African (?) spear for ID.

[Willie]

Hi there to all collectors in this forum.

I am a new comer, and very happy to have found this community. I have been looking around for a couple of hours, and the amount of knowledge here seems to fully come in to the expert chapter, so I thought I could dare make a question that I assume that would be easy for you guys to answer.

Last X-mas I bought this spear in a flea market in France. The owner said that it comes from África, but he was not sure where from. The blade was rusty and pitted, and took some hours to get clean. The shaft is two meters long, made of a very dark wood, with clear signs of usage. The vegetal fiber around the base of the spear is also very carefully woven.

My collecting field is military helmets. In this field it is already difficult to fool me. Regarding other collecting items, fooling me is somehow easier. The seller had some other items that were unmistakably original, so I thought I could run the risk in this one.

Could somebody please throw some light about what I have, and how old it could be ???

Thanks in advance for your precious help, and very best regards from Spain,

Willie.