ANOTHER LANCE ... BORNU ? your views please
 

This is a lance I have had in my collection since the nid 80s . It is almost exactly the same as the one in Liverpool Museums ethnographic colection which features a Bornu horseman complete with a lance of this type, takouba and padded armour. Mine is 10' long o/a , with a 2' head, and 1'9'' heel . The hardwood shaft is just over 1'' diameter. The blade has a strong median ridge and geometric designs.

Hi,

I think this could be Bornu. The markings don't give much of a clue, these simple geometric patterns could be attributed to any number of groups in the area. Bornu, Kanem, Hausa cities, Mandingo, Mossi, all used similar cavalry lances. I usually go with the label Sahel when in doubt. I'm not sure there's much reference material for these, beyond the more distinctive Tuareg and Fulani examples.

This seems to be a nice sturdy piece and always a pleasant surprise to see an example that hasn't been cut down. Thanks for posting it, I feel like these are an important part of the Sahel panoply that tend to get ignored for the more glamorous swords and daggers.

Thank you Iain ... as I said it could be the twin of the one in the ethnographic section of Liverpool World Museum. On this subject I have to commend Liverpool for its exceptionally fine collection of ethnographica . As Liverpool was such an important trading port in the late 18th & 19th centuries the amount of stuff brought back to the region for private collections was immense. Much of this eventually found its way to the museum. It is particularly strong on West African artefacts , the city having had such close ties with the slave trade.

Here are some pics of the iron butt of the lance that I should have included originally . The length of the butt is 54 cm . It is spear headed at the end , then round cross sectioned , then square cross sectioned and finally as it joins the shaft it is round again , gradually swelling .

Thanks Richmond! Always good to see these details as it helps to develop some sense of how to distinguish between the lances.

This is quite different obviously then from the flat and flared butts encountered on Tuareg and in fact most other lances I have seen from the region.

Great reference for the future!

Hello,
Finally - after some years of asking re origin of this spear here in Nigeria, the spear should be comming from Katsina, Sokoto, Kano Emirates.

I just would like to add, that in this thread: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=11889
I described the same spear as from Adamawa (because the seller told me so that time). After then I saw several others, some of them in Kano, and the prevalent opinion of local people was Katsina, Sokoto. Nevertheless, the most important for the assignation would be, I think, link to some old author...

BTW - I have never seen particularly this spear complete in Nigeria - always only very rusty spearheads. I think this complete type of spear, i.e. with the shaft, is rare already. (When the local "antique-vendors" travel to the bush to bring new items for their antique shops in Abuja or Lagos, and they find complete spear, they always break off the spearhead. The reason is they are afraid of the many army check points on the roads and it is possible to hide spearhead better than the whole spear)

Nice spear - but I don't think the iron butt part belongs - it looks like the butt from an East African Masai or similar spear that has added.

Regards.

Very interesting and helpful Martin

You may well be right Colin , I will visit Liverpool Museum and compare their example's butt section, and report back,
Richmond

Was just reading back through some old threads and was curious if you ever compared the butt on this to the museum example Richmond?

I was just browsing this thread again today and realized I have yet to see an image of the Liverpool museum's display. I am kicking myself for not getting to the museum the last time I was in the city for business.

Does anyone have an image of this Bornu cavalryman with spear and takouba display?

my maasai lion spear has a long butt spike with a round tapered blunt end that trasitions to square before the round socket.

Lovely spear! I love these elongated elegant spearheads with the central rib. I am guessing this one is quite heavy? Is it suitable for throwing?

While not my spear I can answer that. :) these big ones are cavalry lances for thrusting.

Lighter examples were made to be thrown and a rider would carry three or so.

To get a sense of why you don't want to try to throw something this big see this thread for one of mine with comparison shots next to swords for a sense of scale http://vikingsword.com/vb/showpost.p...93&postcount=7 :)