unusual african dagger covered in cowrie shells

[Martin Lubojacky]

Cowrie shells has been delivered from "Indian Ocean countries" to Africa, especially to Subsaharan Africa, for a very long period of time - till now. Currently they are predominantly used from decorative reasons and -- to attract tourists/buyers. This could also be the case of this dagger with the flyssa style blade.

[Kubur]

Originally Posted by Martin Lubojacky

Cowrie shells has been delivered from "Indian Ocean countries" to Africa, especially to Subsaharan Africa, for a very long period of time - till now. Currently they are predominantly used from decorative reasons and -- to attract tourists/buyers. This could also be the case of this dagger with the flyssa style blade.

its what i think embellished in Senegal for touristic reasons

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Kubur

its what i think embellished in Senegal for touristic reasons

Not disagreeing, but just asking, why specifically Senegal? Obviously in the West African sphere, and commerce of course is not confined to one area just are tourism is not, why the flyssa blade?
After the cowries were rendered 'non currency' by French administrators in the early 20th c. the shells retained their 'wealth oriented' attraction as a decorative feature in material culture items such as jewelry and as seen here, weapon decoration.
Interestingly they also retained their amuletic properties as I have seen in some sources.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

There is a good paper on pre colonial Yaruba land in south west Nigeria ...an account of the use of Cowrie shells far broader than only as currency.
please see http://ijhssnet.com/journals/Vol_2_N...er_2012/27.pdf

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Kubur

its what i think embellished in Senegal for touristic reasons

Thank you Detlef for the input and links...…..clearly you and Kubur are right.....it is a flyssa, but decorated with the cowries. In the 2012 discussion you linked the same decoration seems to have wide popularity and on varying examples. I see Dom put in some great overview on the use of these shells and that Alain Jacob's book has some of this decoration from Senegal (Kubur now I see why you had specified that location). I have the book but have not see it for some time now.
Nicely done guys, thank you!!!