On the Flyssa, the Iflissen, and Janissary Recruitment in Ottoman Algiers

[TVV]

Fantastic thread, Emanuel, thank you for the effort you are putting in improving the collective knowledge about the flyssa.

After all the evidence so far, I think we can agree that the flyssa is a relatively late form, and that it is inspired from the yataghans the Ottoman janissaries brought with them to Algiers in the 18th century. However, there are also some notable differences from the yataghan, which are hard to explain.

The first one is, obviously, the decoration scheme, which is entirely based on Kabyle motives. One has to consider that weapon decoration during this period (and even nowadays) served not only an aesthetic purpose, but also an important symbolic one, as a talisman. While this is true of yataghans in the Balkans as well, to a Kabyle warrior the symbols on Balkan yataghans would bear little meaning, which seems to explain why the decoration scheme on flyssas was enitrely in a local style, completely different from that on yataghans.

Other differences, such as the straight back and the integral bolster can also be easily explained, as there are Western Balkans yataghans that exhibit the former feature, whereas Anatolian yatghans (and Balkan eared daggers) were often forged with the latter.

Much harder to explain is the long narrow point, which is something entirely missing on yataghans. Comparisons to Circassian sabres, whose points seem to originate from the long thin points of Tatar sabres, to me does not provide a good explanation. First, there is no evidence that there were Circassians of any significant number among the janissaries recruited in the armies sent to Algiers. The majority clearly came from Anatolia and the Balkans. Second, after the Russian expansion in the mid 19th century, the following Circassian diaspora spread the Circassians all over the Ottoman Empire, and yet in none of the areas with high concentration of them, such as the Eastern Balkans or Syria, do we see a form with a similar needle point tip.

Instead of searching the origins of the characteristic flyssa tip in outside influence, perhaps we should look for it in other local forms, from which the tradition may have been carried. To me, in certain aspects the flyssa is quite similar to the mysterious s'boula, sometimes misidentified as "Zanzibar sword". The pictorial evidence (of one single picture thus far) clearly shows that the s'boula is a Maghrebi weapon. The questions then is, how old is the s'boula as a form? Given how the hilt of the s'boula seems very similar to that of the European baselard from the 16th and 17th centuries, it is likely that the s'boula may be a bit older than the flyssa.

Jim McDougall has studied the s'boula extebnsively, and so he is the person to continue this discussion with regards to its origins and possible connection to the flyssa. I just wanted to provide a different avenue for exploration on the very interesting topic of how the flyssa received its shape.

Apologies for the long post,
Teodor