Another theoretical question: what are those Central African swords used for anyway?

[fearn]

Hi All,

Currently, there are some droolingly gorgeous African weapons coming out of hiding. Since I didn't know much about them before (aside from that "swords" picture in Stone's Glossary), I'm finding this fascinating.

I'm going to pitch a question to the list: why are the Central African swords and knives so diverse in shape, and so frequently of marginal functionality?

Here's my guess: basically, the swords were generally side-arms, with something else, such as a spear or bow, being the main arm. Flavio's picture of the armed tribesman on Louie's Kuba thread is a case in point. As side arms, the swords and knives primarily play a symbolic role, and their use as weapons is secondary. In this way, they're more like a keris than like, say, a European sword.

What do all you experts think? Feel free to post more pics too, while you're at it! :D

Cheers,

Fearn

[tom hyle]

I'm no wiz with the pictures, but I'll give it a shot without any. Of course the swords are side arms, with lances, javelins, bows, throwing weapons, and guns to keep the enemy dying further from you before you have to resort to a sword or dagger or club or axe, etc. Frankly, I think the African swords are way under-studied, and it may be way too late to study most of them as weapons and/or tools within their native cultures, as they often are not much used anymore as weapons (because of the modern army abolishing the self arming militia system, and because spring tempered machetes offer an often superior using value to forged iron, or even steel, as many of the African smiths, if they are forging springs as I'm told, are not tempering them to a spring temper; I don't know that this means they don't know how, but on the other hand, the popularity of foreign made machetes says something, dunnit? ), so much about their use and making is lost, but IMHO a lot of them are a lot more effective than modern "westerners" (ie. Northerners :cool: ) typically think. The sickle/mambele sword of the 'Zande, 'Gombe, etc. is a nasty nasty fighting piece, for instance, and while I've encountered pieces that seemed like clearly effigy/symbolic/money/etc. pieces, by no means all the odd seeming African arms are at all impractical. I also think that, just because an ancestor worshipper uses great grand dad's sword as a "dance wand" in religious ceremonies now, is not any reason to think that's what it was back in the day, and I think this ideation occurs a lot in the "fine art scene" where African swords are as popular as they are to ethno collectors, and usually moreso than with modern N American martial artists, and where there is often an exaggerated horror of violence......

[Tim Simmons]

I think all of Toms points are valid but here is my 2pence worth.
Take the Congo,the size of western europe and mostly jungle and transport by foot,isolation and distinction from your neighbor/enemy could foster variation.Many non functional forms may indicate how close a person was to the seat of power.In a world of limited material wealth these items were the pinnacle of technical/spiritual achievment, bling in other words.Tim

[fearn]

Hi Tim and Tom,

I agree, especially with Tim's remarks about the isolation. I'm having issues with non-functional "bling" masquerading as a weapon. In some cases, those swords would be great weapons--not something to fence with, but more than adequate against an unarmored opponent. In other cases, they simply make me scratch my head.

Personally, I'd first figured that the Congo was actually pretty peaceful, given that they hadn't spent a lot of time optimizing their swords for war This is with the Europeans, Japanese, Chinese, Thais, Burmese, Indonesians, Phillipinos, etc for examples of blades optimized primarily for war and secondarily for decoration.

Finally, it occurred to me to look at what else the Congo men might have been carrying, and their spears and bows (two other understudied areas) are pretty functional. Personally, I'm beginning to suspect that the groups that depended most on their bows and spears might have had the weirder swords.

I'm thinking in almost evolutionary terms--if you rarely draw your sword as a weapon, it can be a great thing for flaunting your identity and status. If you have to use the thing on anything like a regular basis, functionality might win out. I'd suggest that this might be a good way of understanding the martial culture of the Congo and west African tribes. It might be more broadly applicable, come to think of it. Indonesia has all those gorgeous Keris, after all, and I'd hate to depend on one in the middle of a battle.

In general, I think there's something interesting about resource-poor cultures that make their weapons (at least to my eyes) over-decorative, in the sense that the shape might interfere with function to some extent. To me, this says that the makers of that weapon actually lived in a relatively peaceful place. Either that, or they weren't as resource poor as we think, and they could afford the "bling." However, if these blades are "bling," what were they fighting with?

Fun to think about, anyway.

Fearn

[Flavio]

Hello guys.

The problem that regards the use of the African weapons is very complex.
The fact that the Westerns call "weapons" some objects only because there are resemblances to the western white weapons it's a great mistake.
The object that for us are weapons for the owenrs have a turmoil of meanings (status symbol, ritual and cultual meaning, social meaning, economic meaning etc...).

I think that we can consider, with an high degree of certainty, non functional the object with copper or brass blade, but again we don'yt know the true meaning (ritual, cultual, social...).
For the "weapons" with an iron blade the true sense is a mystery. We can make hypothesis observing the general shape (more or less functional), the decoration (a functional object perhaps is less decorated, but also this is not sure), the presence of an handled (in order to understand if the blade were used like currency). The presence of one or more of these elements maybe could tell us the use of the object that we have for the hands.

In last it is not to forget that often the "weapons" have not had a single meaning and use! :D

[fearn]

Hi Flavio,

With a great deal of respect, I have to disagree with your mystification of african swords. After all, many cultures use swords and sword-like objects for dancing and other ceremonial uses, trade blades have been common for centuries (which is what these money knives are), and we're certainly now talking about swords as status symbols (see current-running threads), decorative objects (what most collectors do), and economic symbols (something I understand all too well as a postdoc). If you know any pagans, you're also aware that a knife or sword can be a religious object (athame or boline), even if it's razor sharp. We also have a whole fantasy knife industry (such as Gil Hibben's yearly productions) that produces objects are definitely knives and blur the boundaries between weapon and art piece.

Given all that, are African blades weird? Every explanation that's been put forward has a parallel in modern American culture, and certainly in other cultures. I have to wonder if we're making a mystery out of these blades because they often do look different (just as they often look like Ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian designs). Perhaps we're also making a mystery out of them because we can't now go live in the Congo or Angola and find out what these people believe. In any case, I suspect that these wonderful pieces are understandable, but that perhaps we need to see them differently.

It's a fun question, though, and I'm certainly enjoying the seeing people's collections.

Fearn

[tom hyle]

I do not believe there is any foundation for thinking of copper/brass blades as inrinsically nonfunctional. AFAIK they are used by some ethnic groups or cults who must not touch iron, some of them only at certain times. Of course, as has been said here, and as Conogre pointed out on another thread, there may be many features and powers of African swords that have much meaning and utility from the viewpoint of the African (religious/magical comes to mind), while seeming pointless or useless to an unknowing foreigner.

