Leather Sheath Sword

[drzzzzz]

Hello guys! Can anyone identify this sword or knife that I recently picked up at auction? Overall is approx. 22" long. Would appreciate any info. Thank you

[fearn]

It's a seme from the Masai (or a nearby tribe) of East Africa. It's probably relatively old--it looks like it has a midrib and a diamond cross-section which (I believe) is an older feature. The newer ones are basically flat, built like machetes. I don't recall the date when the switch-over happened, but by old, I mean that it's likely mid 20th Century, at a guess.

Neat blade--and I'm sure the next poster on this list will have a better guess on its age.

Fearn

[tom hyle]

Ditto. This type of sword, shaped like a certain type of spear blade usually called a lion spear in N America, but AFAIK actually associated with a certain rank in the militia, is used by the pastorial massai for trimming vegitation, as well as for violence/defence and butchery. The Massai are said to not work iron, but to buy it all from farming neighbor tribes and itinerate smiths. The Watutsi swords I've seen certainly seem pretty much identical, and I even see this sword falling into the same broad category/tradition as ilwoon, etc. (mine, at least, is notably flatter and thinner, though maintaining its midrib, in the last particularly broad 1/4 at the tip). The traditional red dye is (AFAIK) a Massai thing, and it sure does show the wear; I've seen ones with no dye; perhaps it was no dye left; the 1/2 denuded rawhide is interesting to see, anyway. Does the metal binder at the sheath tip happen to be a bent up coin with a hole punched thru its center?

[drzzzzz]

Hello, yes it does have metal binder at the sheath tip which appears to be a bent up coin with a hole punched thru its center. Really appreciate the info.

[Tim Simmons]

Hello drzzzzz, your seme was probbaly made no earlier than the 1950s.These are carried by many tribes,Samburu ,Kikuyu ,Nandi,Masai and others across much of central east Africa.Most modern seme are ground from machete but you still find forged ones.The modern seme is also a shorter more general purpose weapon/tool than the old version which has a longer reach.Here are two modern ones with the old version.I am sure somebody may be able to show or tell us more about the original machete.Tim

[tom hyle]

Tim, the longer sword you show is also narrower (most importantly at the tip) than the other style of seme, and seems to lack the midrib. It certainly is a different style, and the ones in it I see are usually old, but is it your contention that the shorter broader form is a newer style that did not exist at the time of the longer ones? I suspect this would be incorrect, though I have nothing real solid on it at the moment. Another telling feature can be the handle of somewhat squarish wooden slabs covered with rawhide vs. the(older? or just nicer? or ethnically different?) more rounded handle with often raised rings for grip, as I think we see on that long one of yours (?), and as is fairly often seen (by me) lacking the Massai red dye, as with your long one; how meaningful is this red dye? I honestly don't know.
Some additional explaining about the longbladed spear; the lion killing ritual is the entrance to traditional manhood/militia; you are not a hero, a killer, a defender of stock and women, until you have done this proof. The spear used for it would thus seem (?) to be the lowest rank militia spear. Complicating this further is that I've seen the thing done on television, by a Massai, and it was not done with that type of spear with which it is reputed to be done, and (of course?) it was not done by "planting" the spear - a seeming conflation with boar hunting and anticavalry tactics - but by throwing the spear like a sensible person who wants to kill the enemy AND live.
Martindale is still in business in England, and it is my information that they still forge their blades on a hand-guided trip hammer.

[Tim Simmons]

Hello Tom,this picture shows the midrib more clearly.I also post the "Lion Spear"I take most western stories and romantic notions about African weapons with a pinch of salt ,though there must be some basis in fact.Apart from the leaf shaped hunting javlin type spear this is the only version of this type really light enougth to throw.I have some pictures to prepare to help illustate my conjecture about the earlier seme being a longer and heavier weapon which I have never seen in a red scabbard.Tim

[Tim Simmons]

This is all I have found right now but it does not go against my rather bold statement.The first picture is from a book published in 1918 note the narrow forte.The second picture is from a modern publication, again note the forte.If I find more I shall post them.I have just remembered this picture from the same 1918 book of a Nandi warrior, note the different way of wearing,and the handle.Tim

[Flavio]

Hello Guys. I want to show you my seme masai sword.

[tom hyle]

Way nice! Tim, thanks for the pics. Another feature to think about (I've no input on it, really) is the suddenly swelled tip on some vs. the steady swell on others.

[Jeff D]

Hi Tim the crocodile mark is from a martindale machete http://www.ralphmartindale.co.uk/ral...e/africa1.html
http://www.cutsforthknives.com/catalogs/1/MM.htm .

Jeff

[Ian]

This is another one that seems to reflect the older style. OAL 24 in. Blade 20 in.

Ian.

