Greetings, fellow lovers of world culture. I'm new to this forum, however, not new to the topic. I am a blacksmith who specializes in recreations of African weapons and the owner of African Arms.
Let's see...where do I begin?
I'll start with the mail shirt posted earlier on this thread. It's ceremonial.
A common mistake made by many when viewing mail of this type is to assume that it's functional. Mail of this caliber was never meant to see combat. This mail shirt is a talismanic ceremonial expression. A tell tale sign of this are the Arabic inscriptions placed on every single link. It is a tribute and a sacrifice of one's time and effort to show their religious devotion and was worn on ceremonial and festive occasions. Real functional combat mail worn by the Sudanese was much more closely linked.
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Originally Posted by ausjulius
thanks yes, and in southern sudan mail like this was very common, but these people wer einfluence and dominated by small numbers of middle eastern traders,, introducing new things and ultimatly dominating the society in these areas.
i was after indiginous invention.
and styles.
otherwise one could show a picture of a cutlas or machete from the 17th centuary yukatan and say it was made by mayan culture becasue the person who wore it or forged it was of mayan decent,,,,..
the item still could nto be considered native,, or more correctly native to the previous culture,
what im interested in in amrour purly native to africa,
it appers that the central western part of africa had a unique style in making their weapons, and a unique concept in how they should be used and what for, and so i am facinated as to how they made them and how the technique evolved.
as normaly where more and more metal working is undertaken in larger amounts, skill increases and technique forms more precisly.. and so the understanding of steel increases and is transfered to the next smith,
in areas where many many tools or weapons are produced that are alike you get an increase in the quality as each smith compeats to sell his work and each user wishes his item to be more superior than the next mans..
s you can get a simple golok,, with a poorly treated blade and a crude grip..
and you can get a fine one made of folded steel with a ivory grip and exsotic wood on the sheath....
...
ive noticed that most african knives had large flaws in the blade,
and as i dont know what type of smithing techniques they sued i woudl hazard a guess in that they used a stone anvil and proably very simple tools..
still to put so meany fullers into the itmes would take quite some work without good tools..
but realy the hardening if found is mostly very soft, or none atall,
all antique african weaponrt ive found is no softer than a normal machete or other spring hardened item, 45 rockwell or less..
and the blade finish also interests me , was there an ability to polish the blades atall as ive never seen any actualy polish on the..
and for that matter did the people possess any rotary grinding device?
or did these only come with the arrival of europeans..
this area of thins is quite of interest as it is a large area and these items were still made in mos recent times, and realy in huge amounts......
as when you look at the numbers of soliders sepcific african cheifdoms had under them.. they are quite large. 5000 or 10000 or more.. and most of these no doubt woudl have had some hand weapons aside from spears..
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And as far as mail armor not being indigenous to southern Sudan, this is ridiculous. What is indigenous? Mail armor is believed to have been invented in East Asia or Eastern Europe, yet no one accuses mail armor of the Middle East as not being indigenously Middle Eastern.
Also, the Romans would have no mail armor if were not for their encounters with the Gauls who they considered to be of another race in the modern sense of the word. Are we to say that mail armor is not Roman?
As for your example of the 17th century Yucatan cutlass, ausjulius, this would not apply to Sudanese mail armor. For these warriors wore this armor in the middle ages and birthed kingdoms with it. It is not as if this armor was worn centuries later at a time when their descendents were no longer referred to as Sudanese which would have to be the case in your example of the Mayan descendent from the Yucatan.