GALLAS, gallia, a Hamitic people inhabit ing Africa approximately between lat. 9° N. and 3° S. and long. 34° and 44° E. Their language is a descendant of the ancient Geez of Abyssinia. Though they bear a perceptible strain of Negro blood, they are the purest type of the Ethiopian branch of the Hamitic race. They are tall, with good, often European, features, strong, well made limbs, skin of a light chocolate brown, hair frizzled but not woolly. Though cruel in war they are frank and faithful to promises and obligations. They are distinguished for their energy, both physical and mental especially the southern tribes, which pursue pastoral voca tions, notably the breeding of horses, asses, sheep, cattle and camels, and those which live by hunt ing, especially the elephant. These same tribes are mostly, still heathens, though Mohammedan ism is rapidly making way among them. The more northerly tribes who dwell about Harar profess a crass form of Christianity, derived from Abysinnia, and for the most part raise cot ton, durra, sugar and coffee. The total Galla
population, who call themselves Iltn 'Orma (Sons of Men, or Sons of the Brave), is estimated at upward of 3,000,000. Politically they are divided into a great number of separate tribes, which are' frequently at war with one another. But their inveterate foes are the Somali, who have gradu ally driven back the Galla from the shores of the Red Sea and the extremities of the Somali peninsula regions which were occupied by them in the 16th century. just as on the other side the Abyssinians and Shoans have beaten them back. The country they now inhabit is a plateau north west of the Indian Ocean, with a hilly, well timbered surface. Consult Keane, A. H. in Stanford's 'Africa' (Vol. I, London 1907) ; Salivac, P. M. de, 'Les Galla' (Paris 1901) ; Smith, A. Donaldson, 'Through Unknown African Countries: First Expedition from Somaliland to Lake Lamu' (London 1897).