[tom hyle]

What comment on that blade surface?
Tim, what people are those in the photo? It looks like grassland? I guess that shaft is almost as wiggly as the other one, though note that it doesn't wiggle much for the 1st 1/2, but only toward the butt. The other spear in the photo has one minor bend that restraightens; the spears in the background are not entirely visible, but demonstrate no major bends. (are the two men in the front in the photo leaders? This would mesh well with the wiggly shaft being a symbol, but is purely a guess) Most thrusting spears are actually used one handed; two handed pikes are not as common, and I don't know anything about their use in Africa. The twisty shaft made from a root, vine, or sapling is NOT limitted to Africa; it is seen in areas without forests of big trees; it is for instance seen in Mongolia and other parts of Tartarstan. Additionally, most of the African spears I've seen/handled that had handles had nice straight ones whose bends were very slight and/or seemed acquired with time (again, wood warps, especially thin pieces, and though we can blame bent spears on leaning, it's real hard to find an old piece of wood so narrow that hasn't warped, or even often from a pile of newly made ones.). The wiggly shaft is an inferior technology, driven, IMHO, by a lack of proper material; what else would drive it? This may have something to do with the mostly iron spears seen in some areas? It does matter; it matters a lot. It is seen in unforested areas, and also, yes, among poor people. A good spear handle is not usually an unimportant or cheap piece of technology. It certainly varies with country/culture, but this seems pretty constant; the idea that you can just stick a stick on there and it'll be fine is mostly seen in the modern industrial culture which doesn't use spears and for some reason sneers down on them and seems to define them by peasanty ones......One also wonders, re the photos and collected pieces, what affect Eurocolonial market agriculture and demand for wood was having on the natives' ability to afford good straight grain well-dried spear shafts (the ancient Germans aged theirs for 8 years minimum, I've read, but that was of longspears.....)? Also good shafts are not always seen out of areas that can produce them because of hurry; many old English levy pikes were made with "green" undried oak(!) handles on an emergency basis, and this is generally said to be why they are so bendy now. Mongols don't use a lariat (traditionally) they use a long lancelike stick with a closeable loop on the end. Not needed to be as strong as a spear (?maybe!!!), but anyway, point is they're about 10 to 20 feet long, and I've even seen 'em made by binding multiple sticks together, because they just don't have the wood.