Modern Sudanese 'Arm Daggers'

[Rumpel]

I've just come back from a 5-week embed with the SPLA-N rebels of Sudan's Blue Nile state, and was surprised and gratified to find the traditional Sudanese 'arm dagger' is still very much a current accoutrement to war.

In truth, few soldiers wear them on their arms; those that do seem mostly to come from the nomadic, Muslim Ingessena tribe from the Baw mountain range in North-Central Blue Nile. Most wear them in their webbing, tucked away with their AK magazines.

The knives I saw were all made in the market town and refugee camp of Bunj, in Maban County, South Sudan, by Blue Nile refugees. The steel is recycled, apparently, from railway sleepers 'borrowed' from the Sennar-Ed Damezin-Khartoum railway, deep in government territory. The blades rust quickly in the dampness of rainy season, and are restored with a vigorous rub with charcoal.

Sheaths are either of hammered aluminium or orange-dyed goatskin with lizard-skin detailing. Prices vary between $5 and around $8, depending on size. The largest I saw, about the size of a yataghan, belonged to a Jumjum tribal chief and rebel officer (unfortunately, no photos).

They are called either 'siqin' (Arabic) or 'kantal' (Uduk), in both cases meaning simply 'knife.' They are used as general purpose tools, from chopping kindling and slaughtering and butchering goats to fixing broken electronics (stripping wiring, and as inefficient screwdrivers).

I bought a couple (actually, I bought three, but my colleague lost one in the confusion of an aborted ambush, annoyingly). Photos to follow.

I wore one (faintly ridiculously) on my belt the whole time, to universal approval. "Tamam (good)," one soldier said, "when you wear a siqin you feel like a man."

The point of the post is, partly, to illustrate that crude, modern versions of traditional knives aren't necessarily purely for the tourist market...