[Flavio]

Dear friend, I notice that among the african weapons there are few fakes (or, anyway, modern reproductions). This fact is quite strange, because, as i can see from the other threads, in other “field”, as south east asia (kris) and, above all, chinese weapons. The explanation of this thing maybe is due to the fact that in many african countries there are very difficult situations (war, famine). But, some days ago on ebay, i have found these two strange swords: one is what seems to be a kuba ilwoon and the other seems a luba short sword, but only the general shape is similar to the original swords, the characteristics are very different. What is very strange is the scabbard that is quite identical between these two, but completely different from original (the ilwoon scabbard is, normally, made of raffia and also the luba scabbards are different). So my question is: could be these two fakes (or reproductions)? Or they are some variants of the normal type that we can see on the books?
Maybe they could be only a modern evolution of the traditional weapons.