Thank you very much for those kind words Ibrahiim!!
Like Shamsy, I 'caught the bug' on kaskara which continued to escalate, and that was back in the early 80s!!!
As Ed has pointed out, there were no books or references published with focus on the kaskara, and the only real reference was Briggs (1965).
The Reed article (1987)came out (to my delight) a number of years after my initiation into the kaskara mysteries.
Ed's brilliant work on the work of Sudanese bladesmiths was done even before Reed, and while focused on economic factors in this industry, included many salient details on the character of the elements of these swords. His continued research and works published here by Lee have been extremely informative.
Most of my personal attention in the study of the kaskara has been with kaskaras has been investigation of blades and markings found on them as well as decoration, with thuluth in particular. In that case I was contacted by a professor of anthropology who was studying native metalwork and had seen some writing I had done on the topic. The resulting study that we completed remains unpublished.
As with many ethnographic edged weapon forms, some such as the takouba and kaskara are inexorably connected. With these as Ed has pointed out, the imported trade blades and influences are sometimes shared.
While I do not have any published material on the kaskara, I have been fascinated by them for nearly 40 years, and have been grateful for many discussions on these pages. I have learned so much from many extremely knowledgeable members here in addition to Iain and Ed in those, and had the opportunity to share my own research findings.
Thus Shamsy…..USE that search function here, incessantly!!! and you will find the things you need to know.
Still, the Briggs article, now pretty tattered
I still use constantly as it is so loaded with data, pertinent details continue arising depending on what angle I am approaching. Briggs was a brilliant official who was based in Algeria for years, and his ethnographic research and connections with arms and armor figures in England and others brought powerful perspective to these North African swords.
With his seminal work, and thanks to specialized researchers such as Lee, Iain and Ed, along with other participants in discussions here, we have come along remarkably!