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Originally Posted by Tim Simmons
ausjulius, you might find this stuff interesting. This book was printed 1963 then the outlook on what Africa could produce was a little different from today. Every other possible source of origin is suggested but also questioned. There is no open mention of an African origin, however I read that this is an open invitation for contemporary collectors and students to take further. It is interesting that the weapons of Persian form and etched with script are made in Africa. Some infidel weapon forms from the forests of central Africa have indeed be Islamized by such decoration. Read these extracts from "Nigerian Panoply arms and armour of the Northern Region" We are looking at Islamic city states not mud hut villages.
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thanks yes, and in southern sudan mail like this was very common, but these people wer einfluence and dominated by small numbers of middle eastern traders,, introducing new things and ultimatly dominating the society in these areas.
i was after indiginous invention.
and styles.
otherwise one could show a picture of a cutlas or machete from the 17th centuary yukatan and say it was made by mayan culture becasue the person who wore it or forged it was of mayan decent,,,,..
the item still could nto be considered native,, or more correctly native to the previous culture,
what im interested in in amrour purly native to africa,
it appers that the central western part of africa had a unique style in making their weapons, and a unique concept in how they should be used and what for, and so i am facinated as to how they made them and how the technique evolved.
as normaly where more and more metal working is undertaken in larger amounts, skill increases and technique forms more precisly.. and so the understanding of steel increases and is transfered to the next smith,
in areas where many many tools or weapons are produced that are alike you get an increase in the quality as each smith compeats to sell his work and each user wishes his item to be more superior than the next mans..
s you can get a simple golok,, with a poorly treated blade and a crude grip..
and you can get a fine one made of folded steel with a ivory grip and exsotic wood on the sheath....
...
ive noticed that most african knives had large flaws in the blade,
and as i dont know what type of smithing techniques they sued i woudl hazard a guess in that they used a stone anvil and proably very simple tools..
still to put so meany fullers into the itmes would take quite some work without good tools..
but realy the hardening if found is mostly very soft, or none atall,
all antique african weaponrt ive found is no softer than a normal machete or other spring hardened item, 45 rockwell or less..
and the blade finish also interests me , was there an ability to polish the blades atall as ive never seen any actualy polish on the..
and for that matter did the people possess any rotary grinding device?
or did these only come with the arrival of europeans..
this area of thins is quite of interest as it is a large area and these items were still made in mos recent times, and realy in huge amounts......
as when you look at the numbers of soliders sepcific african cheifdoms had under them.. they are quite large. 5000 or 10000 or more.. and most of these no doubt woudl have had some hand weapons aside from spears..