Sword from Angola. Chokwe, Salampasu?
 

Won the auction, the seller claims that the sword was brought from Angola in the 70s of the 20th century.

Characteristic round copper plates are found on Chokwe and Salampasu swords and knives.

I will be grateful for any help in identification. What versions will there be?

Total length 58.3 cm

could indeed be Chokwe...
although the top of the below Chokwe handles are not round, blunt but both below have a tube-like ending

As an alternative hypothesis, my first thought was Baule, based on grips on the sword in this thread,

http://vikingsword.com/vb/attachment...1&d=1231726814

and the dagger shown below with the following description:

But I am very far from an expert and maybe the Chokwe grip gp posted is a better match.

EDIT: Or maybe Lunda?

Attachment 243330
Attachment 243331

But that sword is also described as possibly Chokwe:

Hi gp!

Thank you, very similar swords, there are differences in the handles, but the blades seem to be from the same workshop.

Best regards,
Yuri.

Hi werecow!

Thanks for another direction in my search. I've already gone through the available information, swords of this type are quite rare, so it's quite difficult to say anything with certainty.:смущенный:

Let's keep looking!

Best regards,
Yuri.

To muddy the waters a little more. This Kwango sword has many of the discussed features though the blade is more decorated and the Kwango area is the opposite side of Africa to Angola.

Yaka, Suku, Tshokwe, Lunda and Kaniok are possibilities. The end of the handle seems to be missing a piece.
regards
Marc

And of course there's also the Yaka knife:

EDIT: Ah, Marc beat me to it. :o

A shared opinion is always cool.

Interesting. Museum fur Volkerkunde Africa-sammlung3 Waffen aus Zentral- Afrika.

With a little research you can find that the Lunda Empire stretched from Angola, Zambia and the Kwango river people in the DRC today. So all suggestions illustrate the extent of cultural influence. What a good place this is.

it is a little more than the Lunda empire....

Although I am not native French speaking, the French text expands into more peoples:

"the populations of the cultural connected Lunda-Chokwe and in particular the populations of the Lunda, Chokwe, Yaka, Kaniok, Suku, Songye-Eki living on the border of north Angola, Zambia and the south of the DR Congo between the wooded savannah and pre-forest region use a very beautiful sword,
This weapon has a wooden mount whicth a metal pommel (brass, copper) is conical shaped and rests on an ellipsoid piece streaked with radiating lines"

So it seems many forum members were correct !

I also assume that part of the handle could have been broken off. When I receive it, I will figure it out.

Best regards,
Yuri.

I think you may be right. The pommel "stalk" on my own yaka knife is kind of loose. I can't quite make out how it's connected but what seems to be leather around wood is very worn in that part and a bit torn, and there is significant movement between the stalk and the rest of the grip.

I have one that is very close to Tim's museum example. It appears to have some age. The leather is very thin and covers a light wooden sheath. The leather work was well done but has split in places with age.

The blade has a longitudinal groove down the middle on each side, flanked by multiple small linear marks. The metal (bronze?) hilt is constructed similar to other examples shown here. In hand, I estimate the age of this sword at about 100 years, so early 20th C or possibly late 19th C.

The weather was not very cooperative today for photographing today. If anyone needs better quality pics, please let me know.

This one came from a Swiss auction house in Basel. It was listed as a Yaka Ceremonial Sword and said to be called "mbeeli ya phoko."
.

Mine is similar as well (seller's pics since it's too dark here to take pictures atm).

here are 2 nice Yakas from my collection, although the one on the right has found a new owner ( happy to transfer it to a fellow forum member where it fits better in his collection)

Yaka with swords

Got the sword.

Well, what can I say – a real African gladius.

In general, the sword pleasantly surprised me with its quality of manufacture. If you don’t take into account swords with European blades, then, perhaps, such quality of forging is rare for Africa, except for Berber fleece.

A fully functional item, definitely not a souvenir.

Overall length – 580 mm, blade length – 455 mm, blade thickness – 6-7 mm, weight – 508 g

The wooden handle is covered with leather. Upon careful inspection, I came to the conclusion that the pommel could have been in the shape of a cone, but was broken off during use.

In the thread about Baule http://vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=8143, participants expressed the opinion that the handle has nails for upholstery from the 19th century, clearly of European manufacture. Looking at swords with similar decor on the handle, I thought that the items were made +/- at the same time and in the same region, by different tribes. Such nails are not found on later items.

As a version - at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, traders brought a batch of nails for upholstery to this region, and local blacksmiths began to use them in decorating swords.

What are the opinions?

Nice sword Pertinax, and the patina on the hilt and blade do suggest some age. The presence of these upholstery nails does seem to indicate a late 19th/early 20th C foreign influence. Perhaps it was simpler (and cheaper) to use brass nails to embellish the hilts rather than some of the traditional cast brass/bronze elements. There appears to be residue from an old polishing compound between and around the nails, again an influence from outside the culture.

This is not an old polishing compound, this is leather. The handle is wooden, covered with leather.

I was referring to the white material that surrounds many of the nail heads. I realize that the base is leather, but the white material is not leather. Another possibility is mildew resulting from some moisture on the hilt.

This is mold on old leather.

Do you think, Ian, that we can determine the age of swords like this by the upholstery tacks?

Pertinax,

Your question sent me looking into brass upholstery nails and their history. That led to brass nails in general, which have also been used on saddlery and other leather products. By far the most common use for brass nails has been in the upholstery trade, so I'll just deal with that. [I've learned that these are called brass nails not brass tacks, so will use nails to describe them).

Earliest use of brass nails for upholstery seems to have been in France during the 17th C. Thomas Chippendale brought brass nails into high fashion in the mid-18th C, with his hallmark "nail trim." The following picture comes from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY and shows a beautiful Chippendale chair with a decorative row of brass nail heads. This was considered elite and prestigious during the Regency period in England. It was not until the Victorian period that similar brass nail decorations started to appear on items for the middle class. Thus, common use of brass nails in upholstery seems to have become established around the mid-19th C.


To what extent this general availability of brass nails in Britain/Europe in the second half of the 19th C may have influenced what was available in Africa is hard to say. However, it seems reasonable to think that these brass nails probably filtered through to Africa, via British/European ex-patriots and trade, probably around the 1860s. [I have not found evidence for Asian sources of these brass nails, although some probably existed as the manufacture of brass nails has been around for a long time.] Allowing time for diffusion of these goods to more remote areas of Africa, the availability of brass nails for decorating knives, etc. may have been from about 1870-1880 onwards. This fits with the chronlogy of a Congo knife I have that was said to be collected in the 1880s and had a small number of brass nails on the hilt. Here are some pics pf that knife. Note the dark patina to the hilt, consistent with its estimated age.


Lastly, can we date swords from this brief historical look at brass nails? I think we can perhaps set an earliest date for brass nails decorating hilts or scabbards at about 1860-1870, but that tells us little about the blade which, of course, could be older or younger than the hilt or scabbard so decorated.

Thanks Ian!

The topic is really interesting. Judging by the swords and knives in the decor of which there are such nails, they were popular in a large area of Africa.

I tried to mark on the map of Africa the area of distribution of swords and knives presented by colleagues on Vikingsword in the decor of which there are nails.

Namely – Lunda, Chokwe, Yaka, Salampasu, Kwango, Suku are:
- Angola Eastern
- Zambia north-western (the Kanongesha-Lunda and the Ishindi-Lunda, Luapula valley (the Eastern Lunda or Kazembe-Lunda)
- Democratic Republic of the Congo.

And only Baule from Côte d'Ivoire falls out of this list.

Best regards,
Yuri.