RE: FEARN'S EXAMPLE.
I can hear a uniform "No comment....." followed by a long, long silence.This thingie is something New York decorators try to hang on your wall to give the apartment a " casual and funky ambience".
If this is a weapon, then an Art Deco vase is one too: both can cut accidentally..
I had a mambeli; it is a most awkward sword money can buy. It is heavy, grossly unbalanced, impossible to hold and the metal is of the poorest quality. But the blade decorations were quite fun, if one likes primitive art.
The idea of the "around the shield' attack had been floating around for quite some time and discredited time after time after time. I would advise the proponents to actually try it using a garbage bin cover in place of a shield.
I did: it was totally useles from the functional point of view but my wife almost died laughing.
Central African swords are great pieces of primitive art, on a par with Benin bronze and kente cloth.But as weapons they are grossly inferior to virually everything coming from Europe and Asia
|