Congo sword ID help

[Helleri]

Originally Posted by colin henshaw

With regard to Kuba swords and knives ... the inlaid metal decorations to the wooden hilt are very finely done, usually in a greyish colour metal (sometimes in copper) ... I have wondered what type of metal it is - lead or zinc ??

Another observation - very similar work is to be found on some Acholi (Uganda) axes (images attached), but the Acholi are a long way from the Kuba. I wonder if this is just coincidence or is there another reason ?

More likely lead. It tends to get darker and duller with oxidation. Whereas Zinc gets dustier and whiter and can even get a light grey to white powder oxide deposit wherever there is a seam between it and wood for long enough. Zinc is also rather brittle by itself. Zinc also tends to be found as an oxide or sulfide in ores, mixed in with a lot of other stuff. Usually a good amount of smelting is required to extract relatively elementally pure zinc. Whereas lead can be frequently found in what is sometimes called native form. Appearing as highly homogeneous nuggets that can be cold forged as found very easily into a wide variety of shapes (working with lead is almost like working with play-dough in how it behaves). Lead likes to spread out when you hammer it so it would work really well for inlay. Zinc you'd have to cast and cut and can't really do much in the way of hammer shaping without crumbling it.

Another option for a dull grey malleable is pewter. Which is basically the opposite of bronze (high tin with a little bit of copper and other things as apposed to high copper with a little bit of tin and other things). But pewter can be really expensive and difficult to come by depending on where you are. Because tin is a rare earth metal. You really only see prolific use of it in native cultures where there are high deposits of tin as well as antimony and bismuth. Or where they could trade for it with areas that had it and had a high affinity for the stuff.