African Spear Heads

[Cathey]

Hi Guys

Many years ago I purchased a display shield featuring 7 various African spear heads and have never made any attempt to identify them. I was wondering if any one on the Forum can help?

Cheers Cathey and Rex

[kronckew]

The Mahdi's troops from Sudan used barbed spears, British doctors at Omdurman/Khartoum noted they made nasty wounds and were hard to extract. the others? Not sure, spears are hard to attribute as they generally used very similar forms all over the world since the beginning of time. Read a story once about an Ethiopian who used a shortish (6ft.) spear with a large wide point like your central one, he used it like a hewing spear or halberd/pole axe.

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[colin henshaw]

As mentioned by kronkew, African spears can be difficult to identify.

The two with many barbs are probably Sudanese. The one in the middle with the large heart-shaped blade, maybe Sahel, Dogon area ? The spear with the fine wire binding, from Somaliland/Ethiopia area. The rest could be from almost anywhere north of the Zambesi. Faceted or squared shanks probably indicate Islamic influence.

Spears south of the Zambesi were usually tanged, although there are some with tanged blades northwards.

[BANDOOK]

HERE ARE SOME OF MY SUDANESE SPEAR HEADS,COLLECTED IN DAFFUR,1950s
They are used for variety of purpose from hunting,fishing etc
regards
Rajesh

[Cathey]

Thanks guys for your help here,

The great variation in African spear heads is certainly interesting. None of the books in my library really deal with them in sufficient detail.

Regards Cathey and Rex

[Helleri]

Bit of an aside. But I made a joke sometime back on the topic of why these are so often so large which I thought worth sharing. That being they have additional purposes of being a spade to bury the body and an oar to make one's get away in a river boat.