[Tim Simmons]

I really like that is the scabbard wrapped with copper wire?Tim

[tom hyle]

I don't think it's wire, but flat sheet?...hard to tell; it could be fine wire from an electric motor (a good material I see on African work; you can tell it for sure if they didn't remove the distinct half clear half red lacquery stuff electric motors coil thingies are at least often coated in; but that stuff ain't here; just brown patina, it looks like.). The long (belt?) hook on the sheath is cool.
Some might consider the sword rather similar, but I'm with you, F, and would like to elucidate. The tip is very different from the broad style of ilwoon-seme (like it?), as you say, not only in its narrow thrusting angle vs their roundish slashing (in European terms "Roman" style) tip, but also in the tip not being a widened, flattened cutting-plane; your Shi sword is basically parallell sided (except the very base), and is it sharp the whole parallel part? Just predicty-hoping It is more a "true" cut and thrust sword, the seme more a cutting sword (a la ilwoon) with a tip that can be used for thrusting on unarmoured oponants, but ain't the greatest for it, and is more for doing a passing type cut I call tip-slashing, at which machete and seme excell, and ilwoon just makes me tear up when I see it and it's so pricey.....I could see the seme being somewhat a transitional/whatever in between sword at the edge of ilwoon(etc.) and also at the edge of true cut and thrust swords, like the Shi sword, or 'Zande broadswords, etc. Not one bit of this idea so far has really been turned toward accounting for the handles or the exact regionality/tribality/overlap of the types (broadsword and ilwoonish). This is a vague idea based on swords more than cultural geography or history, but I'm rather excited about it; please feel free to help me sew it up and fly it, or shoot holes in the wings if ye must I'm loving talking about African cutting swords; really excites me.

[Freddy]

Tom, I can assure you...it's copper wire. Very thin copper wire. I tried to take some pics, but my digital camera has its limits.

In the middle of the sheath, there's a band of about 1 cm where the copper wire has been twisted. This adds a small decorative element to this sheath.

The edge of the blade is sharp on both sides, from point to handle. I could be used for slashing, but due to the thickness of the blade it's also ideal for stabbing.

[tom hyle]

Thanks. Love the tonfa-like sheath. When the wood was new it might've been a real decent one-use emergency sheild?

[Flavio]

Hello. I have a very similar short sword like the one of Freddy and i'm totally agree with him . there is also the band of about 1 cm where the copper wire has been twisted.

[Tim Simmons]

Hello Mike.I said that spear was light enougth to throw.Well I mean only just.It would not go far.If I really had to face a lion I think it would be best to stand there, wait for the lion to leap ,shut your eyes and hope it jumped on your spear because I can not see any other options except to clean yourself up. Tim

[tom hyle]

The version of the ritual Conogre describes is close to how it is usually told in N America; I do not know what the original source of this story is, or if it is/was ever done or not, or under what circumstances. I saw the one I saw; I watched it on TV. He threw the spear; it killed the lion (interestingly, I recently heard a San interviewed and asked "how do you kill a lion with only a spear?" He laughed, and said something that was translated as "you have to throw the spear just right."). He also was not alone; a semicircle of warriors, whose ends closed in together during the process until it became almost a circle, drove the lion to him.

[tom hyle]

I knew there was something else. Kuba ilwoon is not a flat sword. It is midribbed, with a wide flat tip, not dis-similar to the widened, flatter/thinner cutting tip on (at least my) seme.

[Ian]

Here is another sword similar to the seme with a spatulate blade and a diamond cross section to the "forte." The closest example I have found is in the book Afrikanische Waffen by Fisher and Zirngibl, Plate 47, p. 37. They list that sword as "Jaunde" (from Cameroon).

Ian

[Conogre]

Tom, just a point to consider....is it not possible that something "filmed" means it was organized?
All too often, particularly in older safari movie/travelogue/documentaries (Frank Buck comes immediately to mind) what is seen is distinctly different from uncoached tribal activities, such as a lion hunt vs an individual initiation rite.
That one is sweet Ian, and I agree, it does look a lot liek a seme.
From my experience so far, it seems likely that there are possibly hundreds or relatively unknown African weapons as so little study has been done, compared to the Philippines, or Indonesia, contributed to by both the immense size of the entire continent and the fact that so much of it was inaccessable until comparatively recent times.
I apologize about the Ilwoon statement Tom, thinking about more recent specimens as opposed to your exceptionally nice one (or perhaps NOT thinking before typing is more appropriate), another case where they have changed radically in the past 50 years or so.
Mike

[tom hyle]

Conogre (almost typoed and called you Conagra; a disasterous misapellation averted!), a very good point. The lion killing (the hunt wasn't shown; he could've come out of a box for all I know; seriously, they often keep wild animals in like crates when the live-catch them) I saw was definitely organized; very much so, and for all I know, not entirely by the natives, or if so, organized not by their own law/practices, but maybe to what would look most spectacular to outsiders, etc. Good point. It's a-sinkin' in.
Now, Ilwoonesques can be where things fall apart with my idea (and I so need a cultural map of central Africa and of SE Asia) For instance, the Mongo, Konda, etc. ones with the offset blades, but even they seem to have thick sturdy shafts in their earlier form, and there is the midribbed form of them. It seems that in much of modern Africa an industrial machete blade is the prefferred raw material for a new sword, and who can blame them? The things are cheap, and usually, even new ones, of decent quality from a using perspective, and I personally highly suspect the thin flatness of machete is an African feature to start with, though a somewhat seperate tradition from these heavy midribbed swords, so full circle, in a way.....

[tom hyle]

BTW, Thanks for that angled close-up of the Shi sword; really shows the massiveness.