Turkana foot knives?

[colin henshaw]

I believe this to be an archer's aid for drawing a bowstring. Not sure if it was to protect the fingers from the string, or for use on the other arm, as a bracer. From West Africa.

There are also slightly similar iron objects, with a loop for the hand, but with a knife blade made integral to the piece of equipment.

[Congoblades]

I have never seen anything like that in any african collection or musea.
Foot knives

[Jim McDougall]

Trusty Google, reveals these not that unusual, and found one on a dealers website. Apparantly the Turkana tribes situated in Kenya are fond of having edged weapons as worn accoutrements on their wrists, fingers and feet.
The ringed finger knives and circular wrist knives are more well known.

[Congoblades]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

Trusty Google, reveals these not that unusual, and found one on a dealers website. Apparantly the Turkana tribes situated in Kenya are fond of having edged weapons as worn accoutrements on their wrists, fingers and feet.

Is there any reference on these feet knives?

The ornate arsenals of the Turkana include a relatively wide variety of weapons. Until the advent of modern firearms, traditional Turkana men used to carry spears (akwara) with a small narrow blade, a fighting stick or knobkerrie (aselej or esebo) and a narrow shield (aupwal) made out of the hide of either a giraffe or buffalo. For close combat fighting they wore a circular wrist knife (abarait) and one or two finger knives (egolu) and finger hooks (ecorogat) which were designed to gouge out an enemy’s eyes.
http://www.sslmit.units.it/crevatin/...0CONFLICTS.htm

[Congoblades]

Not fast enough