Nice knife. I love the brass tip on the scabbard. I once ran into a pair of Afar (related to the Issa, but deadly -- literally -- enemies). One very seriously patted his gile` and said something I did not understand. I wasn't sure if he was offering to sell me the knife, or gut me. They eventually carried on their walk leaving my intestines intact, so I guess it was an offer to sell.
This was in the Awash game park in Ethiopia, by the way.
It was before my collecting fever took hold, so I wasn't quick to pounce, aside from the fact that I was pretty uneasy given what I had heard about the Afar, and the Issa for that matter. It is apparently a matter of honor for them to kill each other on sight (the joke being that if an Afar sees a poisonous snake and an Issa, they kill the Issa first), and the men are not considered real men until they have killed someone. Another Afar story -- I had the misfortune of being in the main hospital in Addis, the Black Lion Hospital (taking someone, not for myself). It was a very grim place. Among the injured sitting around pretty much in squalor waiting for attention, there was a group of three or four Afar, one on a stretcher stoically bleeding all over the floor, obviously suffering from a gunshot wound. Even more amazing was the fact that they were all heavily armed, with knives, rifles and bandoleers of ammunition. This was during the Communist days, when no one was allowed to carry weapons except the army and the militia, but I think everyone was afraid to try and take them away from these guys. My Ethiopian friend warned me not to look too much, or make eye contact.
