Masai Spear and Sword

[colin henshaw]

Originally Posted by Tim Simmons

The 19th and early 20th century spear blade are quite distinctive. You will know one when you see it and grab it. I am of the opinion that there are possibly 3 stages in seme form. The earliest are long and thin with a good temper and forging, can be used in a fast manner. Then I think they remained long and got quite a bit heavier. Perhaps slightly clumsy forging relying more on force of weight. Then finally the size of seme we see today. which can be short sword to large knife size again I think the early versions are forged and superseded by reground machete blades. This is just my " opinion" from collecting observation and handling examples.

I would say this is a fairly accurate synopsis, with the following exceptions :-

1. Early East African native spears and swords were not tempered, they were quite soft and could sometimes be bent in the hand. Smelted from local iron ore. There are old pictures of Masai lion hunts with the spears well bent.

2. The use of machete blades etc did not completely replace semes being forged from scrap iron with mid-ribs. I have seen many similar new(ish) examples like that posted by Miguel. There is no shortage of scrap metal in Kenya. Its also important to remember that Kenya in particular has been producing large numbers of these sort of objects for the tourist trade for many decades now.