[Conogre]

There are also many other factors to consider that are rarely mentioned, such as the fact that many tribes within a tribal nation or group lacked at least some portion, if not all of the skill required to work metal, particularly iron and steel, thus pieces were often made by tribes other than those actually using them.....I've always been curious as to how the "smithing tribes" knew which features were to be incorporated into which weapons.
Another is that tribal home ranges were often extremely fluid over suprisingly short periods of time, with alliances changing according to the whim of the ruling tribal leaders and the fact that MANY tribes viewed, and still do, the only real solution to a war being complete genocide of the opposing faction, which necessitated finding ANY ally in a storm for the weaker peoples, ie "bodyguards".
Yet another is that may "tribes" are in actuality sub-groups, that are governed by a very strict caste system allowing certain pieces to be owned by specific ranks as a "badge of office" in one group while they may be the tribal weapon of choice within another.
Even more confusing is that in Africa, many peoples didn't bury weapons with the owners, feeling that if it didn't degrade it left the warrior weaponless in the afterlife (and thus often very angry) so that several styles of blades might be found in one group as they evolved and changed, with only the hilt being changed as required, along with the traditions of captured pieces often being retained by the victor because of the spirit or courage that went with it and just simple trading over much wider areas than were found in other locales.
I have to agree with Tom and others in feeling that FAR too much study was ignored for way too long to the point that the real information is simply lost forever to time, while I disagree with the concept of the Congo region being "peaceful", with the exact opposite actually being true on a scale that is actually incomprehsible to many westerners.
Lastly, there is the concept, also difficult to grasp by western minds, that many weapons were made to fight enemies from different planes of existance and the spirit world in battles that were every bit as life and death to them as battles with other tribes and forien invaders, with many throwing weapons coming to mind and NEVER used against earthly foes (I've seen estimates as high as 60% of the different forms)....many tribes actually have no word or concept for a "natural death", with the only causes being enemy humans, wild animals or physical accidents with ALL other deaths being the direct result of curses, witchcraft, demons and spirits with old age and illness included in one of the aforementioned.
In all, many African weapons may well end up being the least understood of any on earth in the end.
Mike

[Flavio]

Hello Fearn , maybe there is a problem of understending. I don’t think that african weapons are weird, but it’s completely wrong to think that a simple comparison could help us to understand the WHOLE meaning of an ethnographic weapon (or in general material culture) and in particolar is wrong to make comparison between a traditional society and industrialized societies like the western ones.
Also i think that to try to find comparison between ancient societies (as you say Ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian) and modern traditional societies it’s more wrong if is it possible (the time gap it’s too wide!). Ethnologistes go among traditional societies because the only way to understand the way of life of these groups it’s to try to know directly by them.

Tom, have you ever try to use a copper sword against an iron sword? The main function of a weapon is to cut, stick, stab in poor words to kill enemies. A fragile weapon is the worst choice for remain alive! So, as you say, in some tribe copper or brass (more frequently wood) knife, dagger, sword, axe, spear lost their main function to be used in ceremonies.

[Freddy]

Hi Fearn,

People always look for what's 'behind' an object of another culture. We, Europeans, have an urge to explain everything. This is the case with tribal masks or statues, but also with weaponry.

A lot of the different shapes we see in African weapons just evolved from other weapons. The best example is the throwing knife. These weapons were used in open country. I don't know if some of you ever had the pleasure of holding such a knife. Regardless of their strange shape, they are leathal when thrown.

But, as people migrated to areas which had more forests, their weapons evolved. Some sickle knives from the Congo area have a shape which can be retraced to the form of certain throwing knives.

On the other hand, even strangely shape knives can be functional. Look a the trumbash or mambele knife of the Mangbetu. I can assure you that you can use some of them when working in your garden.
In Medieval times, garden tools were also used in warfare in Europe. These were the weapons of the peasant who couldn't afford a sword. A large sickle mounted on a pole could do some damage to a knight on horse back.

As in every culture, some men were richer than others. The best way to show this, was through your weapons. These were adorned with copper, brass and ivory. Some became ceremonial, but the basic form was still functional.

And Fearn, as you requested : here's a picture of a very functional weapon : a trumbash or mambele

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v158/keris_hanuman/Mangbetu4.jpg

Freddy ;)

[Conogre]

Flavio, you seem to forget that up until the very recent past metal was indeed the "money" of Africa, with individuals using whatever was at hand or that they could afford IRREGARDLESS of what the enemy or other tribe was using.
If an enemy attacked with an iron tipped spear and all that you had was a copper knife or club, you used what you had.
You seem to be forgetting that almost every tribe had some sort of wooden throwing stick or club that was used both for hunting and fighting in addition to knives, swords, spears and bows and arrows.
If you look closely you'll find that there are small, slim wooden shields almost indistinguishable from Australian aboriginal pieces found throughout Africa, and that the sticks were often ignored in favor of the more elaborite weapons by anthroplogists, who often didn't even realize the import placed upon them by their owners or that they were indeed made by THAT tribe.
Genetic DNA evidence seems to indicate that the Australian Bushmen and the African Bushmen are among or ARE the oldest human groups remaining on the planet with some also feeling that the true Philippine and Indonesian negrito are not too distant from them themselves, lending strong support to the "wave" theory of human migration.
Mike

[Tim Simmons]

Hello all,this thread is just an invitation to show this non functional weapon called a scorpion,which you can just see in the detail picture.This comes from a large area incuding NE Nigeria,NW Cameroon.I was trying to hold these back but I am weak.Tim

[fearn]

Cool, an argument! Oops. I shouldn't be making trouble...

Anyway...

Hi Conogre,

I think the points about warfare are worth thinking about. I'm not sure whether you managed to contradict yourself or not, but I think one thing we can agree on is that if a weapon is frequently needed for fighting, it's design tend to reflect the realities of that use. In other words, it will be sharp, well-balanced for its good strokes, with a good handle, and well-tempered. I'd suggest that a lot of the swords we're talking about ably meet these criteria, as do war swords from around the world. The "weird" swords and knives I'm talking about are the ones that are short-handled, awkwardly weighted, etc. This doesn't include the throwing knives, but it does include many others.

I would also say that, "the western mind" is as much a myth as race is--in other words, if you pick some extreme examples (for instance a Swedish molecular biologist and a refugee in Kinshasa), you will see all sorts of differences. Constructing any theories out of these two points is a total waste of time, because it disregards all the other people in between these two extremes. When you look at all the intergradations, the differences disappear. Personally, I prefer "I don't know" to "the western mind can't comprehend" because it makes fewer assumptions about reality.

Hi Flavio,

To take one point: there have been trade routes across the Sahara for millenia, and personally, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the blades that look like ancient Greek and Roman designs were originally inspired by blades coming south through trade. They're good designs after all, especially in an area that preferred shorter swords. Obviously nothing can be proved, but it's worth thinking about.

Hi Freddy,

Thanks for pointing out the farm blades idea. However, it's not new to me. Personally, I keep wanting to buy a bank blade (aka a glaive--it's a long-handled version of the bill you've pictured). They're $26.95 at the local big-box hardware store. Since I don't have a use for such a tool, it would just be more clutter when I move in a few months. I also totally agree with you about the throwing knives. However, their design is pretty self-evident to anyone who has thrown a blade, and there are also good accounts of their use in battle and in the hunt.


Hi Conogre,

Since you brought up DNA, it's worth pointing out that there is more mitochondrial diversity within Africa than there is in the rest of the world combined. What does that mean about race and culture? Nothing. The absolute level of diversity within the human species pales compared to, say, the diversity seen in different populations of chimpanzees, to say nothing of truly diverse mammals such as wolves. While there's an enormous diversity of humans, most of the people who study such things attribute that diversity almost entirely to culture. Most of the remainder is on the biochemical level (i.e. lactose intolerance, sickle cell), and genetic markers for anything like our standard racial categories has turned out to be next to impossible to find.

