A fine Hausa dagger with Rhino hilt
 

Having shared this with a couple of members I thought other might like to view this piece.

A large, fine and well preserved Rhino hilted Hausa dagger for discussion.

The sheath is well constructed with fine croc skin and tooled leather.
The hilt is cut from the dark centre of the horn with the reverse being nearly black.
The flared section of the hilt that joins the blade is about 8mm tall and is a seperate piece of horn.
The blade shows numerous designs to one side and few to the reverse.

Whilst Hausa daggers are not uncommon, I can not recall seeing another Rhino hilted dagger of this type.

Gav

Hi Gavin,

I would say, because of the hilt, that this dagger is comming from Sudan - I mean from what is now the Republic of the Sudan - myabe from Darfur ?? (not Sudan meant as the Sahel region even in the West Africa, and probably also not new South Sudan). Also from this reason I am not convinced it is Hausa dagger. The style of the blade and especially the sheath is relatively common for nearly the whole Sahel region, but the hilt is very specific and unique. I am very interested in other forumites´opinion.

Regards,

martin

Agreed South Sudan.

BTW, envy, envy...
You are lucky to have such dagger. Congratulations
Martin

Nothing to add other than congratulations on what is a beautiful dagger in its entirety. When it comes to Sahelian daggers, I do not think it gets much better than this one.
Teodor

A REAL BEAUTY. :) FIRST RATE ALL THE WAY, GREAT BLADE WITH DESIGNS EXCEPTIONALLY WELL MADE SCABBARD WITH GREAT DESIGNS, AND TO TOP IT OFF A VERY WELL SHAPED RHINO HANDLE. IT DOSEN'T GET ANY BETTER THAN THAT. CONGRADULATIONS AND THANKS FOR SHOWING IT.

The black heart
 

Thanks chaps.

Attached is an over exposed image of the reverse and an image of the black heart of Rhino horn.

It is interesting that the hilt profile is the classic Luristan dagger and shortsword type.

I would certainly like to explore the aspects that draw the Sudan and South Sudan regions as a point of origin.

Martin, thank your the congrats. When mentioning the hilt, is it the hilt profile of the hilt material that helps your conclusions? Tim, please do offer more too if possible. I ask as the trade throughout the Sahel is massive and near impossible to grasp in its entirity.

Teodor, Barry, thanks :)

As a note, not that I'd expect it to be used as such but it makes for an interesting long push dagger with this hilt.

Thanks

Gav

Hi Gav

Very nice dagger, especially with the sheath. As already stated by others, its from Southern Sudan (Darfur ?). From memory I think there is one illustrated in the Oldman Collection book and the Egerton book.

Regards.

Indeed you are correct with your references Colin, thank you for providing them. Egerton notes it as bought in Assouan and being used in Kordofan....not a reference I thought to turn to.

Thanks

Gav

Hello Gav,

what a beauty! :) Not my field of collecting but when I see such a nice dagger I am in case of doubt! ;) :)

Regards,

Detlef

Material is material - could be expensive, cheap, rare etc..... But I was thinking about the hilt profile. This is just empiric experience -I saw such hilts profile very seldom, always only on pictures, never "in natura", and usually described as rare - and always more expensive than other daggers or short swords from Sudan. From this I would say that this dagger was used by smaller comunity than Hausa or Tebbu or others(generally that the number of such daggers produced was smaller/?)Regards,
Martin

After a bit of searching I managed to dig out this old image of another, but longer, example of this type of dagger, for comparison.

Regards.

I have shown the picture to the native Sudenese and he consulted it with his friend - collector in Sudan. Based on this the daggers with such hilt were used during the "Mahdia times" and they are comming from what is North Kordofan now (North Kordofan as one of the States of the Republic of the Sudan ("north Sudan")).

Here is an ivory hilted one which is probably mid 20th century for comparison. It's not as nice as Gav's :shrug: