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Old 21st October 2011, 03:57 AM   #4
Iain
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Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Olomouc
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Glad you guys enjoyed it.

The spears are rather nice. Something I have yet to add to my collections.

Anyways as the first photos proved popular I may as well post a few more. I've got a bit of time tonight, a whisky in hand and leafing through the old is proving surprisingly enjoyable!

I turned up some interesting tidbits I'd jotted down while reading Boyd Alexander's "From the Niger to the Nile" and "Last Journey".

The shafts on these spears should be made often from tree roots and are thus quite light.

Even more interesting is a bit about the padded armor. Repeatedly it is referred to as arrow proof (which is why fire arrows got popular and these poor chaps had buckets of water on hand to put out the fires!) but seems like it was also of some effect against spears. One local ruler (the kachella of Yo) is noted to have received 8 spear thrusts and while seriously wounded survived. It was the belief of the Europeans that the thick padded armour probably saved his life.

So to keep the photos flowing, a few shots from both of Alexander's expeditions. All ranging from 1904-1910 in terms of dating.

First is a review of troops at Dikwa, nice sense of scale with the city wall visible. EDIT for some reason it's messing up photo order again, this one is at the bottom of the page

Second is a party from Abechir.

Third is the kachella (a title denoting a slave but one with a military leadership, slaves were often highly trusted in Sahel society) of Konduga, in the far north of Nigeria. Note the staff of office.

Fourth is a Dikwa rider wearing maille and with a long lance.

Fifth is an odd picture of a man wearing armor taken from Tuaregs. Alexander wrongly believed it to be relics of the Crusades. This sort of thing mainly filtered into the Sahel via Egypt. Being ideally placed in the desert to profit from this trade the Tuareg should have had decent access to whatever came into the Sahel via this route.

Finally a taste of some other native armor... this is an iron cuirass from Bornu that was auctioned in this past year - sadly not to me!
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