Fearn

[Freddy]

Tim,

Why do you say your 'scorpion' is non-functional ? Perhaps because it has no sharp edgdes ? I once held one in my hands. It's quite heavy, no ? Perhaps it's just used as some kind of iron mace. Imagine what damage it would do if you used it to hit someone in the head. :eek:

By the way, let's start again. I'm sure Flavio also has something to show.

This is a classical Zande-throwing knife.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v158/keris_hanuman/Afbeelding1084.jpg

[Tim Simmons]

Hello Freddy,yes it is heavy and it could be used to inflict terrible wounds.I have one more, but I have to take a picture.Tim

[Flavio]

Hello Freddy
Let's leave apart the theoretical problems in which, I think, never we will be agree :) and let me show you my functional Bagirmi throwing blade :eek:

[ariel]

At the risk of being screamed at, I would still join the opinion that Central African bladed weapons are inefficient.
Yes, throwing knives are dangerous and being bashed over the head with a Mambele may be detrimental to your health. But so are just heavy sticks, stone axes and long bones (remember "2001"?)
Central Africans never developed a coherent system of swordfight (for better or for worse). To be effective, a sword shoud balance maximal damaging potential of a specific kind (stabbing and/or cutting) with the minimum of superfluous structures to assure maneurability.
Shamshir has it, rapier has it and katana has it in spades.
C.African weapons are so decorative, have such exaggerated features and so unwieldy that they just cannot compare! Perhaps, only Seme has some semblance of functionality.
These swords fulfilled a dual purpose: partly ceremonial and religious symbols (think Tibetan Phurba), partly weapons of war. I am not qualified to judge the former and respect any religious system that does not endorse murder, human sacrifice and cannibalism. Let them be... But as for the latter... Well, they just cannot cut the mustard!

[tom hyle]

AFAIK little is known of traditional C African martial arts in N America, but I am given to understand that the assumption that this indicates incompetence is a misimpression. Certainly many of the swords are very effective, when you consider that tempered martensite did not seem to be known in most of traditional Africa.
There are indeed whose handles, extreme flimsiness (though IMHO less of these than the EuroAmerican impression; maybe less of both; my small hilted Mongo sword does have a coned guard and pommel that are meant to fit within the hand) etc, even if we had no cultural information in the matter, which we do have, mark them as ceremonial. Swords, etc. were/are often rank markers in traditional African culture, and can have other ceremonial uses, as well. I think of the brass-handled dagger with the snake(s?) on the handle....
Yes, the main purpose of an edged weapon is usually to pierce or cut the enemy; to sever his muscles, tendons, and organs, and to let his blood out. Copper, bronze, brass, stone, and bone are perfectly up to the task; many many humans and bigger, tougher things, have been killed with them on a routine basis. The idea that your sword is for something more than that; that it is for blocking and clashing with other weapons, a thing the traditional sword-and-sheild figter usually avoids, is a culture-specific idea; it is not seen in all cultures, and is not terribly relevant to all fighting systems. That said, of course, brass is less strong and stiff than iron for a blade, and maybe even more expensive in traditional economy (?), but as has been said, people often have a lot more things driving their actions than maximizing material effectiveness; religious concerns and social displays come to mind, but an item can have aspects of those and still be a weapon, if you follow me. Look at brass and silver inlaid into blades; it serves no practical purpose, yet the chiselled cuts can be a place for a crack to start. Yet we see it all the time, on, I think, a lot of using blades. A far lesser unsturdiness than being brass, I admit, but just trying to make a point :)

[Conogre]

There are many good points coming out here and more than a few misinterpretations and misunderstandings as well.
Fearn, I'd like to take credit for the comments about western thinking, or, as Tom puts it, cultural bias, but unfortunately I'm only repeating concepts put forward by Christopher Spring, other African weapons authors (I only wish I could read German, Arabic or French, among others)many anthropologists and even David Attenbburrough.
When ariel brought up the point about more traditionally shaped weapons and African weapons, to me part of the reason jumps right out.....weapons along regular trade/conquest routes regularly came into contact with others and evolved in response to same, while much of Africa remained out of contact with "mainstream" societies and technologies for literally centuries, thus evolved according to entirely different pressures.
The same standards could be said about castles and fortresses as opposed to thatched huts and kraals, while in truth it's simply apples and oranges, each having evolved according to different pressures and basic ways of viewing things as well.
In many cases, these "inefficient weapons" gave surprisingly good accountings for themselves and the people using them when they came up against far superior technologies for decades, even a century at a minimum.....ask the French, Brittish, Belgians, Dutch, etc.
In parts of TODAY'S Africa, if a crocodile takes a child you DO NOT offend the powers that be by seeking retribution against the animal, and likewise, being stoned to death for witchcraft is VERY common over HUGE areas, just as examples of regional spirituality.
In a thread such as this it's impossible to address ALL of the factors in any depth, or even most of them, likewise time limits bibliographies, reference sites, resources and such.
Even when it comes down to essentials such as "murder, human sacrifice and cannibalism", mass murder and genocide are sadly still very common, as evidenced by Rwanda, and even Liberia .....I can't quote exact figures, but deaths rose into the thousands while 9 soldiers were sent in to observe (I edited out a considerable amount, trying to avoid current political issues, which limits pursuing that line of argument)
Those ungainly weapon forms, by the way, directly contribute to another matter recently discussed here, ie western machetes vs established tribal forms....often a coup, for example, can be made successful by importing many thousands of cheap machetes and putting them in the hands of people who have no hesitation about using them on each other as WEAPONS rather than expensive firearms or waiting while vast number of traditional forms are made, making it a simple matter of economy and convenience.
Anyone who has stood facing a mob, even though well armed with modern weaponry knows that a rabid mob mentality can be terrifying enough to be considered a weapon all by itself, and THAT'S based upon experience, not conjecture or reading.
Mike

[Tim Simmons]

There does not seem to be much use of armour in tropical Africa except shields of organic materials,so perhaps weapons could be on the light side.I think it is wrong to assume because you can not see how to fight with a certain weapon that did not as well.They most have been skilled in the use of thier weapons and trianed in there use like any other fighter.Tim

[tom hyle]

