Ethiopian swords

[Jim McDougall]

Actually I appear to have made compound errors here, and somehow I misread the correct period for George V.....who reigned as noted 1910-1936.,,so thank you Dave F.


As Stu has noted, Wilkinson Sword Co. had supply contracts to furnish blades to Abyssinia into the 1930s.Some of these, as well as those from Solingen earlier, were indeed the dramatically parabolic 'sickles' which were termed shotel. Burton (1884, p.163) described these with considerable disdain , and notes the blade tapering to a point, which "...can hardly be used". The commonly held lore is of course that these sickles were so curved so that the warrior could reach around the shield and stab the opponent.


Getting to the 'name game', the dramatically curved shotel began to go out of favor with the advent of more conservatively curved sabre blades from England and Germany. While some still carried the shotel of the traditional dramatic curve, the shallow blade versions which were hilted with the same shaped rhino hilts became more of a 'shotel' variation. In this sense, many termed them shotel, while technically the proper term locally for sabre was 'gurade'. In the literature, I have seen both terms used, however, over the years the term gurade, in my experience was always limited to the typically stirrup hilted military style sabres.


While on this topic, one of my recurring quests in the study of swords has often been trying to find the origin of the terms used for certain sword forms.Obviously there is a great deal of contention and debate over these terms, and quite frankly, many terms have been used for many years without genuine foundation.

One example was the term 'kaskara', which I was surprised to discover not anyone in Sudan or Ethiopia had ever heard. Efforts to find a source were futile, and even the authorities in museums and authors of references had no idea where the word came from. As in Ethiopia, where these are termed sa'if.....so too was the case in Sudan. It was not until Iain found the origin in tribal language to the west, and probably brought to the west by Burton (1884).


I would ask here if anyone has ever found the basis for the term 'shotel'.
It seems to be another of these generic terms for any cutting item as illustrated in a reference by an 18th century traveler ("Protskys Travels in Ethiopia and other Countries" translated 1991 by Arrowsmith-Brown...which uses the term 'shotel' to refer to a carving knife,.


Perhaps somebody out there reading this might have some information or ideas toward this.


Thanks very much for the input,