guardless nimcha

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

Excellent entry Estcrh!! Thank you.
I would like to add some notes which might be pertinent, especially as Stone has made reference to Egerton (1880) where he describes ' as Mahratta sabres (534,535).

Actually in Egerton the first reference #534 describes an iron hilt sabre , 'nimcha or tegha' date 1780, used by men of high rank.
#535 describes a nimcha of 2ft 8" from Vizianagram.

Neither is illustrated.

Curiously, Pant ("Indian Arms and Armour", Lahore, 1980, p.59) notes Stone and his description of the Moroccan nimcha correctly, however he claims that Egerton has referred to these as Mahratta sabres, which I cannot find evidence of.
Pant does claim that Egerton has wrongly equated nimcha with his own descriptions of tegha and goliah.

Clearly the term nimcha was in use in India, and as early as the years as Egerton did his research pre 1880. As Pant has noted, the term was used for 'small' in varied context, however it does not seem clearly applied as to a certain sword type.

Pant, on p.77 notes a nimcha shamshir (he often coupled terms) to refer to a 'miniature shamshir' intended for young princes, and describes it as a small sword slightly curved. He adds that one of these was used by Ibrahim Quli Khan in 1725 in an attack at Gujerat, noting reference to it from an 1889 record (A copy of the Akbar Nama).
It is unclear whether the narrative of the 1725 event uses the term nimcha or whether this was appended by Pant.

On p,169, Pant also notes that smaller jamadhars (katars) with blades 3-6" are referred to as 'nimcha' (=small).

These notes may add more benchmark data to seek more on the nimcha term.

We know that the Buttin reference (1933) #1009 to one of the Hadhramati style nimchas is simply referred to as Arab sa'if.

In the 2002 update of Egerton's 1896 revision including Arab arms,
#194 is one of the 'peaked' hilt style swords seen in the Stone plate, which is noted as probably a presentation sword of the 18th c. The nimcha term is absent.
#196 is one of the 'Hadhramauti' (sharply canted hilts) listed as Arab and from Yemen, and 'bought at Cairo'. Cairo would seem to have been an outfitting center and this with likely European blade. Again, the nimcha term is absent.

So now we can look into other references beyond these more familiar ones.

Buttin in his catalogue refers to all his “nimcha” swords as saifs. He considers the type as the quintessential Arab sabre, with relatively minor differences in Moroccan swords, and attributes the origin of its form to a Sinhalese prototype.
I found another reference to the Indian nimcha, in a report by the French consul to Calcutta, describing the international exhibition of 1883. He mentions several swords from the Deccan by name, including the “Nimcha, a short sword, carried by the lower classes”.