The original question, read carefully, and as further explained, seems to me to refer to a lesser, tighter defined, group of weapons, BTW, than what we've all proceeded to address, which is fine and dandy by me, but just pointing it out. There are edged weapons that are purely ceremonial (etc.); some of us just feel that many get improperly lumped into this category. There are two common reasons for this mislumping that I'm aware of: 1/ the lightness and thin-ness of many blades seems unfightingly flimsy to the modern N American, including most modern N American martial artists. But it seems to me that the fact of the matter is the African of the past often preferred a fast, unwearying, light blade, whose thin-ness will cut right to the bone on a good, well-made cut. 2/ Some have features that may seem useless, etc. when you think of modern European style academic sword ("sword"?) fighting ("fighting"?) where there is no sheild, and the sword is used for parrying (I believe the real existance of this style outside sport/training and formal duels is highly questionable; all I read points to Europeans ceasing to make sheilds, but continuing to use them, and even deliberately carry them, in the form of other objects; gloves, lanterns, capes, and hats have all been designed specifically as sheilds, but I digress; imagine!). But in traditional Africa (as with old Europe; the rest of the old, "true" if you will, "West") you fight with shields, and some shapes are especially designed for that. The 'Zande mambele I've mentioned (which is much larger and more curved than the Fang/Koto rank marker [?] one we've been shown) are such a sword. They are for reaching around shields with. I rarely meet an American who can grasp their proper use, so foreign to the fighting styles popular/respected in N America, and in a way that's a good thing, which brings me to another point I've wanted to make about having odd weapons; the enemy can't grab them from you and instantly competently use them against you. Sure, if he takes them home and has time to study them, he'll likely either figure them out or make something else from the metal, but I mean, actually in the fight (and this has to do with some sheath designs, too; ask a N Plains American Indian why their traditional knife sheath takes in most of the handle; that's the reason they cite; it makes it hard for your enemy to grab your knife and use it against you; it keeps it in place when you're climbing, riding, etc. too, but that's not what they go right to to explain it....).
Just to complicate matters though, I've seen a fair bit of armour in traditional African settings. Ashante soldiers in chainmail (ditto Somali soldiers), Sudannic cavalry in quilted armour (much more effective than one might think, especially when you remember they used fibres that were especially hard to cut on purpose), an Akan-seeming soldier fetish wearing similar quilted armour. The existance of armour that will stop sword X though in no way implies sword X was not for fighting within that same culture at that same time; the PURPOSE of armour is to protect you; it does its job, and by no means every weapon is designed to deal with it, and it's a tough nut to crack, even with a weapon made to pierce it.
A .32 gun in the pocket ("for fun; he keep a razor in his shoe....") will not pierce any decent body armour (or a 'phone book); it's certainly still a weapon; a very viable, and even common, weapon in modern N American culture.

[Tim Simmons]

As I have already post the scorpion I might as well do the snake or often called a hunga munga among other names.I prefer the snake this from the same extensive areas as the scorpion.Tim

[Freddy]

Ariel,

Permit me to disagree with your statement that African weapons are only ornamental. It's not because they have a shape we (Westerners) don't recognize as functional, that these weapons won't do the job.

Some African weapons are indeed ceremonial or ornamental, I agree. But, like Tom said, others were made for a specific purpose. Maybe strange to us, be even so...

Tom, when talking about the Zande sabre, you probably meant this one :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v158/keris_hanuman/Afbeelding1086.jpg

Just for the record : this sabre knife is not called 'mambele' but 'MAMBELI'. The 'mambele' is the sickle knife of the Mangbetu (as I showed earlier) also known as 'trumbash'.

To be correct the big knife, I'm showing above, was used by the Bandia- or Boa-tribes in Congo.

The big sabre knife measures 83 cm, in a straight line from the tip of the blade to the bottom of the handle. The inner curve is very sharp, as is the broader top of the blade (both edges). These were used, as Tom stated correctly, to hit an opponent using a shield. I wouldn't advise anyone to try to grab it by the point. The outer edge of the blade is 5 mm thick, giving the blade its strength. The crescent-shaped piece near the handle had a leather strap tied to it, which was fastened a the loop on the bottom of the handle. In this way, the weapon was secured in the user's hand. This is functional, no ?
The warriors using these knives carried big, woven shield. No body armor was used. I don't think these warriors bothered with fencing. They just tried to hit each other above and round the shield.

The smaller knife, on the other hand, with a similar shape and of a much smaller dimension (41 cm) was used by elder men. This is a ceremonial type of weapon. Still, one can use it hit someone with it. But I don't think is was made for that purpose. It's more an emblem of seniority.
I'm not sure this one is from the same tribe, as this type of weapon was used by a number of tribes in a vast area.

And for all those 'African freaks' (like me :p ), here's the site to look :

www.mambele.be

[Freddy]

Flavio, Tim,

What do you think of this one :

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

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v158/keris_hanuman/Zulgo-detail1.jpg

This is a throwing knife from the Zulgo-tribe living in East-Sudan.

It's 53,5 cm long.

[Tim Simmons]

Hello Freddy,According to C.Spring African Arms And Armour.British museum publication.The snake is called a 'sai' serpent and the scorpion a 'muder' by the Ingessana of the Blue Nile province,Sudan.I should imagine your last post is a snake.Tim

[fearn]

[snip]

Just for the record : this sabre knife is not called 'mambele' but 'MAMBELI'. The 'mambele' is the sickle knife of the Mangbetu (as I showed earlier) also known as 'trumbash'.

To be correct the big knife, I'm showing above, was used by the Bandia- or Boa-tribes in Congo.

The big sabre knife measures 83 cm, in a straight line from the tip of the blade to the bottom of the handle. The inner curve is very sharp, as is the broader top of the blade (both edges). These were used, as Tom stated correctly, to hit an opponent using a shield. I wouldn't advise anyone to try to grab it by the point. The outer edge of the blade is 5 mm thick, giving the blade its strength. The crescent-shaped piece near the handle had a leather strap tied to it, which was fastened a the loop on the bottom of the handle. In this way, the weapon was secured in the user's hand. This is functional, no ?
The warriors using these knives carried big, woven shield. No body armor was used. I don't think these warriors bothered with fencing. They just tried to hit each other above and round the shield.



Hi Freddy,

These mambeles are neat weapons, but I do have to disagree with the idea that they're totally unique to central Africa. Even ignoring the Ethiopian (etc) shotels, they look like they're functionally quite similar to Japanese and Indonesian sickles (kama and arit respectively). Unless the mambele is so front-heavy that you have to swing it like a pick-axe, there's probably quite a bit that you can do with it. For instance, you can swing it like a pick (stab with the tip), hook and slice with it (cut with the inner and outer edges), and use the outer hook to hook things out of the way to make an opening (basically, use a backstroke with the hook to move a blade or shield out of the way, then, slam the tip down through the opening). If that hook is sharpened on the short edge, it would make a decent gut hook.

Also, the fact that these blades have knuckle guards suggests that they're worried about getting their fingers lopped. To me, that suggests some basic "fencing" was going on. In other words, these may be more sophisticated than they look.

Anyway, there's a lot of diversity in the shape of kamas and arits, and it might be worth investigating karate or silat books for ideas about other possible strokes.

Thanks for showing them, and thanks for the website.

Fearn

[fearn]

I'd also post this image of what I regard as the epitome of the "weird Central African knife"--this knife from the Yanzi, and 30 cm long. The image is from www.mambele.be.

Comments about functionality?

Fearn

[tom hyle]

Of the ones that really are cermonial, some are rank markers for traditional government officials (ie "chiefs" etc.) and are borne by them or their sword bearers for civil (or now usually tribal, the traditional governments having mostly given way to "Western" style federal beaurocracies in at least some degree) occasions and ceremonies. Many are used as "fetishes"; conduits/summoning devices for devine/supernatural/dead beings/persons. I hadn't heard of them being used to attack such beings before, but it makes sense in terms of the customs of other cultures and my own interactions with such beings; they can be frightened of a sword. Some may be used for animal sacrifice, though I've seen that done ordinary knives/swords. Others may be used in scarification ceremonies, though now days one hears of those being done with broken bottles or whatever other blades; I imagine that traditionally there'd've been particular blades.

