is this a common dagger?

[Federico]

May not be the most helpful of comments, but anyone else see resemblence between the hilt of the knife and a flinlock rifle stock? I know since I have a smaller screen size, when I first opened this post, without reading the title, I had thought it was going to be a rifle for discussion until I scrolled more to see the blade. Anyways, just a little .00001 cents to stir the pot so to speak.

[fearn]

Hi Fernando,

No, that was 100% intuition, unencumbered by the thought process.

Well, not quite. I wasn't thinking Atlantic Cutlery, although if I wanted to fake it, that's where I'd go for the blade. I could easily believe that it was a European or American trade blade, mounted (somehow) on that handle.

No, with the closeups of the filemarks, it could easily be hand made. Or it could have been badly cleaned with sand paper or some similar scouring material. Since there are scratches on the handle, I suspect that might have happened.

Tim could be right: it could be older than a century. However, if it's been kept in a tropical climate, especially if it's been kept in a leather sheath, then the crap on the blade could build up pretty quickly. That might be true for the patina on the handle as well. I just don't think it's over a century old, mostly because it doesn't have a heavy rust patina and the handle isn't a corroded mass either.

Another thing that was bugging me was that it MIGHT be a short tanged blade brazed onto the brass handle, which to me seems very 20th century (as I said, this is unencumbered by the thought process).

An alternative suggestion would be that the handle was designed using lost wax, and then cast around the blade tang. I think they could have gotten away with doing that without melting the blade, but I'm not sure. The evidence favoring this interpretation is that the spots on the snake and the scallops on the handle look like something from a leather tool. These would be easy to make in a wax cast, harder to do in brass, and they don't look hand scratched to me, somehow. Again, leather stamps might argue for new world origins, I think. You can buy them from Tandy leather, but I don't know if they're readily available in central Africa...

Conogre could be right as well about Dahomey. The reason I suggested the African Diaspora is that it's pretty evidently a primarily religious item, and the twins-and-snake design certainly reaches into the New World. The crudity of the work also suggests that someone made it specially and personally, rather than hiring a professional smith. If it were made via lost wax, this is even more true, as wax is pretty easy to carve, and those figures are pretty crude.

More information on the formation of the hilt might help, at least to settle how it was made. Was it cast in one piece, or brazed together, for instance? You can tell that by determining how the blade joins the handle, and how the figures are attached to the handle.

I don't think we're going to settle the origins any time soon, unless someone knows an experienced santerista or voudoun who'd be willing to take some guesses about the origin and purpose of the item.

It's certainly neat though.

Fearn

[Conogre]

I enhanced the photo as much as I could and my suspicion is that the hilt was indeed cast whole and onto the blade....brass and bronze, by the way have substantially lower melting points than iron or steel and were commonly cast onto steel blades, particularly in Africa.As to the crudity of the figures, human shapes are almost always highly stylized on African pieces except for those made in the past 20-30 years, after heavy exposure to western art.
VERY similar faces, for example are seen on the "ribs" or "spokes" that connect the blade to the haft in Songye and Nsapo axes.
As to the blade, you're forgetting one other possibility as to why it wouldn't be much more rusted if it was older than late 19th century, that being that it could have still been in use if it was a highly revered piece.....many tribes to this day are still highly animistic in their religions, having withstood Christian and Muslim influence for centuries, even closer to the original root beliefs than bastardized slave religions like Voodoo.
Often ceremonial pieces are of an heirloom nature, handed down from father to son or mother to daughter, while many prestige or status pieces were buried with the owner.
Mike
ps...for those of you that know me, don't go into shock.....I'd also be careful about more cleaning and highly suggest that you don't use sandpaper on it any more.
My own personal feeling is that you may well do unintentional damage that will both make it harder to ascertain more facts as well as decrease the value.

[tom hyle]

I see the gunstock resemblance, now that you mention it, and I'm quite unconvinced that's a mouth' it looks like a sword fell on it or something to me. Is it on both sides? I don't see any eyes or other facial features; only the edge loops. Those loops along the edges of the handle display some variability, and so seem handmade. The handle would be lost-wax cast directly to the tang, which is fairly common in Sudanic and sub-Sudanic Africa. The small rounds on the snakes may be made by a punch, which would not be a neccessarily modern tool, but were more likely cast in place; old African castings are not usually reworked after casting except for repairs of flaws or damage and usually some polishing.

[Conogre]

Tom, if you look VERY closely at the opposite corner from the "mouth" you'll see a tiny round eye and likewise, if you look very closely right next to the "mouth" you'll also see a tiny round "nostril" hole where it appears to be rounded over slightly.
I'd be willing to bet that this is repeated on both sides, is it not Fernando?
To animistic tribes almost all animals are sacred, with exceptional species even moreso........if this is from Benin, then in all likelyhood it's a stylized giraffe.
Mike

[Tim Simmons]

[IMG]http://[/IMG] I risk being a naughty boy posting this pic.Here we see two snakes and two people, this piece is at least 18th century and from Burkina Faso,I think it helps to see it.When does recent begin? 1895, 1900, 1905, 1910, 1915 and on.African work suffers from this tag more than others.The thing is that it is a nice rare piece and obviosly not new.Tim

[fernando]

while i digest all these lectures, with intense consultations to the diccionary ( my english is very limited ), here is a set of pictures on the hilt fixation, that i had already prepared.
i know the use of sand paper is a crime... i beg some tolerance, as it was heavily soaked sand paper "360", a very soft one.