The methodology and courage described are nothing short of amazing. I am surprised by the reaction, not because of the sympathy for the elephants, which seems typical of this forum's members, but the lack of doubt; the story certainly seems believeable to me, but that's what I expected; someone to question its veracity. I did think someone might twinge at the mention of blood on the Moro warrior's sword; people on this forum occasionally do; that and worries about stirring up nationalism is why I left the smiley face off of "maybe he did get his slice on"......A thing about elephants is that they are one of the peoples beside whom humans lived from the beginning, and for a long time throughout their range; now they are almost gone, like many before them....I think some of us are getting lonely. Hard to say there are too many elephants; humans?......
I think the idea that kaskara and takouba descend from crusader swords is a collectors'/curators' tale that grows out of an ignorance of medieval Arab swords, which were also straight and double edged, the curved sword being relatively modern in its dominance in both Europe and the Middle-East, and seeming to come with Tartaric invaders (Turks, Magyars, etc.); the penetration in Europe seems to have started early, but persisted at a low level for a long time (and mixed with the native sax); in Arabia, I don't know.
The kaskara has a Turkish/Persian style guard. Many Sudanic/Sahel people consider themselves Arabs, and are descended from ancient Arab immigrants, though to N Americans they would appear to be "black Africans", while others are of the related (Afrasian) Berber people, or related to them. So, occam's razor and all that good stuff; not much reason to turn to Europe for an explanation, (though if anything, a certain "Western" union between African and Celtic culture in the pre-Christian days may make sense in some African design) when Arabia makes more sense; I don't even know of any concrete reason to assume the distribution of the form to have been southward, rather than Northward. Some forms are fairly simple and seemingly universal, and the cruciform sword or dagger is seen in probably most human cultures. On the other hand, as Europe entered the "modern" era, and everyewhere else came within the European sphere of (often first) trade, then domination, many obsolete European sword blades were reforged and melted down, but many others were exported to less industrial regions; such is the bladestock for many Indian firangi and kattars, for instance, and many kaskaras and takoubas do have European blades; some perhaps from such trade, and others made up through at least the late 19th (and one would imagine at least a bit later) in Europe specifically for export to Africa, in the shapes desireable there (as well as sabre blades of the style made for the European market, which the Africans dressed and modified in a number of ways).
It is my impression that this version of takouba and kaskara ancestry is now more accepted by the official experts, though I rarely pay them much mind, so don't know, and is no longer considered revision of more than a folktale.
In India there was once a sword (a big kattar) made for a king. Its name was "Tongue of Death" It was proved in the tale by killing an elephant with a single thrust into the brain. This is a famous story; I've seen kattars with such name written on them, after the nature of, I suppose, "Andrea ferria"..........