[ariel]

RE: FEARN'S EXAMPLE.
I can hear a uniform "No comment....." followed by a long, long silence.This thingie is something New York decorators try to hang on your wall to give the apartment a " casual and funky ambience".
If this is a weapon, then an Art Deco vase is one too: both can cut accidentally..
I had a mambeli; it is a most awkward sword money can buy. It is heavy, grossly unbalanced, impossible to hold and the metal is of the poorest quality. But the blade decorations were quite fun, if one likes primitive art.
The idea of the "around the shield' attack had been floating around for quite some time and discredited time after time after time. I would advise the proponents to actually try it using a garbage bin cover in place of a shield.
I did: it was totally useles from the functional point of view but my wife almost died laughing.
Central African swords are great pieces of primitive art, on a par with Benin bronze and kente cloth.But as weapons they are grossly inferior to virually everything coming from Europe and Asia

[Rivkin]

Comments about functionality?
Fearn

Well, this photo illustrates why we all heard about machete massacres in Africa, but never about "the night of fat mambeles"...

[Conogre]

One common thread that keeps surfacing is the lack of a style of martial arts in Africa, and I strongly suspect this is grossly untrue.
Almost invariably, when you have a warrior caste and intertribal warfare that's gone on for long periods of time the warriors were extremely skilled with their own weapons and accoutrements, both offensively and defensively.
With so little known about the people themselves and their strange (to us, at any rate) weapons, I would say that the loss of knowledge in specific martial art styles is probably all but gone in many huge regions without it ever having been recognized at all beyond the most rudimentry observations.....in all the "ignorant savage" stereotype seems to be even more universal in Africa than it was in N. America.
As to the "urn/fan" shaped knife, I think almost all would agree that piece in particular is an excellent example of a weapon having evolved into another function altogether.
Speaking of that knife though, what about the widely seen African tendency to create huge, often gigantic knives and spears as currency, such as the Nkutshu?
I've seen functional appearing spears with the heads so exaggerated as to make them unusable, and even the same spearhead alone fully 5'-6' long!
Those obviously took a LOT of skill and effort to create, yet were quite common and widespread, even stranger when you consider that time is often at a premium in a subsistance level society.
Three uses seem obvious, 1) the visable prestige, 2) as a theft deterrent, and 3) a larger piece would be easier to keep from corroding, thus last longer for eventual reforging.
Many of the swords, in particular, inarguably end up inferior to the more traditional sword shapes with a much longer geneology in a direct, head to head comparison, yet were still highly effective against the weapons that they were designed to used against, with the real proof of this being that so much of the continent ended up as colonies, just as happened in N. and S. America where the only real resistances came about through vastly superior numbers, initially, then with "trade", captured and even traditional militia weapons later as native forces were incorporated into the often small governing occupation military.
In short, Fearn, yes, many WERE inferior to weapons of more advanced design in a direct one on one comparison.
Jeeeez....that WAS hard to admit! **grin**
Mike

[tom hyle]

Fearn, AFAIK that is a rank marker/rich (native) guy's art piece/religious item; I've seen that exact style (or that exact individual? Looking like a fat human, and some are the side view....interestingly, it is "upside down" in that regard, when compared to "legged" swords, etc.....) and others similar. The shape is similar to those Kuba ikulas without points, and also to an ancient Celtic (like the ikulas, much less wide) double-edged no-point sword I've seen. Given its likely heavy cultural/religious meaning in its original context......it seems due a certain respectful attitude.
Ariel, sorry to hear you don't know how to use a mambele; sorry to tell you that that has nothing to do with its effectiveness in knowing hands. It is a graceful and deadly sword, and particularly effective against sheilds. I don't find the short ones ineffective, either, BTW.
The quality of the metal as such is a playground for ethnocentrism/cross-cultural confusion. I don't know that it is relevant to this discussion, and I suggest we leave it aside; it's the metal they had; it's the metal they used.....
Freddy, I get into this with people from time to time; some of them "get" it, and some don't: Mambeli and mabele (still heard/read no justification for the concept that it's pronounced M'mambele, etc....). Mambeli and mambele seem very much like the same word. AFAIK it means "sickle", and is generally used for agricultural tools as well as weapons, with the distinction being contextual. Two very different types of sickle-sword, of course.......Ikula/iklwa is a fun thing to wonder about, too; more tenuous than mambeli/mambele, but still pretty likely, I would think.....theater and theatre are not different words.

[tom hyle]

I don't know; I think some of them (mambele sheild-walking throwers) ARE advanced designs. By and large, I do not believe that continents fall to swords, but to economics, tricks, germs, and guns (when they are on one side, or tremendously more numerous/advanced on one side, though IMHO far too much credit is given to guns, too, and as to Eurpean ships and sailing ability during the expansion? I don't mean to be rude, but it is to laugh; compare the Indian Ocean; compare polynesia.......).

[fearn]

Hi Tom,

Do you (or anyone else reading this) remember the "african martial arts" video instructions that popped up about a decade ago? There was someone teaching stick fighting and wrestling from somewhere in Africa. That tape's probably still available somewhere. I've also seen some work done in Nigeria that identified a number of martial traditions (including several apparent ancestors for Capoeira, which I used to practice). So, I'm definitely not one of those saying that the Africans didn't have their martial traditions.

Mostly, I'm trying to understand their weapons in context. As I posted earlier, I'm beginning to suspect that spears and bows were the primary weapons for some groups, and these funky swords that we know so much more about were primarily social tools (rank markers, ritual tools, and art) and secondarily weapons.

One thing that gets this list in trouble is that we tend to focus on the swords, knives, and axes, because of their artistic value and striking shapes. A boringly functional spear (especially if it's hard to classify) will get a lot less attention from collectors. Ditto with those boring bows, although there's one example of a hunter whose everyday hunting bow shot as far as the competition bow a European hunter had on safari (Traditional Bowyer's Bible, vol.1).

Fearn

[Tim Simmons]

Hi Fearn,I am really keen on boring plain spears and fighting sticks.Ssssh or they will all want one,if they can not see it, thats their problem.Tim

[Rivkin]

Ariel, sorry to hear you don't know how to use a mambele; sorry to tell you that that has nothing to do with its effectiveness in knowing hands. It is a graceful and deadly sword, and particularly effective against sheilds. I don't find the short ones ineffective, either, BTW.

I think the biggest problem with martial arts today that you can say anything (like "japanese swords are the best in the world" or "mambeles are crap"), and there is no way to prove/disprove this, for most of the martial artists are not willing to spill the blood.

The only way to test how effective mambele is, is to start a match - Ariel with his favorite weapon (I would guess it's rapier or shashka ?) vs. mambele wielding Tom Hyle. I don't think that in this non-theoretical environment mambele will have much of a chanse.

