The women and children take care of the livestock, decorate the huts, load the caravans, and manufacture utensils, including milk jugs like those in Somaliland, and mats for camels, which, when raised on sticks, form the houses of migrant villages. Some blacksmiths wander through the tribes and fashion iron for daggers andspears. The Ogadins are not aware of any minerals in their midst. They are Muslim fanatics. Each camp has its priest who chants prayers at appointed hours.
Ogadin families are large in number.
M. Sotiro's guide had 60 sons and grandsons. Their herds consist of zebu, short-haired sheep, goats, mongrel horses, milk camels, and finally, ostriches, of which the rearing is a custom among all Ogadins. Each village possesses a few dozen ostriches which graze nearby, under the watchful eye of the children. Ostriches even lie by the fire in the huts. Both males and females are shackled on their thighs, and follow the caravans behind the camels,which they are almost as tall as.