Ed,
I cannot say enough on how powerfully elucidating your synopsis' on this history is, and regardless how many decades I have tried to grasp the true history of the kaskara.......I remain completely and relatively a novice
Truly, it is breathtaking, and its as if lights are being turned on all over the place.
Your simile on the blind men and elephants hardly includes you
Changdao, thank you for this valuable insight as well. Blades and swords were coming into Ethiopian regions, via Harar and of course other entrepots. The conflicts up to and including the Mahdiyya involving Ethiopia (then Abyssinia) are often overlooked in the comprehensive study of these times.
The Battle of Gallabat in 1889 resulted in the death of their king Yohannes IV and the uneasy relationship between Menelik who took power and the Khalifa. The presence and use of the kaskara was already well established in Ethiopia by then, and many examples have Ge'ez script on the blades.
I remember many years back, a friend who was Eritrean shared with me videos of ceremonies involving native warriors dancing with kaskaras and the familiar hooked daggers of Mahdist times. He was Beja, and noted the ancestry of his people while being in Eritrea, extended of course well into Sudanese regions.
Thank you again for these entries guys!!! ED would you pulleeese write a book!
Your research is the most comprehensive and revealing ever.