[tom hyle]

Well, I'm not going to fight Ariel, but in light example:
A/ If we're choosing hand weapons, remember I get a shield; modern European swords and sword styles (rapier or sabre) are not very impressive against a sheild.
B/ If the oponant doesn't want one, too, that somewhat negates the greatest advantage/use of mambele (and any chance he has to live, if he's going to take just a modern European sword against sword and shield).......I might well would choose a sha'sh'qa or other sabre, though a nice machete is fine, too. Old, really curved sabres are good against sheilds, too, BTW, mostly for thrusting, although I assure you I do sharpen the false edge where there is one.
All kidding and examples aside, mambele is not actually the kind of sword I most like and enjoy; I most like and enjoy slashing swords, but the idea that mambele is not an effective form can only come out of a nonunderstanding of its use, IMHO; it is a deadly sword.
And Superman? Definitely faster than The Flash :p

[tom hyle]

I might add that a lot can be found out by attack tests/practice on plants, dead animals, unwanted furniture, etc. with either antiques or replicas or new blades of similar shape (Which I recommend, at least at first, as it is the unskilled/unpracticed/mis-aimed/off-angle/etc. attack that often harms the weapon, but also old wood, for instance, often gets weak and dry-rotted). And, of course, much can be gleaned from combining this with sparring with wooden/blunted/etc. weapons. Eventually, perhaps enough could be learned from such methods that the more skilled and able might be up to "playing" with live steel in limitted ways, without neccessarily cutting or stabbing each other, as is done when practicing many martial arts, much as with the revival of medieval European sword styles seen today in N America. Of course, they have texts to help a lot for that; would it be primarily Moslems who might have left a written record in Africa? I'd think so. Might some of their fighting techniques and weapons, as their language, etc. be Arab-derived/Arab-related? I think inevitably; thus the nimchas of the Swahili coast and the kaskara, with its Turko-Persic ( :) ) guard.......but there's surely still Bantu (etc.) influence, as well, so probably something useful could be learned there, as well as by investigating the possible African influence on machete, a thin, light-bladed sword developed primarily in the Caribean and the Americas, and primarily under the usage of primarily African slaves/captives. In Animist areas (especially) there may still be some traditional militia training; I know many rural "tribal" peoples maintain vestiges of such, often not so much for common defence now (which would likely be against a giant government or corporation, and thus largely impractical with traditional weapons), but as a matter of cultural memory and ethnic/ancestral pride. This brings me back to something I totally forgot that I was gonna say before :) I have this African sword. It was sold to me as a pygmy sword; I don't know what tribe it's from. It came in a Moro barong sheath (where I'd maybe have left it, but it was too long, and poked out the bottom or something like that, as I recall). It's a double-edged sword, wide and straight, and running down the center line of the blade are two jagged, toothy slots; first one, then solid metal for a while, then the other. I noticed that the spacing of the slots was such that the sword could be held before the eyes and peered through, like a mask. I noticed also that (though people have different size heads) the slots were spaced such that I couldn't look in the middle of my feild of vision, but would have to learn an unfocused gaze that thus sees all (as I did in my younger meditating days), and also learn to move the head about, so as to keep the blind spot in a different place; valuable lessons for war that could be learned in a dance that might be modernly classed as religious. I've since seen other similar swords, some with round holes, instead of slots. All speculation, but the kind of thing features can be for; learning-magic (a lot of traditional dances worldwide seem to have a martial training/display aspect), or whatever else, and that it'll just get harder and harder to find out about....

[Freddy]

I think it is difficult to compare the weapons of different cultures. Of course, a Japanese katana will be superior to a 'mambeli' or 'mambele ' ;) . This not only by its construction (superior steel), but also by its use.

Central African tribesmen had little of no armor when going into battle. Weapons, how peculiar in shape these may be, were the result of a long evolution and particularly suitable for the conditions needed at that moment in time. Don't forget that large parts of Africa were uncharted areas not no more than 150 to 200 years ago. The isolated populations knew no better.
Even then there were differences. Some Central-African tribes conquered others due to the superiority of their weapons. Take the Zande who were feared over a vast territory as fierce warriors. They used a weird weapon : the multi-bladed throwing knife.
Were these weapons just for show ? I don't think so. Were they inefficient ? By all means, no ! Certainly not against an opponent in a loin cloth.

But compared to the Europeans, with their superior weapons technology (the rifle), these tribesmen were certainly no match. This doesn't mean that on certain occasions they weren't able to defeat the Western technology (take Karthoum and Isandlwana).

True, a lot of these 'weird' African weapons evolved into status symbols. Why not ? It's the same with a Japanese katana. Now, it's no longer a fighting sword. But is it ineffective when used........?

[Conogre]

Some of you seem intent with comparing African pieces to cultures that they had no contact with what so ever and making a pronouncement of "inferior", and while, if taken literally, you are correct, but to consider them "awkward" and impossible to use seems equally ridiculous.
When I got my first Potto knife, the fact that it wasn't much thicker than a 50 gal oil drum struck me immediately, but over time as I gradually figured out how to hold it in such a fashion that it became comfortable, the knife/sword won me over.
Swing into the end of a 2"X10" board so that it bites into the grain and the results are striking, to say the least.
Likewise, into meat or flesh, a la the "Cold Steel" demos and you find that you have a deadly piece of hardware whose lighter weight makes it VERY fast, and likewise the shorter length enables it to be swung, even in heavily grown areas, where as a long sword or such would end up tangled in the vines.
As to martial arts, if you're trying to use many of the African pieces in established forms from other, far removed parts of the world, I have no dobt that it would be awkward, but again, the point is what?
They weren't MADE to be used that way.
Even with martial arts themselves, it often ends up coming down to the skills and abilities of the fighter himself, for often the defenses are only truly effective against someone fighting in the same style.
I've seen Kung Fu masters laid out with a single punch from a professional boxer.
African weaponry as art, yes, beyond a doubt, but to discount the effectiveness in the society and terrain in which it originated seems to be nothing more than argumentative.
With enough ammo and the proper firearm, ALL bladed weapons are primitive and next to useless...same thing.
Mike

[tom hyle]

I do remember those videos, but I don't remember anything useful about them; I'd forgotten about that until re-reading this previous to bringing it to the top for locating reasons.

[Montino Bourbon]

I believe that the most functional weapons in Africa are;

A- The stick, in all its permutations, most especially the 'Knobkerrie' which was a stick carved from hardwood with the end like a knob; think "Golf club"

B- The spear, which was almost always QUITE functional, and was not always used for throwing.
The Zulu armies fielded by Chaka Zulu used a short stabbing-spear called an 'assegai' which was about a yard long. While previous conflict among the Zulus was more of a formal affair done with throwing-spears, and included the art of 'graceful dodging', Chaka went right in with the assegai and engaged at close quarters. His tactics were effective enough to give even the British a lot of trouble!

[tom hyle]

As to A/ there have been archaeological studies that claim to show (don't know how they account for looting, etc.) that the most common main offensive hand weapon on early medieval European battlefields were clubs. Daggers/shortswords (mostly dagger-knives; saxes used for work as well as fighting in civilian life), shortspears, and hatchets followed, and swert/spatha longswords followed distantly, being very expensive (the translated estimate I've read was about $20,000 1990ish US dollars as a floor.) and mostly restricted to professional soldiers (house Karls, etc.).

