People of the Degodia and Ajuran Somali clans are culturally indistinguishable at first sight. There are some Boran-speaking Ajuran, but the remainder of them speak the same form of Somali as the Degodia. An elderly woman, Ajuran married to Degodia, once explained that the division of labour between the genders differs between the two groups, and that it was a bad surprise for her to find that as a married woman among the Degodia she had to herd animals. But such differences only turn up when the respective inquiries are made or one has spent more time living with these clans. When Schlee visited Somali hamlets in the eastern part of Marsabit District and in Wajir District in 1977-1980, he found Degodia and Ajuran living in intermingled nomadic hamlets and there was no way of telling which was which without asking.

When Schlee met the same people again in 1984, one of his key Degodia informants, a very hospitable and wealthy camel owner, had been robbed of all his camels by Ajuran and was collecting money to take the matter to court. This remained without success because the same had happened to thousands of others and the courts did not interfere in matters relating to this ‘war’. Some Ajuran informants, no less helpful and generous to Schlee, boasted that it was ‘them’ (maybe not individually but people close to them about whom they knew) who had taken the camels of his Degodia friend.