Actually the blades on these Manding sabres that I have seen often have military sabre blades, typically from French cavalry sabres which of course were prevalent in these regions . These typically came of course from French occupied areas and were often Solingen made, the name Holler on many of them . These blades often became mounted in the Tuareg curved form of the takouba termed the 'aljuinar' (as per data from Lee Jones).
I have even seen English blades by MOLE in these.
The blade has a cross section with the fuller in a depression termed 'hollow ground', characteristic of these 19th century military swords and not as far as I have known, ever produced in the more basic blade production of native artisans. While this one is heavily ground down so markings etc are gone, this hollow ground fuller is still visible. While native armourers are known to have been remarkably skilled at forging and fashioning quality blades, they did not have the industrial equipment to produce these hollow ground blades.
It would of course be hard to say exactly how this guardless hilt sabre form developed but since the Manding were primary factors of the trade routes and entrepots in Timbouctou and others they would have had considerable exposure to incoming influences. Since much of this trade was networked from as far as Zanzibar which was of course the key entrepot of the Omani Sultanate.It has long been my personal opinion that the cylindrical hilt well known with Omani merchants and their 'kattaras' may have travelled on these routes through the African interior, trans-Sahara and into Mali.
While the distinct cylindrical type hilts developed in Muscat and in the case of available trade sabre blades became the curved version of these swords, perhaps the Manding version of these came from these, with the instance f using such trade or otherwise acquired European sabre blades.
Years ago the compelling connections between the curious baselard like weapon with 'H' shape hilt termed the 'Zanzibar' sword by Demmin (1877) via Burton (1884) and corrected by Buttin (1933) ...and the Moroccan sboula were shown. Clearly these weapons were one in the same and connected via these same trade routes and entrepots.
I have personally considered many African edged weapons to be 'reflective' of many outside influences, and becoming the now distinctive forms often regarded as indigenous to their respective regions.
|