One common thread that keeps surfacing is the lack of a style of martial arts in Africa, and I strongly suspect this is grossly untrue.
Almost invariably, when you have a warrior caste and intertribal warfare that's gone on for long periods of time the warriors were extremely skilled with their own weapons and accoutrements, both offensively and defensively.
With so little known about the people themselves and their strange (to us, at any rate) weapons, I would say that the loss of knowledge in specific martial art styles is probably all but gone in many huge regions without it ever having been recognized at all beyond the most rudimentry observations.....in all the "ignorant savage" stereotype seems to be even more universal in Africa than it was in N. America.
As to the "urn/fan" shaped knife, I think almost all would agree that piece in particular is an excellent example of a weapon having evolved into another function altogether.
Speaking of that knife though, what about the widely seen African tendency to create huge, often gigantic knives and spears as currency, such as the Nkutshu?
I've seen functional appearing spears with the heads so exaggerated as to make them unusable, and even the same spearhead alone fully 5'-6' long!
Those obviously took a LOT of skill and effort to create, yet were quite common and widespread, even stranger when you consider that time is often at a premium in a subsistance level society.
Three uses seem obvious, 1) the visable prestige, 2) as a theft deterrent, and 3) a larger piece would be easier to keep from corroding, thus last longer for eventual reforging.
Many of the swords, in particular, inarguably end up inferior to the more traditional sword shapes with a much longer geneology in a direct, head to head comparison, yet were still highly effective against the weapons that they were designed to used against, with the real proof of this being that so much of the continent ended up as colonies, just as happened in N. and S. America where the only real resistances came about through vastly superior numbers, initially, then with "trade", captured and even traditional militia weapons later as native forces were incorporated into the often small governing occupation military.
In short, Fearn, yes, many WERE inferior to weapons of more advanced design in a direct one on one comparison.
Jeeeez....that WAS hard to admit! **grin**
Mike
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