Another theoretical question: what are those Central African swords used for anyway?

[tom hyle]

As to A/ there have been archaeological studies that claim to show (don't know how they account for looting, etc.) that the most common main offensive hand weapon on early medieval European battlefields were clubs. Daggers/shortswords (mostly dagger-knives; saxes used for work as well as fighting in civilian life), shortspears, and hatchets followed, and swert/spatha longswords followed distantly, being very expensive (the translated estimate I've read was about $20,000 1990ish US dollars as a floor.) and mostly restricted to professional soldiers (house Karls, etc.).

B/ First, I do not believe there is any meaningful evidence that Shaka Zulu had anything more to do with the iklwa than perhaps taking or being given credit for it, as famous and powerful men are wont to do. AFAIK assegei (and the Japanese Ashigaru) are derived from a Portuguese word for spear; that's what I've heard. The legend of the Iklwa is interesting. First, there is the cult of personality great man thing, which I start out by taking with a grain of salt (the name, supposedly given by a joyously vicious Shaka in imitation of the noise it makes in the enemy's body, which you can hear because you're close, is suspiciously similar to an old seeming Bantu word; Kuba is ikula and refers to a dagger or short sword; iklwa refers to a short spear often characterized as swordlike; hmmm......), as my historical studies and life experiece lead me to believe it is rarely if ever valid. Now, what we have here is a legend of the military superiority, often compared to ancient Latin tactics, of a short stabbing weapon over missile weapons. On the surface this does not seem usual, at the least (sensible or true at the most); the history of successful combat in war is a history of increasing your range. Particularly in open ground, it would be hard to even approach the enemy who is using missiles if you are not. I suspect the Zulus advanced under missile cover; I see an awful lot of Zulu (etc.) javelines and archery supplies. I suspect the organization (legendary stratification, rules, and discipline in traditional S African armies) and sheildwall (as well as disease vs. the Khoi/San, I am given to understand) are more responsible for the imperial/genocidal conquest of S Africa by the Zulus (etc.) than their supposed invention of the thrusting spear (and in addition to not believing Shaka did this personally, I'm not even sure it occured at all; one sees Congo region pommelled thrusting spears, for instance, and the thrusting spear is a pretty common phenomenon, worldwide. Likewise, though we might have recently read some characterized as unuseful, there are a lot of African spears with long, swordlike blades, and the Zulu iklwa rarely in my experience has so short a handle in reality as in legend.). I do note though that they had some success getting close enough on foot to kill gun armed European soldiers with handweapons, as did also some of the Madhi's army (Ashanti Osei Tutu on the other hand, had muskets and cannon, and hired European mercenaries to teach his army to use them.). It wasn't any magical power of their thrusting spears that got them close; that's for sure.
I've seen, BTW, (film of) modern Afars and Issas (estimate 1960; colour film) engaging in a ritualized rule-bound line-on-line javeline battle to settle a dispute; several injuries and one death. It was not and is not my impression that this is or ever was their only way of fighting, any more than N Plains people in N America settled all their disputes by lacrosse, or ancient Celts by hockey, or Philistines by single combat (especially not after that guy came out and shot someone in the head for a sword&spear fight), or tartars by (various forms of) polo; it's a traditionally available lesser option to "real" war. "The little brother of war" is Lacrosse's real name.