Hello, lovely Flyssa!!
There's lots on the forum on these swords, my favourite.
Ariel, I have a number of large flyssas and I don't find the point particularly weak. I wouldn't try to stab through any kind of armour or thick padded cloth, but I don't think it would have any problem piercing lightly covered flesh. I'll try it against a chunk of pork some time.
Iain, a quick question to you and the rest of the forum: I've seen a number of dealers and websites note "the Kabyle people of Algeria and part of Morocco."
Could anyone point to where this (misunderstanding I think) first popped up?
Morocco is west of Algeria. Kabylia is a region in the north-east corner of Algeria. Until the French conquest there were practically no links between the two on account of the Ottoman domination of the area. I think there was a misunderstanding at some point between "Kabyle" and "Berber". The majority of Moroccans and Kabyles are Berber people (as were the Tuareg for that matter), but Kabylians have nothing to do with Morocco, as far as I've been able to find to date, and the flyssa was not produced or used in Morocco.
What is interesting though, is that at some point at the very end of the 19th century and start of the 20th, the smaller flyssa daggers produced in Kabylia were fused with elements of the Moroccan nimcha, producing the "wedding nimcha" and its variants. I think this happened in Algeria first and that by the middle of the 20th century or later this moved to Morocco, where they were simplified. The wooden fittings were no longer carved, and while the earlier flyssa blades were forged, the "wedding nimcha" blade is a very thin piece cut from sheet metal.
Best regards to all in this new year!
Emanuel
- Madsen, please drop me a line if you ever feel like parting with your flissa