Sudan Mahdist daggers

[Edster]

Hello Aleksey,

Thanks for your observation. We students of ethnographic weapons are often faced with similar language terms used to identify the same type of weapons or the same or similar terms to identify different ones. The dog-leg blade knife, regardless of its origin and development is known as the soat'al by the Hadendawa ethnic group who traditionally live in both modern Sudan and in Ethiopia. Informants at the sword market in Kassala told me that the name Soat'al is a Hadendawa word for liver. It is said that one slice with the knife will cut a man to his liver. The name is said to have originated when the knife was thrown at a lion and severed its liver in two parts. The "Arabic" term of reference is Shotal and is virtually identical to the name of the Abyssian sickle sword discussed above.

Regards,
Ed