Kaskara opinion

[Edster]

Kipinga50/Dom,

Dom's analysis appears to discredit an ancient date, but I have a feeling that there is more to this sword than a cobbled modern fake. If we discount the Louie, Avalon, etc, the piece looks rather old. It could be an assemblage of earlier pieces. The cross guard appears to be cast bronze and of a shape earlier than the forged steel ones common of most kaskara. The rigid blade could be cast as was common in Mahdist or even Funj times. The blade also is tapered more than the forged kaskara blades we usually see. Neither has it been sharpened. Its strange that the Crescent Moon, often a maker's mark, was added after the etched text. Also, its has eyes, uncommon to me for the moon. The text seems too elaborate to be just made up.

The piece remains an enigma, but an interesting one.

Best regards,
Ed
Ed

[spiral]

Love the blade etching...

But perhaps later someone wanted it to be Excaliber?

Avalon is a legendary island featured in the Arthurian legend. It first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's 1136 pseudohistorical account" Historia Regum Britanniae" ("The History of the Kings of Britain") as the place where King Arthur's sword Excalibur (Caliburnus) was forged and later where Arthur was taken to recover from his wounds after the Battle of Camlann. Avalon was associated from an early date with mystical practices and people such as Morgan le Fay.

Spiral

[Iain]

These unsharpened kaskara have always seemed a bit of a mystery to me.

I'm unfamiliar with the idea of cast blades for kaskara. Could you elaborate a bit more on that?

I used to own a croc kaskara (image attached) that was also pretty dull without a proper edge.

However not all the thuluth covered blades are like this - here's a link to one a forum member was kind enough to allow me to display on my takouba website - http://takouba.org/takouba41/ - it features a Solingen blade.

[Edster]

Iain,

My only knowledge of cast kaskara blades is a comment from an informant at the sword makers market in Kassala in 1985. He said that during the Mahdiya most native made blades were cast and very brittle, often breaking in battle. Many warriors carried wooden swords and picked up weapons of the fallen. Such cast blades may have been regalia and not suited for battle. A lot of swords were picked up from defeated Anglo-Egyptian armies. Also, hand forged iron blades were made from locally refined iron ore. I'm unaware of the extent and time frames that steel metallurgy was practiced by local Sahel blade smiths. Surely not all battle blades were imported from the 16th-18th centuries or recirculated as battlefield pick-ups. How did the Funj army of Sennar source its swords? So many questions.

I notice on your linked Takouba that the half-moon was added after the etching. Perhaps the subject kaskara is a re-hilted takouba as suggested by the blade profile.

Take care,
Ed

[Jim McDougall]

As far as I have known, this kaskara would be among groupings of highly decorated with thuluth weapons which are definitely of the Mahdist period, most of them brought out of the Omdurman period. This is exactly the three channel form of blade termed Masri (Rodd, 1926) and shown in Briggs (1965) as a Hausa form blade. In Briggs the thuluth, crescent moons and channels are much the same.
The kaskara of this type I have is also the same, thuluth motif, and most notably the brass hilt. Discussions with David Edge many years ago (Ive had this sword about 30 years) suggested that the brass was likely oriented toward native superstitions concerning iron etc. Most thuluth on these swords seems to be rather linear motif 'based' on either Quranic verses or Islamic phrases as I have understood, and while not directly translatable, served temporally to non literate natives as powerfully imbued swords.

It would seem to me that the term 'cast' may have been semantically misused possibly in place of forged. Most of these native blades, as noted by Ed Hunley (1984) and Reed (1987) were using steel from old lorry springs or railroad materials in post Mahdist years. It is inclear exactly how many blades were native forged in the Mahdist years, but there were considerable numbers of European blades in circulation. This is especially notable as most swords were only afforded to those of stature tribally, while the majority of tribal weapons until the advent of the Mahdist movement were spears and simple forms, many even threw stones.As noted captured weapons, mostly rifles from Egyptian forces began to be used from earlier battles and attrition from those of fallen warriors certainly accounted for many. The Hadendoa and many of those tribes already had swords, but it is unclear exactly how the varying components of Mahdist forces were armed with swords specifically as far as I have known.

