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Old 10th March 2017, 02:29 AM   #13
Jim McDougall
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Route 66
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Thank you Kubur, and you are right, Buttin did indeed describe ornamentation etc. as distinctly Moroccan and would have been most familiar with the weapons of Morocco. As I was told by his great grandson Dominique, he lived much of his life in Morocco so was keenly aware of their arms.
Teodor, good points on the bayonet potential for these weapons as being somewhat questionable, and I admit from my own standpoint, it was more of a notion given the extremely thin, needle point nature of a number of these (case in point Buttin, #1033). This example is specifically termed 'sekkin' as opposed to s'boula, and perhaps this, 'extremely long poniard' was identified as such by that term.
I had thought this looked remarkably like either the M1874 Epee Gras or the M1886 Lebel bayonets.
Again, another free association assumption.

Ariel, good notes on the Berbers, and I recall years ago (actually I think in this particular research) reading the anthropological study on Moroccan Berber ancestry "Tribes of the Rif" (Carleton S. Coon, 1932) where they emphatically declared they were 'Caucasian' or 'white' and not negroid.

To try to estimate types of weapons by classifying them as 'Berber' would be as useless as trying to classify a weapon as 'Byzantine' . It does seem that such broad classification has transcended these kinds of vague terming in the case of 'Ottoman' in perhaps too many cases, but accompanying qualification seems to usually rectify these.
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