quadara - Caucasus, Trabzon, Iran ?

[Rivkin]

Again, if moderators feel like it, they can modify this message.

What one can tell about Azerbajani weapons? First let us ask ourself, what is the Azerbajan and what is Persia. Since 12th century both become dominated by turko-mongolic tribes. Their military was traditionally composed from turkoman, with some inclusion of kurds and in later times - georgians, lezghi and even armenian. Persian as in "members of persian tribe" were present in the army in extremely small numbers, moreover traditionally they were used in gun bearing regiments. Because of this, I think it is rather strange to talk about some specific persian ifluence (whichwas mostly confined to language, literature, religion and government bureacracy), like their wrestling traditions, defining the nature of iranian arms. While in the current state of Azerbajani, the presence of Armenians, sunni Lezghi and others to some extenet decreased the power of turkoman lords, however massacres and deportations organized by Savafids gradually decreased such presense. Here one also must concentrate on turkoman influence.

If one to accept this, one can not truly distinguish between Karabagh (currently Azerbajan or Armenia) and Tabriz (turkish-speaking Iran). Both were controlled by the same families - should we expect chingizoid-turkoman Qajars, lords of Shusha and Karabagh, future Shahs or Iran, to change their weapons every time they cross Arax (river separating "Iran" from "Azerbajan") to arrive into their family strongholds in Shusha and Shirvan?
Should regular georgian army, recruited and armed in Georgia, used by Shah to control Afghanistan (see "Georgia and the Fall of the Safavid Dynasty," BSO(A)S 14, 1952, can be found of jstor) be labeled as the one carrying persian or georgian weapons ? What about Lezghis who served Nader-Shah (as all other Shahs with an exception of Pahlavi and Zand - not a persian by tribe)?

In fact, while one can certainly observe some tribal distinction between weapons of these countries, their mutual influence is colossal, specifically due to the common overpowering presence of turkoman clans. Again, one should not expect great variations among weapons used by the same Qajar family, whether in their lands in modern Azerbajan or in Tabriz.

Now to the point of quadara. I was trying to think in what context one can be depicted - it is certainly not so much a parade weapon, especially since Astvatsaturjan seems to descirbe single edge kindjals as "knifes", i.e. something quite utilitarian. The answer came when I was reading an article (I can not guarantee its accuracy, since it was heavily pro-armenian) with series of photographs - azeri artillery at Shusha, etc., one of them (the first picture below) was titles "shahsey-vahsey, Azerbajan". Shahsey-vahsey is a derogatory term, popular in Caucasus, for Shia Ashura festival. As one can see the weapon's blade here is straight, single edged. While I can not quarantee the authenticity of this picture, it is better than nothing.

Now to show that such quadaras and even kamas are not constraigned by any means to modern Iran - the following 2 pictures are from Iraq. On the first one you can clearly see quadaras in the crowd, on the last picture - a kindjal-kama. Again, Ashura festival.
P.S. A while ago I stated my disbelief that kindjals can be used in Ashura. Well, I stand corrected - I have seen a very sanitized version of Ashura, this one seem to be much bloodier.

[Rivkin]

Another shots - quadara and qama.
Interestingly, all qaudaras have much narrower and smaller fullers than one usually sees on so called "Azerbajani" ones.

P.S. I selected the photographs that are _least_ bloody and most concentrated on weapons, not on the festival itself. I think if we want to keep this thread moving, it must be about weapons, not about Ashura.

[Andrew]

Originally Posted by Rivkin

P.S. I selected the photographs that are _least_ bloody and most concentrated on weapons, not on the festival itself. I think if we want to keep this thread moving, it must be about weapons, not about Ashura.

Good advice, Kirill.

Folks, this thread must NOT become about Religion or Politics. Let's scrupulously avoid going down that path and focus on the weapons.

[ariel]

My undestanding is that Kindjal is a typically Caucasian weapon. All along, Caucasians of various ethnicities and religions were very active in foreign militaries (Mameluke in Egypt and, especially, in Persia. In the latter, they might have constituted the bulk of the military). Also, frequent invasions from Persia and Turkey displaced many of them into the victors' hinterlands.
This is a classical scenario for the spread of a particular weapon type.
I have a typical Kindjal, but it has a rhino handle and alligator (lizard?) skin stips on the scabbard: a very likely "Sudanese" type.
As to single-edge or double-edge... If Shashka is a "big knife", there is no reason why single-edge Kindjals could not have been also used in, say, Circassia. Are we saying that a single-edge Kindjal is a Persian development?

[Rivkin]

Originally Posted by ariel

My undestanding is that Kindjal is a typically Caucasian weapon. All along, Caucasians of various ethnicities and religions were very active in foreign militaries (Mameluke in Egypt and, especially, in Persia. In the latter, they might have constituted the bulk of the military). Also, frequent invasions from Persia and Turkey displaced many of them into the victors' hinterlands.
This is a classical scenario for the spread of a particular weapon type.
I have a typical Kindjal, but it has a rhino handle and alligator (lizard?) skin stips on the scabbard: a very likely "Sudanese" type.
As to single-edge or double-edge... If Shashka is a "big knife", there is no reason why single-edge Kindjals could not have been also used in, say, Circassia. Are we saying that a single-edge Kindjal is a Persian development?

This is similar to my thinking, especially since kindjals in Egypt were specifically recovered by napoleonic army from mamluks, and I have never seen them before or after on any pictures.
While I can not deny a chanse of such weapons created in parallel elseswhere, since kindjals are somewhat similar to ancient daggers - as in attachment (2500bc).


Now, other images coming with this post - two short transcaucasian "qaudaras" - almost completely straight blades, single edge and armenian family from Nagorny Karabagh (?), boy has a small knife-like quadara.
One of quadaras is photographed at the angle, so it is a little bit distorted.

[mross]

Originally Posted by Rivkin

Another shots - quadara and qama.

snip

P.S. I selected the photographs that are _least_ bloody and most concentrated on weapons, not on the festival itself. I think if we want to keep this thread moving, it must be about weapons, not about Ashura.

This may seem an odd question and the answer my lie in the above quote but here it goes. Are these quadaras special for ceremonial use? I'm just basing this on the amount of blood I am seeing. Like I said the answer may be in the quote that we are seeing a very sanitized view. I have several knives/swords that if I did anything more then touch my head I would be in much worse shape. From what little I know of the festival caution is not a big part of it. But then, cutting yourself so bad that you bleed out and can't last to the end is not either. I guess the questions is then are these designed for the ceremony with edges that are not what they should be? From the design of the blade it looks to me like it would work equally well in a slash and thurst role. So I would expect the edge to be sharp.

[ariel]

The self-inflicted wounds at the Ashura are not that deep; no danger to life at all.
Scalp wounds bleed like crazy because there is almost no vessel constriction in that area: the vessels are attached to the fascia. The wounds do not have to be big at all for the horrific "special effect" of bleeding.
By the same token, because of great blood supply, scalp wounds heal miraculously fast and well. No infections, nothing.
Pay attention: no self-inflicted wounds on the arms, torso, neck.

[mross]

Originally Posted by ariel

The self-inflicted wounds at the Ashura are not that deep; no danger to life at all.
....

That is my point. How do you prevent deep wounds from a very sharp blade? For instance I have a waved Endura that I always carry, it caught on my sleeve and opened and cut me good with just the weight of the knife(which is very light). I just find it hard to believe that in the middle of religious fervor that they are carefull enough with a large sharp blade not to do themselves serious harm. It is noted that no other part of the body is cut.