Quote:
Originally Posted by galvano
Hello and thank you for your answer.
I checked and this club sinks in water, ebony and gaiac sinks in water. I sanded the end it is very black
cordially
galvano
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hi , was looking at it on a moblie, yeah some are ebony that is died in the white wood too, if you scraped it and its not lite runderneath yours is probably ebony... , ebony is not all black in your clube and some is dyed.,
many hard woods sink in water its not a way to tell its ebony. scraping it or sanding it would tells.
but dyed black african olive wood is probably the most common wood they are commign with, probably as the trees are common and wood heavy and sued in carving.
i can see the head on yours is dyed white sap wood... price is about the same when you buy them online no matter the wood, ebony or loive..its a mixed bag.. ive got about half dozen "black wood" tourist ones form online sellers... only one is not dyed ebony and is purely black wood.but the price was the same for all.. the main issue is not atall the wood used as all the rungu are heavy hard wood .
naturally the rungu is never (or almost never) ebony they are made from the root bulbs of various acacia species and other trees with knotted roots.. the issue is the modern rungu are made by wood carvers who sell ebony carvings.. they take a stright peice of wood and cut a club out of it..
now if you throw or use these sooner of later the head will just split or snap off.. i have broken these throwing them, the real rungu you see the masaai carrying about are all lite coloured orangish wood with a rootball these will not break as they are harvested in their natural form. you can throw it 100 times and its unharmed. there is a species fo tree the locals call a "club tree" that use used for just this task and other things like traditional axe handles
in south africa the knobkerries are almost all now cut from a solid hunk of wood and the heads again also split if used or throw because of the same issue as rootballs are nolonger used..
if you want a real rungu i guess buying in kenya in a masaai village will get you one but the sellers in tourist markets or online think epople want ebony or "black" wood" or something black and shiny. and as they carve with the olive wood and ebony they have this wood on hand.
if you see a black rungu it is always a tourist item.. also the tourist ones seem always to have a different balance.. the real ones made for "self defence" are much better balanced and have slimmer handles generally and the root ball is heavier wood and very tough.. in urban environments id say the locals have taken to the tourist clubs .. but in tribal settings the rootball head is still king.. on videos of Ma people you can see their clubs and they are almost always a nice darker rootball on a light coloured wood shaft..once or twice some ebay sellers had the rootball clubs mixed in with their lots and ive aquired afew but its irregular.