Help with 3 'Cross of Agades' daggers

[Miguel]

Thank you thinreadline for this thread and thanks to the participants for sharing their knowledge which has made it so interesting. It never ceases to amaze me the wealth of knowledge available and freely given on this forum.

I was given, many years ago, a couple of knives similar to the ones in your thread and have long considered them to be for the tourist trade (mine I mean) due to the shortness of the hilts in comparison to yours and any others I have seen when trying to find a match with mine. The shortness and angularity of my hilts uncomfortable in the hand and I cannot see that any self respecting Tuareg would give them tent room. Having said that I would like to know if my consideration is correct or not.
Regards
Miguel

[thinreadline]

Originally Posted by Miguel

Thank you thinreadline for this thread and thanks to the participants for sharing their knowledge which has made it so interesting. It never ceases to amaze me the wealth of knowledge available and freely given on this forum.

I was given, many years ago, a couple of knives similar to the ones in your thread and have long considered them to be for the tourist trade (mine I mean) due to the shortness of the hilts in comparison to yours and any others I have seen when trying to find a match with mine. The shortness and angularity of my hilts uncomfortable in the hand and I cannot see that any self respecting Tuareg would give them tent room. Having said that I would like to know if my consideration is correct or not.
Regards
Miguel

Well Miguel there are others better qualified than I to answer your question . However one possibility is that they are daggers made for children ... I have seen scaled down Kaskaras which were described as such . If these were European weapons they might even have been described as salesmen's samples ... though I doubt this is the case here. I rather like them however !

[thinreadline]

Well thank you all for your input on this topic , I have found it most enlightening and indeed thought provoking . I take your point to heart Iain re the virtual futility of attempting to pigeonhole every weapon ... I suppose my long career as a botanist with a strong interest in taxonomy has spilled over into my hobby , driving me to wish to classify everything I see !

[Jim McDougall]

Well Redline, I just realized that the 'read' was the wordplay (bonk!) and very clever in dealing in military books.....well done! Being astute is not one of my best traits

So you're a botanist, now there is a fascinating field!! and your inclination toward classification now well understood. We've had some most interesting discussion on botanical motif in decorating weapons, and in styling.

I had not thought of childrens weapons regarding Miguels examples, and that is indeed a distinct possibility.

Whatever the case, these carry the distinctive symbols and motif that is so inherently important in the traditions and conventions of these tribes in the Sahara. That four petal device well aligns with the crosses we have been discussing, and occurs often on takouba mounts in these regions.
Even in the case of 'souveniers' these items reflect the powerful and often mysterious history and traditions of these people, and Tuareg material culture is highly regarded artistically in ethnographica.

"..the sober truth about the Sahara...is more mysterious than
anything that has ever been written about it, even by the
most irresponsible spinner of fairy tales, for the very fact
is that very little is yet known about the peoples who live
there".
-Lloyd Cabot Briggs
"Tribes of the Sahara" (1960)

However......clearly.......we are learning!!!

[thinreadline]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

Well Redline, I just realized that the 'read' was the wordplay (bonk!) and very clever in dealing in military books.....well done! Being astute is not one of my best traits

So you're a botanist, now there is a fascinating field!! and your inclination toward classification now well understood. We've had some most interesting discussion on botanical motif in decorating weapons, and in styling.

I had not thought of childrens weapons regarding Miguels examples, and that is indeed a distinct possibility.

Whatever the case, these carry the distinctive symbols and motif that is so inherently important in the traditions and conventions of these tribes in the Sahara. That four petal device well aligns with the crosses we have been discussing, and occurs often on takouba mounts in these regions.
Even in the case of 'souveniers' these items reflect the powerful and often mysterious history and traditions of these people, and Tuareg material culture is highly regarded artistically in ethnographica.

"..the sober truth about the Sahara...is more mysterious than
anything that has ever been written about it, even by the
most irresponsible spinner of fairy tales, for the very fact
is that very little is yet known about the peoples who live
there".
-Lloyd Cabot Briggs
"Tribes of the Sahara" (1960)

However......clearly.......we are learning!!!

Ah Jim , dont do yourself an injustice .... we struggled for years with customers mispronouncing and therefore misunderstanding our little joke .... read ( red ) was frequently pronounced 'reed' ... and then I would have to spend time explaining it all to them ! Well if you have to explain a joke , its not much of a joke ... so I often rued the day I chose that name ! Botanical latin is so much simpler !

[Miguel]

Originally Posted by thinreadline

Well Miguel there are others better qualified than I to answer your question . However one possibility is that they are daggers made for children ... I have seen scaled down Kaskaras which were described as such . If these were European weapons they might even have been described as salesmen's samples ... though I doubt this is the case here. I rather like them however !

Thank you thinreadline, I think children`s daggers could well be a valid possibility and one that I had not considered.
Miguel

[Miguel]

Regarding the example posted by Miguel I think this is a more recent work, I would guess from modern day Nigeria. It could well be simply a show piece to be worn at events like a durbar and thus not requiring any particular practicality in terms of handle size, but more of a fashionable accoutrement as part of tradition costume. Or it could be as suggest for a child, or simply an example of local brass work intended as a souvenir.

Thank you Iain for your above comments, they make perfect sense, much obliged.
Miguel

[Tim Simmons]

Some more information but all in French; Armes traditionnelles d'Afrique (agues, poignards, glaives, epees, tranches et couplets) Approche regionale et classification technique, morphologique et esthétique. Tristan Arbousse Bastide BAR International Series 1098. 2003

only trouble is I have the first page last.

[Miguel]

Thank you Tim for this information, my hilts are very much like GL 01 10 now just have to translate the text
Miguel

[David R]

I recently acquired one of these myself, nice to see so much information on them here.