender Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World (1990)