French Foreign Legion: Arms Contexts

[Jim McDougall]

The s'boula of Morocco, which is a sort of dirk, seems to have a variety of forms, with this H shaped hilt being one of the most frequently seen. Others, as previously shown have hilts of kouumya form and likely others. It does seem the blade is typically straight, and as often the case, old bayonet blades.

These weapons appear to have diffused notably out of Morocco via the networks of trade routes, especially those trans Saharan routes with those making the Pilgrimage to Mecca. These people often carried weapons and commerce to trade along the way to finance their travels. As the route reached the far east, there was interaction with traders from Ethiopia (then Abyssinia) and these s'boula seem to have been in enough number that they were often regarded by some writers to have been Ethiopian weapons.

This was carried further by the fact that several examples were known with Geez script etched on blades. The Falasha's, armorers to the Amharic rulers apparently added this to some of these s'boula.

To complicate proper identification further, Burton (1884) perpetuated an identification of these as 'Zanzibar' swords (alongside an Omani 'kattara') which was clearly taken from Demmin (1877). These s'boula had clearly made it into the African interior where Omani traders took them back to the Sultanate in Zanzibar. Charles Buttin (1933) noted this situation (pages shown).

Though digressing from the tribal arms and Foreign Legion context, this simply illustrates how widespread weapons forms were in North Africa via the dynamic conduits of the trade networks.