Quote:
Originally Posted by Kubur
Well, absolutely not made in India to resemble a Takouba blade.
Takouba blade or Indian blade to resemble to a European blade.
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Hi Kubur,
Since North African blades often tried to imitate European, and Indian armorers did as well, it is hard to say, but this seems made in India.
In West Africa, many of the takouba types do have these wide forte and tapering blades, and with this kind of fullering, but it would be difficult to imagine why a native made Saharan blade would end up in Indo-Persian tulwar hilt..I have always sort of hidden my eyes from the notorious 'labs' (very well put) where collector guaged 'antiquities' are created by nefarious sellers, but they do exist.
As I had noted, I have seen numerous instances where Sudanese blades have ended up in Indian mounts, but have always taken it that these were simply blades diverted from the trade routes which carried these blades and somehow diffused into the India network.
Here is a pata of mine I've had for about 40 years. As can be seen this appears to be a Solingen blade, the cosmological motif can be faintly seen. This is of the type that went into Sudan c. 1880s. The erratic profile of the blade is common on older kaskara and Saharan blades which have had rugged sharpening by native warriors with stones. Clearly this blade at some time ended up in this pata hillt, and it was long ago as considerably before I acquired it. In various ceremonies with groups in regions in SW India pata are used processionally and in demonstrations so this might well have been a votive piece, not intended for combat.
The wide, tapered blade takouba from regions in Saharan regions such as Mali, to Cameroon seems to have been status oriented. While often the upper part is covered by a metal collar, often these are seen with the kind of fullers seen on Stu's example.