[Jim McDougall]

Ed, thank you so much for joining us here! Your observations are always key and wonderfully phrased and clarifying, especially toward the situations and development of the kaskara and its place in Darfur and other regions. Your comprehensive command of the history outside these regions is also impressive and extremely valuable in helping us look into this rather large conundrum.

I think there is a disconnect here in establishing either a direct connection between Manding and Omani in the development of the Manding sabre or whether it was convergently evolved.
In the phenomenon of trade networks as a conduit in the diffusion of influences of all kinds, there does not have to be direct contact between Point A and Point B (so to speak). These items, ideas etc. are often, if not typically, exchanged between factors in trade at various connecting points and entrepots, and do not necessarily follow a direct line of development. These matters can evolve over indefinite time and contacts throughout the established networks.

In my suggestion of possible connection between the similarity between the Manding sabre and the curved Omani curved kattara was meant to observe the possibility of influence along these trade channels in this manner.

It seems clear to me that Manding traders themselves would not leave their Saharan sphere of operation to travel to points to the east, nor would they need to. Whatever they needed or wanted literally came to them in their trade hub(s) and the moneys in fees, taxes, or whatever toward the operation of barter and travel through their caravan network routes and was of course local enterprise was their sustenance.

Meanwhile, in the enterprises of the Omani Sultanate in Zanzibar, which not only traded with many countries via maritime networks, but were supplied with goods such as ivory etc. and slaves, and from the interior. It is known that these things were obtained from as far inland as the Great Lakes regions and these activities were observed by Richard Burton c. 1856.

In this period, as he observed, there seem to have been merchants (whom he referred to as Arab gentlemen) who carried the long hilt kattara he so disdained as it was not at all worthy as a fighting weapon. He also noted that others (presumably slave bosses) had sabres which were fitted with cavalry blades which were typically German.

With this, we know (with Burton's key affinity for edged weapons) that this is a remarkably accurate report on the types of swords in the trade and slave activity in these Great Lakes regions, and the Arab's he referred to (from Zanzibar) were of course Omani.

So here we can establish both the Omani long hilt kattara as well as presumably the long hilt curved kattara in the African interior as far as the Great Lakes. From here, trade interaction with caravans from the north came from and returned to the regions of Sudan and Darfur. The Omani's did not go with them, but surely their influences did.
The traders from the Darfur and Sudan regions equally did not include Manding tribal traders, but again, influences from them surely were present in the same way.

Here we look to the curious element of the flared scabbard tip. This is not present on Omani swords, but it IS on Darfur and Sudan kaskara. Is it possible that traders carried the Oman swords, especially the curved long hilt kattara out of the Great Lakes, then into Darfur regions. As the caravans left to travel westward through Chad and Bornu into the West African Sahara, could they have brought both kaskara (with flared tip scabbard) and sabres with long hilt"?

In the Saharan regions, perhaps the Tuareg traded with the caravans, and possibly curved blades intrigued them. Here then was the initiation of the 'aljuinar', the curved takouba in effect. The flared scabbard kaskara did not interest them, they would not have seen the purpose of such a scabbard feature and they already had a broadsword....the takouba.

Now to Mali and the Manding, the flared scabbard may well have caught the attention of these West African people. In West Africa, the python is keenly revered in the folk religions which include Vodun. Perhaps the shape recalled the head of the python, very much as in Sudan, it may have signified the python OR the crocodile.

While the curved blades of the kattara sabres as noted carried German blades as found in Zanzibar (from British sources as well as German) ..in Saharan regions there was an abundance of French blades. In swords, as long established, it is very much about availability. Here I would note that Manding swords are typically with French curved blades.

In Manding swords, as well as the number of Tuareg aljuinar, there are even cases of British blades, notably as I have seen by MOLE.

So this is primarily my take on these matters, and the dynamics of how I think these three types of swords may be connected. It is my impression these things took place in basically the mid 19th c. as we know Burton observed the Great Lakes situation c. 1856, and as always, we may presume the circumstances noted had been in place for some time prior.

I do not think the Manding sword has its beginnings much before the 1820s or 30s, any more than likely the curved Omani kattara, naturally the aljuinar is likely somewhere between as it is basically an anomaly which probably resulted through exposure to these sabres in trade caravans.