I'm in agreement with Spiral's original thoughts here. I once saw a similar knife described in an auction catalogue as Swahili Arab, unfortunately, with no further detail. But this could explain a lot.
The "unafricanness", because of the Arab\Persian\Indian influence on the Swahili, indeed the presence of Arabs etc. on the East African coast.
The presence in Malawi, because of the trading links the Swahili had with the interior. Indeed places such as Tabora in Tanzania are described as originally "Arab" settlements, by which is meant coastal Swahili and followers. Any knife made there would be unlikely to follow the local African tradition. They do not even have to be trade items. Reading early journals of exploration in East and Central Africa one is struck by the incessant giving of presents ("hongo") necessary to get anywhere or anything done. Such a present could, and did, take the form of personal possessions and weaponry, if that is what the local chieftain desired.
The threads on Omani daggers have concluded, perhaps not with 100 o/o certainty, that many daggers collected in and attributed to Oman are in fact Saudi Arabian, which illustrates the danger of conflating the place of collection with the place of origin.
I would also like to mention the well known, but also slightly mysterious "Zanzibar" nimcha. This also doesn't seem to bear any relationship to any other sub-saharan African weapon, and although photo's can be found of Swahili Arabs with these or similar nimchas no one seems to know where they were actually made.
These knives and the Zanzibar nimcha are not common, but neither could you call them rare, thus I surmise they are a "type" rather than an individual manufacture. I would suggest a Swahili origin, being African but with very significant Asian influences would fit the bill.
Regards
Richard
|