Small collection of African daggers

[Freddy]

I found these daggers this morning near our town's antique market and got a real sweet deal :D

In my opinion, all these daggers are from Central Africa (probably Congo or neighbouring countries). Some are quite intresting as I have difficulty in determining them.
They all are quite old with a nice patina on the wooden handles.

I will put some detailed pictures of all the knives on the forum. Here is the lot !
Perhaps some else got a clue ?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v158/keris_hanuman/Afbeelding1807-1.jpg

[Freddy]

Here is the first knife (I'll start from the left)

It's total length is 36 cm with a narrow blade (max. 2,5 cm) measuring 20,5 cm. The knife also has an unusual long handle, made of wood with some iron binding near the blade.

This one is a puzzle to me.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v158/keris_hanuman/Afbeelding1808.jpg

[Freddy]

This small dagger is probably from the Azande tribe in Congo.

Total length is 26,5 cm with a blade measuring 17,8 cm. The middle of the blade is decorated with a dotted line (on both sides) which I have seen on Yakoma knives.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v158/keris_hanuman/Afbeelding1809.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v158/keris_hanuman/Afbeelding1810.jpg

[Freddy]

The third knife is probably the oldest one. On it, I found a little label with '19th century' written on it. The blade is real heavy. At first, it looked like a spear blade, converted into a dagger. But the blade has a tang, which is unusual for Central African spear blades.

I have no clue from which tribe this could be.

Total length is 33 cm with a blade measuring 24 cm (without tang). The wooden handle is entirely covered with copper binding.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v158/keris_hanuman/Afbeelding1811.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v158/keris_hanuman/Afbeelding1812.jpg

[Freddy]

The fourth knife is also Azande, with a nice leather sheath.

Total lengt is 31,5 with a blade measuring 19,7 cm. In my opinion, the wooden handle was once partially covered with some kind of binding.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v158/keris_hanuman/Afbeelding1813.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v158/keris_hanuman/Afbeelding1814.jpg

[Freddy]

The last knife, I didn't have the time yet to do some research. But here is it anyway.

Total length : 38 cm. A wooden handle with iron and copper binding and also some copper nails.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v158/keris_hanuman/Afbeelding1815.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v158/keris_hanuman/Afbeelding1816.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v158/keris_hanuman/Afbeelding1817.jpg

[Lew]

It's good to live in Belgium! Nice finds :)

Lew

[Luc LEFEBVRE]

Joli lot Freddy !
Luc

[Freddy]

I was able to identify the third and last dagger I described. Here they are again :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v158/keris_hanuman/Afbeelding1818.jpg

I had a look around on http://www.mambele.be/ and I think these two daggers can be attributed to the following tribes from Congo : Ngombe, Doko, Ngbandi or Mbudja.

As to the dagger with the slender blade, I'm still guessing. :confused:

Does anyone has a suggestion ? It would be much appreciated. :)

[tom hyle]

Pretty sure the skinny one is Ngombe etc. The grooved handle and grooved wrap resemble those on (especially "legged") swords such as mambele.