nKante,
It is always uplifting to see new interest in the history and development of arms forms. As you will find in many cases with ethnographic arms, a good number of now well established forms are relative newcomers to the panoply of distinctive weaponry.
The 'kaskara' is one of these, and I think Iain, who has advanced our understanding of these as well as its Saharan cousin, the takouba, more than anyone with his tenacious study. As he has concisely explained, this 'Sudanese' form of broadsword indirectly evolved from early Islamic and European broadsword forms, with Byzantine elements in degree, via the Mamluk conduit.
As far as a broad presence of tribal use in Sudan and contiguous regions, as has been noted, there was a minimal degree of use of these broadswords by mostly upper echelon and figures of standing in the 18th century.
In the 19th century, during the Mahdist movement, the massive numbers of his 'Ansar' forces had no swords of any kind, and it was not until around 1883 that large volumes of these 'kaskara' were produced.
Meanwhile, the use of broadswords by tribal peoples was well established much earlier in the Sahara, with the takouba and its associated forms. In regions of northern Nigeria and some contiguous areas, these as well as mail armor along with quilted armor was in use as well, creating the often romantic notions of these tribesmen using materials from the crusades.
As Iain has noted, these romantic notions are very much a red herring which has long since Victorian times been well discounted. The presence of early European blades as well as mail and such items is due more to trade and the importing of surplus weaponry in early times via Malta and other Mediterranean ports of call into North African regions, especially Tripoli.
These as well as Islamic materials also came into Alexandria in Egypt where they were diffused into trade areas by the Mamluks.
It does not seem that volumes of 'captured' crusaders arms were marketed as trophies to anxious tribal consumers. Only a few such 'trophy' swords were kept, and these were placed in the armoury in Alexandria. Most weapons gathered from these battlefields were typically 'recycled' as the metal was valuable in forging new arms by Muslim sources. With the European 'salvors', these gathered arms became saleable surplus, which as noted arrived in the volumes of materials exported.
Many of these early blades did circulate for a time through generations in North Africa, but most surviving examples (with rare exceptions) are blades from the mid to late 19th century which are products of the Mahdist period, some pre WWI, then post 1940s.
I hope this elaborates a bit more on the 'kaskara' question, and I hope Iain will adjust or add to what my perceptions state here. The reason I 'quote' the term kaskara, is that this very word is not even used in the Sudan or anywhere it is used to describe it. It is simply known locally as sa'if.
This term was derived from a Saharan tribal dialect by European linguists it appears, and became entered into the glossary of 'collectors' terms.
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