Hi Dave,
Congratulations on a beautiful piece from a flyssa-lover!
Funny enough you relate it to the shashka, I had the same thought some years ago:
http://vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=2309 when some videos of dancing/fighting with shashka were posted. It seemed that the fighters led with the pommel, the blade following.
All of the illustrations we have of Kabyles with flyssa show them carried in a sash at the waist:
http://vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=17552
Emanuel