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Originally Posted by colin henshaw
As far as I can make out, the peoples of Madagascar did not really use "swords" in the historic period. Their main weapon before the introduction of firearms was the spear.
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well thats a presumed statement as.. we dont seem to have any accurate informaiton on any madagascan weapons, bne it swords, bows, speargs, pole weapons, knives, sheilds.... ect..
the malagasy word for a sword is "sabatra", so id presume they had some form of wepaon that they denote that word for as sabatra is not a machete and its not a knife, the dictionary tells me "antsibe" is a machete.. so a "sabatra" is not a machete.
see "antsibe" image attached.. in the image to the left the heavy bladed knife (not the european made machete) .. i mean this is a defined style.. almost like some southern indian chopping knives. and its not inspired by some european tools.. it appears to be native.
ive seen several videos of the making of traditional malagasy spades "angady" and i can see the hollowed out wooden troughts made of tree trunks like you see in indonesia for edge quenching longer blades, which tells me they are forging SOMETHING longer than a spade or knife or billhook..
but what it is.. i guess well have to find some madagascans!.