4. Dukkeri abu Dubban
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The blade has a short central groove and carries three marks known as dubbana, nugara, and 'asad.
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The interpretation of this style addresses several issues we have long debated. Its name and descriptions correspond to the Solingen maker's marks for Peter Kull's Standing Cat, Orb & Cross (1830–1870, Bezdek) and Samuel Kulls' Fly (1847–1860, Bezdek) (Figure 8). The Dukkeri abu Dubban incorporates these three symbols (Cronau, 1885) and may suggest a mid-19th C origin of the type. Cronau's work, in German, can be accessed from this link:
http://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm...coll4/id/29401
An example is shown in Figure 8.
Dukkeri. This may be Brigg's
dukeri for crescent moon with man's face in profile. A Kassala informant said it meant “for men”. Swordsmiths there describe a sword called a
duk'ri (my transliteration) and is decorated with an Orb & Cross and a Rampant Cat/Lion.
Dubbana or
Duban. Fly. Likely signifies the biting fly that appears with the rains and is very harmful to camels. It's arrival prompts camel herding pastorialists to take their animals north out of its range.
Dubban also means “thousands” in Hausa, maybe signifying the number of flies that swarm about. It also may indicate Hausa smiths possible role in applying this fuller type to Sudanese blades. The informant said it encourages “jumping like a fly when fighting.” (See fly symbol on Jeff D's sword, Figure 9. His sword also has a lion and orb & cross on it.)
Nugara means “drumming”. Informants used daluka for drum and (perhaps hearing the drum beat) say that it “builds courage”. The drum symbol they presented was the famous Orb & Cross. Among most northern Sudanese ethnicities the large copper kettle drum is central to their culture. According to Clark, p.13, it may only be beaten in mourning of a death in the chief's family, to summon the tribe to war, and at a festive occasion for the tribe. The tribal drum also is used in Darfur, of the Medieval Funj Kingdom, and may be universal in Northern Sudanese culture.
The Funj Kingdom (1504–1821) had its capital at Senner on the Blue Nile River. Its lands were mainly on the east side of the White Nile north into the Gezira and included the Butana Plain. Arkell (1932) reports that the Funj had a brand put on their beasts and slaves called Noggara wa Asiaiya. This means “drum and stick” and the symbol is O+, rotated 90 degrees clockwise (in other words, resembling the symbol used by biologists to denote “female”). This symbol looks the same as Peter Kull's Cross & Orb. It is conceivable that the Kull sword mark culturally replaced the Funj symbolism that had been abolished by the Egyptian conquest of the Funj, and it became highly valued on the kaskara blades. One culture often borrows from another. If a cultural feature persists for generations it has continued relevance. If not, it no longer has meaning. Steven Wood's sword has a properly oriented Funj “Drum & Stick” mark (Figure 10).
Asad means “lion”. The informant said it is for “brave men”. A full-bodied lion is often lightly engraved, maybe etched, on native blades, but the Rampant Lion/Cat in #73 above is sometimes seen. The informant said that the lion is placed on the front of the blade and the drum and fly placed on the back.
In a 2010 post, Steven Wood commented on the orb, the lion and the fly and, based on references to Burckhardt and Cabot-Briggs, concluded that
dukare affring means “frankish mark”. My field notes written under a sketch of the same three symbols records the local understanding of the terms:
dukare = “for men”,
al fringe = sharp, and then the note that the swords were “made in Europe – brought to Ethiopia by Italian soldiers”. Thus, the interpretation may be drawn that when Italian troops occupied Kassala (1894–97) during the Mahdiya, they presented some German made blades with the Kull marks and moon faces saying in Italian “these are German marks.” The local bladesmiths understood the blades are “for men” and are “sharp”. This scenario would indicate that this type of Solingen blades were introduced to the Kassala sword-making community about 1895. They then became part of the culture of sword making there and expanded broadly. My notes may be a thin reed on which to hang this narrative, but it does have the elements of a factual encounter. The Italian military also did occupy Kassala in 1940 for six months, but that situation doesn't really support the delivery of German sword blades to local blacksmiths, and 1940 post-dates Clark's 1938 report.
Plate LII of Reed has what is likely an original European blade prototype of this type. It is marked with an early version of the Orb & Cross and a Passau works running wolf. (Reed reports that the sword's owner thought the symbol was a tree.) Note that the end of the fuller appears circular and not sloped to the blade surface as are the examples shown by Katana and Chris. Reed dates it “between the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.” The sword's owner says it's before the time of Kassala exports. My research in Kassala confirms that Sudan-wide export of Kassala made swords dates from 1960. There are many examples of this type in collections, including the Royal Armouries collection (Cat. Nos. XXIVS 165 and 166) and others.
Several posts on the EAA Forum have exhibited swords with the three symbols apparently originally struck by Solingen makers as well as those etched on locally made swords. Katana/David's W. Clauberg marked (Standing Knight)
Dukkeri is datable. Bezdek's German makers' marks book shows that the Standing Knight was used after 1847. David's sword is shown in Figure 11a, and the Standing Knight example in Figure 11b.
Mefidk/Chris blade with the crocodile skin grip has a W. Claberg Standing Knight (hidden) and the “enigmatic” mark (shown) (Figure 12).
Steven Wood has a single fuller sword with a Lion mark on a single groove blade (Figure 13). It looks more European than native-made and does not resemble the Kull mark to me.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a kaskara (Cat. No. 1977.162.4) with a
Dukkeri fuller. It is classified as late 19th C Sudanese with a late 15th–16th C Italian or South German blade. They show a Passaua wolf and a maker's mark of a seven-pointed star. If the attribution is accurate, this blade would date the fuller from a century earlier than Reed's LII.
