Period Photos of People with Ethnographic Arms

[Martin Lubojacky]

Photo with bigger shields:
Wakuasi warriors from Kavirondo, Western Kenya, probably end of 19th century

Photo with smaller shields:
Also warriors from Kavirondo, Western Kenya, 1910

I do not know, if both groups are Nilotic Kavirondo (that time also used name "Wakuasi"), or not (there are living Nilotic and Bantu Kavirondo in the same region). In any case, the change of the spearheads style and the change of the size of the shields is interesting. As far as the spearheads, I red somewhere, that the era of very long and narrow spearheads began when the export of steel rods to Africa started.