Jambiya

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by DaveS

Several years ago i had a jambiya that had a giraffe horn handle. It
was a honey colored handle with small gold nails driven in the front.
Unfortunately it was stolen a few years ago but before that i had a chance
to show it to a man from Africa who has a lot of experience with this kind of
thing and he told me it was not the horns of the giraffe, which he says are
very porous, and therefore not good for use as a handle material, but what
is used is the hoof which works well. He said he likes it much better than
rhino horn for handles..........Dave

Salaams Dave ~ Interesting about the hoof of Giraffe. I will do some searching on this to see if I have missed something ... as I have noted the peculiar wording in Oman for Rhino is Z'raff and I was once told that Giraffe hoof was used as hilt horn... Your story bears out that.
Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Salaams all~ My post on Omani Khanjars #3 brings this post into focus... threfor... Bump. Ibrahiim al Balooshi. http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=14878