At the risk of a clumsy interpretation, I decided to look further into the idea of this having West African religious/spiritual associations and found some potential ideas amidst the complexity of these.
My speculation is this item may be from the Haitian/Dominican sphere, and potentially, owing to the very old appearance of the metal, could date to the French colonial period there. Further it may have connection to the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) the insurrection of slaves, mulattos under the suzerainty of French overlords.
The religions of West Africa (many people here were Fon, Ewa and Aja from Dahomey) who practiced VODUN, which later evolved into 'Voodoo' in the southern states of US. ..as well as spirit pantheons from the western Congo became the complex African religion syncretic with Catholicism.
This is connected to the Santaria noted.
While monotheistic, there is a highly complex pantheon of gods/spirits termed IWA who are humans who act as intermediaries with this pantheon.
Without getting myself too far 'into the weeds' (too late) ..
there is one named 'Ogun' (?) who is associated with PETWO, defender of Rada values, and carries weaponry,
The Petwo side of things is 'hot' ..assiociated with fire, violence in these defenses of Rada, the softer cooler values.
I am thinking that somehow this might be a ceremonial bearing or perhaps inspirational weapon in which the blade resembles flames in these respects.
While admittedly somewhat wild in speculative suggestion, it seems to be in course with this VERY unusual 'weapon', which aligns more spiritually than as an actual weapon.
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