My point in mentioning Chad wasn't that the blade should be French - it's clearly German with the inscription added later by a Frenchman as Nicolas pointed it it must have been, but rather my point was I excepted we should look in areas that had French colonial presence to explain the inscription. Not to explain the blade as these German trade blades could be found all over the place and as Dom says didn't result from the colonization and are in fact not uncommon. Sadly I don't think the sword has any regional characteristics that can pin down a geographical location more closely.
That said, I didn't know about the potential link with Rimbaud before and it is a very interesting idea, but just to play devil's advocate, and because I really don't know... Wouldn't a decent percentage of the French officer corp. engaged in the French Sudan have the education to use similar verse? I do think the Rimbaud idea though is quite valid just wondering if the poetry itself is of a nature to rule out other the many other educated Frenchmen in the area... I specifically mentioned Chad over the rest of the French Sudan because this territory would hold the most kaskara using peoples as opposed to modern day Mali or Niger where the takouba was common.
Great discussion guys, looking forward to what else may come to light.
|