Jose and Vandoo,
Thank you both for your help in trying to identify this knife and its use. One thing I would like to say though is that the blade on this is just the opposite of soft. In fact the entire blade is made of extremely hard steel. The horn hilt does show a high polish and wear from being handled quite often. If you hold this like you would a straight razor with your thumb placed in the curved part of the blade (lower edge right in front of the grip) you can actually shave with it. Could it have possibly been used for this or maybe for cutting hair?
Thank you both again.
Robert