[6] The new Geledi Sultanate rose to become a powerful state that ruled large parts of the Horn of Africa exerting heavy influence on the Banaadir coast and dominating trade on the Jubba and Shabelle rivers.

[8] Ultimately failing to end a rebellion in the key city of Merca the sultanate declined steadily but still managed to fend off the Ethiopian Empire before the death of its last final ruler Osman Ahmed.

The Geledi people had gone from one of the most dominant subclans in all of Southern Somalia to humble farmers in the wake of illegal land grabbing and marginalization by the Somali government.

Large scale movement into Afgooye by Somalis not native to the city and the grants of land traditionally reserved for Geledi cultivation caused significant tension in the community.

With men and women donning traditional white cloth a man wielding a wooden trumpet or buun leads the people in procession.

[11] The Istunka Afgooye or isgaraac is an annual stick fight performed in the city by its inhabitants stretching back hundreds of years.

The festival coincides with the harvest being a joyous time in the city[12] The event itself consists of a mock fight between the people residing on each side of the river bed in the town of Afgooye.

British ethnologist Virginia Luling noted during her visit to the town that poetry was to be conceived and recited simultaneously with no prior preparation.

We endured war and the point of the spear For the love of Gooble we left our first home And now everyone crowds in here, they have taken our cleared farmland They have taken the pasture where the herds grazed - where will the people be led ?