Massai ceremonial initiation spear for comment

[Titus Pullo]

Originally Posted by Freddy

Luc, according to the book 'African Arms and Armour' by Christopher Spring, there are more types of Maasai spear.

This is what he writes in his book :

The graded system of Maasai society is reflected by the four distinct types of spear commonly used by them. The uncircumcised boys usually carry a javelin-like spear, esururu, made out of one piece of rounded iron, sometimes with a leather hand grip bound around the centre. The head is sometimes hammered into an oval shape but often left straight. The butt is usually of square section.

A couple of years ago, I happened to stumble onto such a spear. Here are some pics :







This is not some kind of ceremonial item. It has a real good balance and is fairly heavy (all iron). I think it would do quite some damage when thrown at something or someone.

The total length is approx 1m80 (72 inches)

I heard they used to hunt lions with their spears. It takes a lot of injuries to kill a big ferocious animals like that. I heard somebody was attacked by a sick lion, that couldn't hunt the normal preys, and at first, he stabbed it a couple times with his knife, and it still was trying to kill him by closing it's jaws around his head trying to puncture his skull with the big canines, so he keep stabbing it until it finally let go and took off.