They keep their heads bare and their hair short, dress themselves with comparatively clean clothing, and wear sandals. They carry ritual prayer rugs on their shoulders, sabers and purification gourds on their hips, and walking sticks in their hands, along with both a small spear and a big spear. Their daily business is squatting in groups beneath trees some distance from the camp, and, weapons in hand, deliberating indefinitely on various issues. Beyond these meetings, and riding around looking for water and neighbors to raid, they are completely inactive. 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.