Jim,
it is understandable that the vast majority of people would not know much about "old stuff". Things WE take for granted are a mystery to most. If you were ta ask a fellow from Europe about a PALLASH, what do you think his response would be? I wonder if I ask about a RAPIER.... I may be told that the correct word is RAPIST..... About the KASKARA, it may be a modification of QATTARA???? I googled ETHIOPIAN SHOTEL and found a reliable reference to SHOTEL meaning KNIFE. That would be in line with my mother-in-law's translation. Also, another word for knife, in this article, was GARA, which in modern Amharic and Tygrinian is KARRA. One of the problem with these terms is that they have to be written in English based on the pronounciation which differs from area to area. Also, in Ethiopia/Eritrea there are MANY languages spoken and the same object will have a dramatically different name. Well, this is the stuff that make my collecting interesting!!!
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