[Iain]

Originally Posted by Edster

Iain,

My only knowledge of cast kaskara blades is a comment from an informant at the sword makers market in Kassala in 1985. He said that during the Mahdiya most native made blades were cast and very brittle, often breaking in battle. Many warriors carried wooden swords and picked up weapons of the fallen. Such cast blades may have been regalia and not suited for battle. A lot of swords were picked up from defeated Anglo-Egyptian armies. Also, hand forged iron blades were made from locally refined iron ore. I'm unaware of the extent and time frames that steel metallurgy was practiced by local Sahel blade smiths. Surely not all battle blades were imported from the 16th-18th centuries or recirculated as battlefield pick-ups. How did the Funj army of Sennar source its swords? So many questions.

I notice on your linked Takouba that the half-moon was added after the etching. Perhaps the subject kaskara is a re-hilted takouba as suggested by the blade profile.

Take care,
Ed

Hi Ed,

Thanks for the additional details. I am more familiar with the western Sahel as you know - where among the Hausa iron working has an extremely long history. In fact the major Hausa cities were founded in areas with large iron ore deposits (although this quality varied region to region). I would assume the same would be true for Sudan societies like Sennar. I've never heard of cast blades among other groups in the Sahel - the melting point on iron would be quite a bit higher I gather than on the typical metals which were cast; bronze, brass, etc. I will look through the few resources I have on Hausa metal working and see if I turn anything up.

I would imagine the source of swords for Sennar was much the same as it was in the 19th century - European imports and locally produced blades as well. The only illustration of a Sennar sword I'm aware of is a kaskara in a drawing of a king from 1821. Given the similarities with Mamluk swords - I see no reason not to think Sennar would have used much the same style of weaponry in earlier periods?

Lane, writing from Egypt in 1831 mentioned the import of German blades and that these went to Sennar.

More and more I am beginning to think there was no specific pattern for takouba - within kaskara generally speaking it doesn't seem there was heavily re-profiling of the blades. In takouba of course there generally was to get the narrow tip. In that sense I am of the opinion the blades shipped in where not to one pattern or the other but simply reshaped and adapted locally as desired.

Great eye spotting the later application of the half moon marks! This is pretty interesting I think as it a) means they were applied locally to a European blade and b) that it wasn't a first step, the thuluth was.

I am only aware of two examples of takouba with thuluth - the one I linked to and a regalia sword from one of the Hausa emirates.


Jim,

I have always been curious how Briggs arrived at his Hausa attribution. While kaskara are found in Kanuri (Bornu/Kanem) territory, I'm not aware of them really among the Hausa at all. Either in historical photos or modern times. So how Briggs came up with that has always been a puzzle to me.

This is merely a personal impression - but it has seemed to me there are far fewer native forged kaskara than takouba. Most kaskara seem to be either trade blades if older or the recycled steel sources you mentioned if later.

Whereas in takouba one encounters quite a lot of locally forged blades. I am more familiar with the organization of Hausa military forces - where arms were stockpiled and handed out by the ruler in war time. I guess meaning that you could find a soldier with a sword even if they didn't own it.

I am trying to find more sources on Sennar - interestingly swords and armour seem to crop up pretty regularly when Googling about the kingdom - although details are elusive as always...

All the best,

Iain

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Salaams All~ This is a very interesting thread from several viewpoints not least the application of the Dukari Moons after the blade was decorated ..(by the way Ed~ on the eyes in the moon theres a Takouba with eyes at http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=16288) thus likely to have been locally added. The other added decoration, almost in a rough graffitti style, is on the hilt and not comparable to the accurate blade decoration that I assume was done with acid?
Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.

[regihis]

Since the beginning of the 17th century, Hausa has been written with a version of the Arabic script known as ajami. Most of the early writing in Hausa was Islamic poetry or on Islamic themes. If the verses are Hausa, Ajami or others languages?