Help in identifying for this spear

[Belgian1]

[IMG]Hello to all,
Someone has an idea of the origin of this spear. I thought South Seas from Marquesas but as the spear point is in wrought iron, I imagine a Native American North American origin. Do you have tracks to study or better
Thank you for your help and opinions
Fabrice

[colin henshaw]

Looks like a harpoon from Central Africa, maybe Congo or nearby. Nice item.

[Belgian1]

Thank you Colin,
I will continue my research in this way. I was too focused by the seas of the Pacific. Thank you for this restart of my research
Kind regards
Fabrice

[Belgian1]

Originally Posted by colin henshaw

Looks like a harpoon from Central Africa, maybe Congo or nearby. Nice item.

Hello to all members,
Following the reflection of Colin, whom I thank, and after some research I identified this strange spear / harpoon.

This is a Mbete spearhead from the Republic of Congo in the Kéllé region (about 30 kilometers from the Gabon border).
This type of spear was used for hunting hippopotamus.
It seems like it's a little known type of spear. (source: The Ethnobiology Collections of the National Museum of Natural History A catalog of freshwater fishing implements from Central Africa Monod T. 1973 - Contribution to the establishment of a functional classification of fishing gear National Museum Bulletin Natural History, General Ecology 156 (12): 205-231.) http://journals.openedition.org/ethn...2877/img-2.jpg

A soon to raise a new mystery
Fabrice

[Ian]

... This is a Mbete spearhead from the Republic of Congo in the Kéllé region (about 30 kilometers from the Gabon border).
This type of spear was used for hunting hippopotamus. ...

Good find Fabrice and the spear looks to be in good condition. How old do you think it may be?
Ian.

[shayde78]

The thought of hunting hippopotamus with a spear is absolutely terrifying.
Seriously, thinking of this gives me a visceral, limbic, primal fear...maybe this is how I died in a past life!

[Tim Simmons]

Here is a thread with the same type of harpoon head. The steel cable is for croc hunting I believe that was what I was told.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...=poachers+bits

[kronckew]

Originally Posted by shayde78

The thought of hunting hippopotamus with a spear is absolutely terrifying.
Seriously, thinking of this gives me a visceral, limbic, primal fear...maybe this is how I died in a past life!

Hippos kill more people every year than sharks, lions, or crocs. They are equipped with unbelieveably sharp canines and could tear you in half in an instant, and they can run fast. Most of all they anger extremely easily.

[Belgian1]

Originally Posted by Ian

Good find Fabrice and the spear looks to be in good condition. How old do you think it may be?
Ian.

Hello Ian, hello to all members,
To see the patina and forging work of the iron tip, I will most probably say the last third of the 19th.
Can we imagine that this type of harpoon disappeared with the arrival of guns and the French invasion since 1870 .... ??? Then this ''nice'' harpoon would probably date from the 1870s / 1890s.
Which would explain that they are very little known or almost unknown and little documented.
We can also imagine that the small size of these harpoon could have come from a Pygmy "Mbuti" origin, but for the moment I can not say anything other than hypotheses.
And according to my first research of which I quoted the sources, its origin is attributed to the Mbete people of the region (districts of Cuvette-West region in the Republic of the Congo)
Have a nice day, or evening...
Fabrice

[Belgian1]

I'm coming back to you because I'm busy reading about the harpoons used for hippo hunting among West African Bozo (Niger, Mali) who say the harpoons have been heavily poisoned with the mix ' tantye. "strophantus sarmentosus" crushed with baga fruit, mixed and dried in the sun and cooked to obtain a thick paste that will cover the tip of the harpoon.

It is also written that "among the Bozo at least", only a few hunters were initiated to hunt hippos.
These hunters knew all the habits and the least reactions of the animal before and during the hunt. Even his habits in groups and his behavior after feeding himself to consider the deadly attack ...

(Journal of the Society of Africanists, 1957, Volume 27, Number 1.)
This "ritual" of hunting bozo hippo is of great interest.
https://www.persee.fr/doc/jafr_0037-...1_T1_0043_0000

[Ian]

Originally Posted by kronckew

Hippos kill more people every year than sharks, lions, or crocs. They are equipped with unbelievably sharp canines and could tear you in half in an instant, and they can run fast. Most of all they anger extremely easily.

Yes, hippos are mean and very dangerous despite looking slow and clumsy out of the water. They have been known to tip over boats and canoes and attack the occupants without obvious provocation.

It would take an extremely brave or foolish individual who deliberately hunted these large creatures with a short sharp stick.

[colin henshaw]

Here is an extract from the book "Man and his Handiwork" by Rev. J G Wood, 1886.

[Belgian1]

Thank you for this very interesting and rewarding document.
It seems that the harpoons for hippopotamus fishing have been used all over Africa and it seems, have the common point of having all been influenced by the models described and reproduced with the ancient Egyptian geoglyphs .

But also, if the models seem different from one part of Africa to another, it appears that a common point reunited these peoples by the fact that hippopotamus hunting is, wherever it was practiced with harpoons, a kind of ritual during which the participants were chosen and widely adulated and the first harpooner of the hippopotamus was considered the "big winner of the party".
No doubt before the "arrival" of Europeans and gunpowder, this hunt was to give rise to a special ritual ..... or be practiced according to a particular ritual.
What is certain is that the bulbous part of this harpoon was to serve as a float designed to locate the hippopotamus in the water after it was harpooned ....

I think that this harpoon can teach us much more about a Cultural and Cultual aspect of the Mbete, than as a "simple" hunting harpoon .....
For my part I was harpooned by what suggests hippo hunting in African Culture and I will try to learn more about it.

Here is 2 pictures taken from the (Revue d'Ethnoécologie: 10 | 2016 : Inland traditional capture fisheries in the Congo Basin), whom I thank for the excellence of their information.
Fabrice