B/ First, I do not believe there is any meaningful evidence that Shaka Zulu had anything more to do with the iklwa than perhaps taking or being given credit for it, as famous and powerful men are wont to do. AFAIK assegei (and the Japanese Ashigaru) are derived from a Portuguese word for spear; that's what I've heard. The legend of the Iklwa is interesting. First, there is the cult of personality great man thing, which I start out by taking with a grain of salt (the name, supposedly given by a joyously vicious Shaka in imitation of the noise it makes in the enemy's body, which you can hear because you're close, is suspiciously similar to an old seeming Bantu word; Kuba is ikula and refers to a dagger or short sword; iklwa refers to a short spear often characterized as swordlike; hmmm......), as my historical studies and life experiece lead me to believe it is rarely if ever valid. Now, what we have here is a legend of the military superiority, often compared to ancient Latin tactics, of a short stabbing weapon over missile weapons. On the surface this does not seem usual, at the least (sensible or true at the most); the history of successful combat in war is a history of increasing your range. Particularly in open ground, it would be hard to even approach the enemy who is using missiles if you are not. I suspect the Zulus advanced under missile cover; I see an awful lot of Zulu (etc.) javelines and archery supplies. I suspect the organization (legendary stratification, rules, and discipline in traditional S African armies) and sheildwall (as well as disease vs. the Khoi/San, I am given to understand) are more responsible for the imperial/genocidal conquest of S Africa by the Zulus (etc.) than their supposed invention of the thrusting spear (and in addition to not believing Shaka did this personally, I'm not even sure it occured at all; one sees Congo region pommelled thrusting spears, for instance, and the thrusting spear is a pretty common phenomenon, worldwide. Likewise, though we might have recently read some characterized as unuseful, there are a lot of African spears with long, swordlike blades, and the Zulu iklwa rarely in my experience has so short a handle in reality as in legend.). I do note though that they had some success getting close enough on foot to kill gun armed European soldiers with handweapons, as did also some of the Madhi's army (Ashanti Osei Tutu on the other hand, had muskets and cannon, and hired European mercenaries to teach his army to use them.). It wasn't any magical power of their thrusting spears that got them close; that's for sure.
I've seen, BTW, (film of) modern Afars and Issas (estimate 1960; colour film) engaging in a ritualized rule-bound line-on-line javeline battle to settle a dispute; several injuries and one death. It was not and is not my impression that this is or ever was their only way of fighting, any more than N Plains people in N America settled all their disputes by lacrosse, or ancient Celts by hockey, or Philistines by single combat (especially not after that guy came out and shot someone in the head for a sword&spear fight), or tartars by (various forms of) polo; it's a traditionally available lesser option to "real" war. "The little brother of war" is Lacrosse's real name.

[fearn]

Hi Tom and Montino,

as to A), I'm not surprised about the club. Wood's generally cheap, even in places like England where all the forest land is owned and in production. The one thing I'd correct is the $20,000 sword. I think this came from the idea that a sword was worth a year's worth of wages to a peasant. In 1990's terms, a peasant earned $10-20,000 (they're called temps), and I think this is where the $20,000 idea came from. Personally, I think the better stand in for a medieval peasant is a third world peasant farmer, who gets by on $1/day. This means that swords cost about $365. If you look at what we're paying for swords these days, I'd say the cost hasn't changed much in a thousand years.

I'd also point out that, the more expensive metal is, the more of a status symbol a metal weapon such as a sword becomes.

So far as the spear goes, I'll simply agree with what was written above. I think most people have a bias against spears, and tend to ignore the diversity of these weapons.

Fearn

[tom hyle]

Actually, the estimate I read was based on the price of an automobile, and I think with a similar concentration of (expert) labour. The amount of wood alone that went into making charcoal for smelting and then for steeling iron was enormous, before the making of "coke" came in, and is, sometimes more than farming, creditted with deforesting much of Europe (and largely for weapons for war, no doubt; war drives technology; that it does, still.). The charcoal burners were very low-caste. Very very, actually probably outcaste would not be an inappropriate term for the view townspeople had of them. But the smiths were another matter; they were high end professionals; the mechanics or computer programmers of their day, and only the best of them specialized in longswords. In a way, there are these different worlds, though, as you say, so what's worth a year's wages in a poor country may be less than two weeks even for a semidisabled low-end craftsman/labourer like me in a rich country. But the cost of the steel is sooo different; AFAIK by now in India, PI, and China, to name a few we regularly see things from, they are now using industrial steel for cutlery, including swords (Some of the Phillipinos are working with sawsteel, and if it's recycled, it'd have to be folded "up" for the thicknesses I've seen, but I know it comes in round rods, too.....good stuff, sawsteel.....), and it is so very very much cheaper than handmade steel; if you had to buy 3 or 4 pounds of handmade steel now.....I don't even know what it'd cost; a lot, even if the craftsman paid himself poorly for his time (and many do). Even steel hand folded from industrial sheet/stock is very expensive to have produced in US. A few people make wootz; would it be OK for them or people who know about them to give a price idea? A guy in an iron age recreation science/tourist/museum-village in Scandinavia was making his own iron out of bog mud; maybe he still is; he was making knives from it and selling them etched; I don't know if or how many of them were/are steel. I'm sure there are others. The point is that it is a lot of work, and much of it expert, so while it certainly wasn't like only a very wealthy medieval German could own a sword, it was a thing for the professional class and the nobility, though poorer people did have saxes and later hangers and langenmessers, and sometimes longer swords made by blacksmiths who weren't swordsmiths per se, somewhat as we now have a Hyundai, or a beat up old '76 Ford.......fond memories there.....Holy Toledo; I'm getting something about pigs here........Pigs were part of the forest economy........I'm going to let that trail off and let it work on the back of my mind......

[fearn]

Hi Tom,

We're straying off topic, but I think that you might have a slightly different idea of medieval/third world economics than I do. Oliver Rackham's done a lot of work on european historical ecology, and a lot of what you said above isn't quite right, especially about charcoal production and its relationship.

Basically, to use the Medieval UK (Rackham's Ancient Woodlands is my guide here), their woodlands were the only source for fuel (charcoal and wood) and building materials. All of these were owned, and they were managed for sustainable production. For instance, a glass factory in England owned and managed a large woodland that supplied it with all the charcoal it needed, and they were very careful to keep the wood supply going.

This is a lot different than today, where people try to get around these obstacles by clearing land and investing the money somewhere else in the world. I agree that, if a modern smith wants to maintain a middle-class income, he's going to charge *a lot* of money for a sword that takes him that long. Thing is, most of our weapons were made under conditions where the cost of living was (or is) much cheaper, and that economy passes down or up the scale. That's why I'm still comfortable with my first statement. However, if we ever eliminate poverty from the globe, one of the casualities will be cheap hand-made blades. They will all be either manufactured or made at "art blade" prices.

This is an area I'm interested in, but it's straying way off topic. Feel free to PM me if you want more info.

