Sudanese Kaskara for Comment

colin henshaw · 25th April 2021, 07:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kahnjar1

This Kaskara was a WW1 bring back from Sudan. The scabbard is either Lizard or Snake skin and in quite good order for age. The blade is double edged and as can be seen is decorated with plenty of script. If anyone can give a translation I would appreciate it.
All comments welcome
Also with the sword came 2 knives with bone handles.

This type of Sudanese weapon tends to fall into the possibly "made for sale" category or genre, the dagger very likely and the sword possibly. The souvenir trade in the Sudan was in fact under way even before the Battle of Omdurman. This subject has been well discussed in the past on the forum and for more information, please refer to the previous posts (with accompanying evidence), by Iain Norman by myself. (For some reason I can't do the link function on my PC, but a search under the terms Sudanese and Mahdist should do the trick).

Mefidk · 27th April 2021, 04:12 PM

I rather agree with Colin. I have a couple of these and whether they are based on talismanic swords is debatable, but I doubt that any self-respecting Sudanese warrior or leader would wave one of these around and have the blade fly out of the hilt (which would certainly be the result). So I'm not convinced that these are even for local use as ranks or emblems - rather I think they were produced for sale.
Yes, for sure there are examples of worthy weapons with thuluth, but they are few and far between. These others appear to be more or less mass produced and follow the same pattern based on etched flat sheet steel, no fixing of the blade to the hilt (its just pushed in and padded), and usually brass non-functional or very thin iron guards. All topped off with a crocodile hilt, often with legs. The small bone handled daggers, and triple dagger sets being equally non-functional and from the same steel, also sporting crocodile clothes.

As objects of study, and interest they are actually quite nice

but not to be confused with functional kaskara.

27th April 2021, 04:12 PM	#2
Mefidk Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Denmark Posts: 157	I rather agree with Colin. I have a couple of these and whether they are based on talismanic swords is debatable, but I doubt that any self-respecting Sudanese warrior or leader would wave one of these around and have the blade fly out of the hilt (which would certainly be the result). So I'm not convinced that these are even for local use as ranks or emblems - rather I think they were produced for sale. Yes, for sure there are examples of worthy weapons with thuluth, but they are few and far between. These others appear to be more or less mass produced and follow the same pattern based on etched flat sheet steel, no fixing of the blade to the hilt (its just pushed in and padded), and usually brass non-functional or very thin iron guards. All topped off with a crocodile hilt, often with legs. The small bone handled daggers, and triple dagger sets being equally non-functional and from the same steel, also sporting crocodile clothes. As objects of study, and interest they are actually quite nice but not to be confused with functional kaskara.