African spear with bell, sold on eBay, ..comments?

[katana]

An interesting and unusual spear with a bell forged into the shaft.....never seen ...or heard of one before...not so certain that the bell would scare of lions, as suggested by seller.
Even if it did....I am sure the lions would eventually become 'immune' to the threat......and with that fear gone......I suppose it would become a 'dinner' bell........for the lions :D :rolleyes:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=013&item=230012309314&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1

[Lew]

That is typical style spear from the Congo a nice spear but the bidding went way too far on this one.

Lew

[mmontoro]

Another story I heard about this type of spear was that the noise made by the bell would help in tracking a wounded animal and I don't mean lions....who knows?

[Freddy]

Way to expensive for an African spear ! In Belgium, you can find them a lot cheaper. :p

I checked 'IJzerwerk van Centraal-Afrika' (Iron work from Central Africa) by H. Westerdijk (1975). He writes that this type of spear originates from the Mongo- people and is more a kind of status symbol.

In 'Dodelijk mooi' (Deadly beauty - Beauté fatale) similar spears are attributed to the Poto, Doko, Ngombe and Iboko from the northwestern part of Congo.
I've seen pics with warriors, dancing with that type of spear.

Tomorrow, I'll put some pics on the forum.

[Mapico1]

High price for common Mongo spear;used for hunt on rhino and elephant...
1950ies...

[katana]

Is the bell used to scare animals....like 'beaters' that scare prey into the path of the hunters.??

[Mapico1]

Bell is to follow the wounded animal.....

[Freddy]

here are the promised pics :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v158/keris_hanuman/Afbeelding1770-1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v158/keris_hanuman/Afbeelding1771-1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v158/keris_hanuman/Afbeelding1772-1.jpg



The full length of this spear is 1m63. The spear blade has a long neck and measures about 60,5 cm.
The wooden shaft is decorated with copper, aluminium and iron banding.

[katana]

Hi Freddy, nice spear....just a few questions..is the spear balanced? Could it be thrown accurately or would it be used as a 'stabbing' weapon?

[Freddy]

The balance of this spear lies in the middle of the shaft.

The bell acts as a counter weight. The bell is fitted to the shaft in the same way as the spear blade : it has a fitting which goes over the wooden shaft.

I doubt whether this spear is used for throwing. In my opinion, it's too heavy.

In 'Dodelijk mooi' (deadly beauty/beauté fatale) is written :

In some areas, the counter weight is replaced by a bell which fits over the shaft. These bell are used to create noise to impress an opponent.

The first picture shows the fitting of the spear blade. The second one is the fitting of the bell, which is similar.
The third picture comes from the book 'Dodelijk mooi'. The spear shown on the left is quite similar in shape to the one I have (although mine has a smaller spearblade).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v158/keris_hanuman/Afbeelding1778.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v158/keris_hanuman/Afbeelding1780.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v158/keris_hanuman/Afbeelding1781-1.jpg

[katana]

Thanks Freddy.....kind of you to post the extra info. :)