Unfortunately, the MMA web site does not have a photo of this sword. However, it can be viewed via an illustration in an article available through JSTOR: Author(s): Helmut Nickel and Stuart W. Pyhrr, Source: Notable Acquisitions (Metropolitan Museum of Art), No. 1975/1979 (1975 - 1979), pp. 27–29.
However, I am skeptical about the dates. Both Mefidk/Chris and Katana/David
Dukkeri blades have Clauberg Standing Knight marks on each that date from circa 1850. It is hard to believe that this single deep fuller design would persist for 250 years, although it is structurally efficient and easy to forge. Also, the apparent long life of the
Sulimani abu Shabeish design mentioned above augurs well for the long term persistence of European fuller designs in Sudanese sword culture. While some heirloom blades may be long lived, apparently a crudely chiseled wolf on a blade is good for 200 more years of attribution.
I offer an alternative explanation without documentation, but it makes an interesting, even believable, story. (I vaguely remember reading of the cleaning out of armories part, but can't recall the source.) The Passau marked blades may in fact be 200–300 years old as attributed. But rather than have them circulating around North Africa for 200 years, they spent most of that time as obsolete weapons in European armories. (Remember that European armies of this period were transiting to narrower and curved swords for cavalry and firearms for infantry.) Spears and small javelins were the main weapons of agriculturally-based North African infantry and only the elite used swords as symbols of authority, and light cavalry composed mostly of Arabic pastoralists used swords as well as javalins. Those kingdoms that had relatively few firearms armed their slave troops with them. Even Central Sahalian heavy cavalry used mainly spears. Once the West-Central African jihads began in the late 17th & early 18th C, enterprising European arms merchants scoured the European armories and bought up large amounts of obsolete broadswords, some highly engraved, removed the hilts, reduced most of them to raw blades, and introduced them into the North African long distance trade networks. These blades were then fitted with native hilts in centers like Kano, as was done in the 19th Century, and distributed throughout the region. Imports via the Red Sea ports may have supplied the Northern Bega's conversion from spears to swords in the mid-1700s. Thus, the Sudanese heirloom blades may have begun their lives in Africa mainly in the early-mid 1800s rather than 200 years before. Continuing conflicts prompted the Solingen blade houses to enter the export trade in time for Clauberg's and Kulls' marks to appear in the 1850s on their now familiar kaskara swords. Period travelers’ narratives did not mention whether the European sword blades they saw in area markets were used, unused old stock or brand new.
In the article linked below. Ohio State University presents a short history of firearms exports to Africa, beginning circa 1698. No doubt there are certain parallels between firearms and surplus sword traffic into the Sahalian region. See:
http://origins.osu.edu/article/merch...l-traffic-arms
5. Suliman Makhummas
This type has five forged fullers of graduated lengths that extend about a third of the way down the blade. (Not in Clark's topology.) Khamsa is the number “five” in Arabic.
This is a rare blade with only five examples having been revealed so far. Two have a Sun symbol at the end of the fullers. The sun does not appear to be a maker's mark, but it likely has some unknown symbolic meaning. The informant called Suliman Mukhammas abu Shammish. (Shams is Sun in Arabic, Shammish may be some grammatical variation or I misunderstood the word.) None of the other examples have apparent maker's marks either. Images of three are linked below and the fifth has no image.
• My sword has the five grooved Makhummas with a sun at the end. Made circa 1914 in Kassaka. (Figure 14).
• Lew's post on “Makhumas with Sun”, virtually identical to mine.
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showpo...7&postcount=21
• RDGAC Comments on Kaskara #3 (No image available). His description in Post #10 on this thread'. War Trophy collected circa 1882.
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=11950
• Paolo's sword. See Post #1.
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15749
• Clement's sword. Is decoratedwith silver inlays. See Post # 1.
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=23098
There was a rich discussion of this type back in 2012 in which Lew's and Paolo's swords were discussed. I won't replough that land too much. However, since then I have looked up Mukhammas on the web and found on Wikipedia that:
Mukhammas (Arabic ???? 'fivefold') refers to a type of Persian or Urdu
cinquain or
pentastich with Sufi connections based on a pentameter. And have five lines in each paragraph. More details here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukhammas
Who would have thought that a special Kassala-made sword blade (five channels are much more difficult to make than 3 fullers) would have a link to a Persian and Urdu (Muslim part of India) poetry form?
My Mukhammas was reportedly made circa 1914 by a Kassaka smith who supposedly said he saw another being made and decided to give it a try. The RDGAC example was recovered circa 1882, almost a generation before mine was made. This suggests that mine was at least a second generation example of the type. When and how did it originate, and what symbolic or other purpose prompted its fabrication? These blades were not made for the general market. Who were their clients?
Summary
There are great relevant discussions on the following thread by Jim McDougall, Iain Norman and Chris Topping:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=14806
Chris' first image on Post # 20 summarizes the major contemporary types, top to bottom, first three:
Dukkeri,
El Kar, and
Sulimani (Figure 15). We also can name and better understand the range of historic types we are likely to encounter. No doubt I have probably made errors and omissions in this discussion. I would appreciate readers’ inputs and comments.
Ed Hunley
August 31, 2018
References
Carter, WT. Manners, Customs and Beliefs of the Northern Begas,
Sudan Notes and Records, Vol. XXI, 1938, p. 1-30.
Reed, GS. Kaskara from Northern Darfur,
The Journal of the Arms & Armour Society, Vol. XII, No. 1, March 1987, p 165-201. (To access this article Google Search on the author and article title. Click on the result with a .pdf.)
Arkell, AJ. Funj Origins,
Sudan Notes and Records, Vol. XV. 1932, p.235.
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