Sword - Kaskara? - Comments please.

[Iain]

This thread contains some nice info on these diamond pattern hilts as well.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=13142

The triple fuller blade is distinctly native in form, probably Hausa, and should have small crescent moons stamped at the base of the outside fullers.

Hi Jim, this blade looks a little heavier than most native takouba blades I've seen. But of course photos can be deceiving. Unfortunately while I've found a lot of good period accounts regarding trade and blades within the western Sahel things drop off a bit trying to find out more about connections between the blade industries in places like Kano and how that translated to kaskara in places like Wadia, Darfur and Sennar. Bornu was the buffer state between these Sudanese states and the Hausa states.

There are some remarks in Clapperton of course regarding caravans bring down swords "that once belonged to Malta". These were transported to Kano, rehilted and sold all over the "desert and interior".

There is also an intriguing reference from the same source to "African swords" from Tatham - who would appear to have been Henry Tatham - a sword cutler to the Crown. Unfortunately there are no more details on the form of these swords. One assumes they were made and specially brought along as gift items.

Denham tells much the same story as Clapperton.

"The swords are broad, straight, and long, but require
no particular description, as, by a vicissitude some
what singular, they are in fact the very blades
formerly wielded by the knights of Malta. These
swords are sent from Malta to Bengazee, in the
state of Tripoli, where they are exchanged for bul-
locks. They are afterwards carried across the de-
sert to Bomou, thence to Haussa, and at last re-
mounted at Kano, for the use of the inhabitants of
almost all central Africa."

Sad indeed they felt it was not necessary to have a detailed description! How much of these were in fact knightly blades from Malta is hard to say although by the time Barth turned up in the early 1850s, only around 20 years later - he had no hesitation in identifying the great number of imported blades he encountered as being from Solingen.