Mexican (?) Dagger for Identification?

[RobT]

I have collected these daggers for a number of years and had always thought that they came from the mediterranian area of north Africa. They looked to me to be a blend of southern European and north African design (sort of like a Canary island knife stretched out). I could never find any verification of origin however and now I know why. I should have been looking in that part of Africa that left the old world and headed west millions of years ago! Brazil, ho boy! To say I was a bit surprised is to put it mildly. I do have three questions however. 1) Was the dagger as it appears in this thread developed in the old world and carried to the new by Portuguese colonists or did it attain its final form in Brazil? 2) Demographically, who were the people that used the dagger? (A local car wash that I frequent is owned and operated by Brazilians. One of the men working there said the knife was used by Indians but I doubt this.) 3) How was the dagger carried? (That pen style clip doesn't seem very secure for external carry.) This last question might give a good indicator of the blade's intended use. If the sheath was designed for concealed carry, that fact and the lack of a sharp edge coupled with the formidable point speak in favor of a surprise thrust much in the fashion of a stilletto. I know that in my neck of the woods ice picks were used in this manner and they frequently had their handles shaved down for concealability. I don't think a cross guard would be needed because the base of the blade is deeper than the hilt so your hand would stop on that. Also, your fingers would find purchase in the swamped area just before the pommel. Does anyone know any Brazilian cops? If it was a weapon they would be able to tell us volumes about it. The only other thing I was able to find out at the car wash was that one of the women there said that her father gave her mother one of the daggers as a gift. This woman also said that they don't make the blades any more. One of my co-workers is also Portuguese and she said that she thought she had seen these knives but they were usually old and rusty and the hilts were usually broken.

[Conogre]

Now that you bring up the Portugese aspect, you may be more correct than you realize with an original N. African beginning.
Many people don't realize that Brazil is a source of some excellent antique African weaponry as a large number of escaped African slaves fled into the jungle and managed to create a mini-Africa that grew large and strong enough to fight off the Portugese slavers/priests and colonists for over 100 years.
I used the slavers/priests because the "Church" felt that the hethen savages were an affront to everything holy and actually pulled most of the strings that led to final major onslought and massacre.
Through their contact with the escaped Africans, some of the native Indian population from the region (also enslaved) also ended up with some surprisingly Africanized spears and knives, so don't automatically write off African weapons and weapons of African derivation from S. America, Brazil in particular.
Mike

[tom hyle]

I'm not sure where the idea is coming from that this is an African/African-related style; it's pure European, (there are African Mediterranean dirks, but they're different; see "kodme") and other than the corvos and the pointed bolsters, any of these knives could very simply be from Itally or Spain. If they are from colonies they are pretty much straight copies.
I personally wouldn't read too much into pieces being originally sold with unsharp edges; it's a cultural thing that happens in various circumstances; it comes and goes; it is especially common with military blades, but not limitted to them. It seems to be an industrial cheapskating/streamlining. The persistance of nonsharpness while owned by natives does something to say these are mostly vestigial/symbollic in modern times, as expected.
The type is a dagger-knife used for work, hunting, and self-defence. Usually in thrusting the pommel is placed against the palm, as with many guardless knives.
The "pen type" clip is a fairly old and traditional European thing. Some sturdy versions on swords (on guard or sheath), firearms, and axes will be on the back side, but most commonly it is on the front side of the sheath on blade weapons, and you can figure it out from there; the knife is worn thrust thru the belt with the clip engaged to the belt to keep it from sliding out. Sometimes these go with a "frog" but those are more usually "buttons" than clips. This type of clip has been popular on daggers (including "bowie knives") in the Americas, but is also popular in (for instance) Sicilly and Corsica (ie the former Kingdom of the two Sicillies).