Fearn

[tom hyle]

I don't think it's off topic at all, but then I've never felt there should be tight bonds of topicality. If nothing else it interferes with my thought process. We shouldn't need a new thread every time a discussion takes a little bend. It'd make searching the archives easier, I supose......
Europe used to pretty much be a forest.
The practices of sustainable forestry you speak of have existed but are hardly universal.
What I've read is that the main deforestation came with the early industrial/postmedieval age (16th/17th), after the population recovered from the great plagues, when the emptied lands were filling back in, when steel was becoming cheap, but "coke" from stone coal was not yet in use; charcoal from wood was the fuel and the alloying ingredient for making steel. As I've mentioned I don't remember how much charcoal it takes to produce a ton of steel under preindustrial conditions, but I just remember it is an impressive figure; it's a lot. An outcaste caste of charcoal burners came into existance to feed this need. They were landless, itinerate. I don't know how the economics, etc. worked as to who owned the forests they worked or whatever.
Africa has seen a lot of deforestation, too, usually blamed on Imperialistic foreign exploitation, goats, and market agriculture (Africa never invented steel; this may fit in there somehow).........interesting to see how this or that must be the main cause; let us content ourselves to say a significant factor in the deforestation of Europe may have been steel production. If anyone wants to look into it further, please let us know what you find out.

[fearn]

Hi Tom,

Let's break this down a bit. Part of the problem is that our terminology about "forest" has changed over the last 500 years, as have our thoughts about tree usage.

For instance, in the 16th century England, a "Forest" was a royal reserve. New Forest actually has far more grass than trees (that's why the New Forest Pony is just a pony, not some miraculous horse that lives on tree leaves). A park was a forest with a wall around it. A "Desert" was an uninhabited area (Shakespeare has people sitting under the trees in the middle of a desert in one play)--this is the origin of our term "deserted." And when you start translating from other languages, it gets worse. "Monte" in Spanish can mean both mountain and forest, for example.

Now, when you read many accounts of "deforestation," what are they talking about? If they are using modern translations of older terms, they can get well and truly screwed up. For instance, a region of Spain may have become "desert," in an old text. Aha! says the historical ecologist--deforestation! Actually, a town got sacked in a war, and as a result, the number of trees nearby actually *increased*. THAT is the level of evidence we're dealing with. In Grove and Rackham's excellent The Nature of Mediterranean Europe, there's an entire chapter devoted to how to read historical evidence for ecological purposes, and I recommend it (and the entire book) to anyone who's interested. A major purpose of the book is to discuss and correct the errors made in reconstructing the ecological history of the Mediterranean Basin, and it's a fascinating read.

Getting back to forests and woodlands: Woodlands (at least in the UK and probably elsewhere) were used to produce two things: wood and timber. Wood is the small stuff used for things like charcoal, fence posts, furniture, etc (think "firewood"). Timber are the tall trees used for major construction projects, like buildings and ships. In a woodland, most trees were deliberately pruned (coppiced or pollarded) for wood production, because that is what most people used in everyday life. Timber was a major source of wealth. Property owners deliberately planted and cared for timber trees, replanting immediately when they were cut down. Essentially, they were long-term trusts. A well-known example: when Oxford Cathedral was built, they planted a number of timber oaks, for the repairs that they knew it would need in a few centuries. Today, only the rich have investments that run on this time-scale, but in the old days when they couldn't get timber from the US, Norway, or Brazil, they had to make sure that the resources would be available when they needed them.

So...deforestation in Europe? It gets pretty complex. Certainly a lot of trees have been cut down in the last 150 years, especially with the introduction of American "Scientific Forestry" which drastically changed the way Europeans looked at their woodlands (for instance: woodlands were to only be used for growing trees for industry, not for raising pigs, firewood, etc). Prior to that...? Well, in the UK (where I've got the best evidence to hand), basically all the land was cleared and in use by around the 4th century BC. Deforested? Not really. There are lots of woodlands that have probably been in continuous use and harvest since that time. It's something to think about.

In Africa, we simply don't have the record. It's pretty obvious from aerial surveys and some archeological work that parts of the Congo basin that are now forest were densely settled at one time. What happened to those people is (to my knowledge) largely unknown. My guess is that, in Central Africa, we've got at least as complex a land use history as in Europe. I suspect that parts of central Africa have been as consciously and complexly managed as parts of England. Given the wars and colonialism of the last few centuries, much of the evidence is hidden. I'll note in passing that the same thing can be said for North and South America's precolumbian history.

To sum up: basically, I think that deforestation, and blaming steel production for it, is a radically over-simplified idea, to the point that I'd suggest that it's wrong. To start with, throw in harvesting timber for ships, switching to coal for industry and cutting down woodland for other industrial uses (such as farming or sheep-herding), and the switch in how forests were both understood and managed, from a local-scale sustainable use to global-scale resource extraction. In transferring the argument to Africa, you need to factor in all the history that have disappeared into the mists, since we don't have any records other than the griot's stories and similar myths. Personally, I don't this can be parsed very simply as increased steel production=> deforestation.

Fearn

[Jens Nordlunde]

Hi Fearn,

An interesting subject you bring up. I doubt that many, if any, of us had thought of it this way, although it should have been taken in consideration, as it is part of the whole thing. I know you could have added a lot of other countries where the same thing happened, but the countries you mentioned gives us an idea of what did happened.

Jens

[tom hyle]

Interesting. It seems the ships are fairly commonly mentioned, too; I've heard that before. I'm really not on some kind of swords wiped out forests crusade, but swords are the pinnacle of technology at the time, and I would not be the first to see them as drivers fo industrial technology. Certainly there are many factors; mostly all boil down to too many humans.
A bit more folklore about the charcoal burners in postmedieval Europe:
The charcoal burners worked in large wild forests; I don't know who owned or dominated them; perhaps they were "deserts" this is the impression I get. They did not replant that I know of. There is generally no need to replant a small semicleared area in a healthy forest. They did not make charcoal from small stuff, but from large straight trees. Perhaps forest giants so called were off limits to them in theory; in fact the story I've heard is they had little to no official oversight. I've seen in books the structure they built to cook the charcoal; it is a cylinder, about 10-15' tall, very wide proportionally; maybe 40' or something, and is made out of straight logs stacked in a very specific pattern. It is neccessary to use straight logs so as to limit and control the amount of airspace to make the thing work properly. It is then covered with dirt with just enough air let in to sustain fire; not enough to burn up the wood, which thus becomes charcoal.
I'll add also that the people of Europe also traditionally got a great deal of food from their forests, from which their overculture dominators have busily and insistantly seperated them for many years. This is where the whole pigs thing comes full circle, for instance. The traditional way to feed pigs was to drive them into the forest to eat nuts, roots, small animals, etc. Industrial use of the wood has largely outcompeted these uses in modern times, it seems.

[tom hyle]

Re the planned use of wood: I've seen where even now there are some functioning examples of special gardens/groves where growing wood is bent, etc. to form shapes it will be used for. I gather this is or was fairly common for tool handles, but also for a variety of architectural and probably maritime purposes. "Waste" pieces with interesting but not strong grain; ie. bird's eyes, burl, etc. was often used for knife handles, but daggers' and swords' are usually straight grain wood, AFAIK.