Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

Philip · 20th June 2010, 07:51 AM

Thomas:
To answer your question (or attempt to do so), yes I do believe that the type of snaphaunces in Dmitry's photos are very likely the sort of thing the Korean troops were exposed to in their encounters with the Russians in the early 17th cent. I'm just hoping that you'll uncover in a S. Korean archive an old military text or manual that has a woodblock illustration of the Korean version of one of these, just as we have similar documentation of Chinese copies of Portuguese proto-flintlocks.

Fernando:
Moroccan pistols are not very common. Yours is quite interesting because of its ball butt. ON the one hand, you could say it is an extreme anachronism if you associate the ball with the familiar north European wheellock pistols with the same feature. The connection is possible, after all the snaphaunce lock was introduced to the Maghrib by the Dutch during an era in which such wheellocks were still in use in places. (note also that there is still a resemblance of certain styles of Moroccan musket buttstocks to those on some types of Dutch and English matchlock guns). On the other hand, you could place the origin of your Moroccan ball butt a bit closer in space and time -- I'm thinking of the Catalan-style pistols, made in Ripoll from the 17th cent. until ca. 1800.

I checked my copy of Geo. C. Stone's GLOSSARY...ARMS AND ARMOR, fig. 649/4 is a crudely-repaired Spanish pistol (with a patilha lock) from Morocco, and 649/1 is the only example in the book with a snaphaunce lock like yours, although the butt is mushroom-shaped and not a full ball. The other two examples are local copies of Ottoman flintlock holster pistols which are themselves knockoffs (of generally inferior quality) of late 17th cent. Dutch and German originals. Indeed, Stone notes (p 503) "In Morocco and North Africa most of the pistols were European or like the Turkish, except for the decoration."

The fact that your lock has a manually-opened pan cover is very rustic indeed, the gunsmith probably lacked the skills to make the automatic-opening mechanism that is usually found on Moroccan locks. This adds to its ethnographic interest, suggesting that it came from a remote source indeed, to embody a shape of stock that had fallen out of disuse so long before in Europe.

20th June 2010, 07:51 AM	#9
Philip Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: California Posts: 1,036	Back to Korea... / Moroccan pistol Thomas: To answer your question (or attempt to do so), yes I do believe that the type of snaphaunces in Dmitry's photos are very likely the sort of thing the Korean troops were exposed to in their encounters with the Russians in the early 17th cent. I'm just hoping that you'll uncover in a S. Korean archive an old military text or manual that has a woodblock illustration of the Korean version of one of these, just as we have similar documentation of Chinese copies of Portuguese proto-flintlocks. Fernando: Moroccan pistols are not very common. Yours is quite interesting because of its ball butt. ON the one hand, you could say it is an extreme anachronism if you associate the ball with the familiar north European wheellock pistols with the same feature. The connection is possible, after all the snaphaunce lock was introduced to the Maghrib by the Dutch during an era in which such wheellocks were still in use in places. (note also that there is still a resemblance of certain styles of Moroccan musket buttstocks to those on some types of Dutch and English matchlock guns). On the other hand, you could place the origin of your Moroccan ball butt a bit closer in space and time -- I'm thinking of the Catalan-style pistols, made in Ripoll from the 17th cent. until ca. 1800. I checked my copy of Geo. C. Stone's GLOSSARY...ARMS AND ARMOR, fig. 649/4 is a crudely-repaired Spanish pistol (with a patilha lock) from Morocco, and 649/1 is the only example in the book with a snaphaunce lock like yours, although the butt is mushroom-shaped and not a full ball. The other two examples are local copies of Ottoman flintlock holster pistols which are themselves knockoffs (of generally inferior quality) of late 17th cent. Dutch and German originals. Indeed, Stone notes (p 503) "In Morocco and North Africa most of the pistols were European or like the Turkish, except for the decoration." The fact that your lock has a manually-opened pan cover is very rustic indeed, the gunsmith probably lacked the skills to make the automatic-opening mechanism that is usually found on Moroccan locks. This adds to its ethnographic interest, suggesting that it came from a remote source indeed, to embody a shape of stock that had fallen out of disuse so long before in Europe.