Sboula for Comments

[Kubur]

Originally Posted by TVV

Thank you for the comments gentlemen.

Kubur, I personally believed the sboulas to be from Morocco, based on a couple of things:
1. The ones in Tirri's book show Moroccan decorative motives.
2. The only picture of a native wearing one shows him with an afedali musket from the Sous valley.
Sincerely,
Teodor

Jim, Teodor, I checked in my books and you are right: Morroco.
Buttin called them sboula or sekkin, he admited that this kind of daggers has some Moroccan characteristics... As Arial said Berbers spread from Tunisia to Mali.

[Jim McDougall]

Thank you Kubur, and you are right, Buttin did indeed describe ornamentation etc. as distinctly Moroccan and would have been most familiar with the weapons of Morocco. As I was told by his great grandson Dominique, he lived much of his life in Morocco so was keenly aware of their arms.
Teodor, good points on the bayonet potential for these weapons as being somewhat questionable, and I admit from my own standpoint, it was more of a notion given the extremely thin, needle point nature of a number of these (case in point Buttin, #1033). This example is specifically termed 'sekkin' as opposed to s'boula, and perhaps this, 'extremely long poniard' was identified as such by that term.
I had thought this looked remarkably like either the M1874 Epee Gras or the M1886 Lebel bayonets.
Again, another free association assumption.

Ariel, good notes on the Berbers, and I recall years ago (actually I think in this particular research) reading the anthropological study on Moroccan Berber ancestry "Tribes of the Rif" (Carleton S. Coon, 1932) where they emphatically declared they were 'Caucasian' or 'white' and not negroid.

To try to estimate types of weapons by classifying them as 'Berber' would be as useless as trying to classify a weapon as 'Byzantine' . It does seem that such broad classification has transcended these kinds of vague terming in the case of 'Ottoman' in perhaps too many cases, but accompanying qualification seems to usually rectify these.

[Kubur]

I have a small problem now.
What are the differences between a sboula and a genoui?
I can't find genoui in the litterature, is it something from collectors only?

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Kubur

I have a small problem now.
What are the differences between a sboula and a genoui?
I can't find genoui in the litterature, is it something from collectors only?

Actually, as in so many cases of the 'name game' in ethnographic edged weapons, the term is actually 'djenoui' (or genouii; janwi) and is a loosely used colloquialism in primarily Berber (or Maghrebi) parlance for a straight bladed dagger. This has often been applied to the koummya with straight blade, or any similar North African dagger with straight blade (indeed most likely by collectors).

As these were often from repurposed European blades, and presumably recalling earlier imports from Genoan sources, thus 'Genouii' (=Genoan), obviously an explanation wide open to critique, but the one typically recalled in discussions here over the past 8-10 years.

The s'boula could be technically called this I suppose, but really it is a matter of semantics and local parlance. The term s'boula is associated with Moroccan edged weapon as discussed, where the genouii term is mostly a colloquial term for straight blade with far broader scope.

When we really get into these terms as far as local parlances, even the koummya is not known by that term locally....it is simply 'khanjhar', much the way sa'if is used for the so called 'nimcha' sword in Morocco.

[Kubur]

Thank you very much Jim. I agree.
In the past, you or another member compared the Genoui to the Algerian khodmi or Bou Saada.
I make sense but then if the genoui and the s'bula are the same then it's confusing...
Here are some classic s'bula. I will post later the Tunisian ones that I mentionned at the begining...

[TVV]

Jim brings up a good point: as collectors we have a need for classification, unlike the original users of the weapons. Therefore, we often get caught up in needless semantics discussions.

That being said, I believe the people who made and used these swords still made some differentiation - for example, to them a short dagger would not be the same as one with a 22 inches/55 cm blade, as the two would have served an entire different purpose. In various cultures, we see a similar trend of knives becoming longer to serve as a sort of a short sword: whether it is the yataghans in the Ottoman Empire, the bauerwehr (and in later times the hanger) in Europe, the Khyber knife in Afghanistan or the sboula, the concept is the same. Whether because of socio-economic restraints: a sword was an expensive weapon, and in many cultures restricted to only certain social classes, or simply because a full sized sword was impractical and something easier to carry around was necessary, long knives as side arms seem to have existed almost everywhere.

When looking at the picture of the warrior with the afedali musket, the sboula is thrust in his sash not dissimilar to how a yataghan would be thrust in the silyahlik, and while the gun is his main weapon, he probably wanted a side arm in case a hand to hand combat situation arose. So when looking at sboulas, I see them as that: a longer dagger for use in those situations where a normal sized dagger would not be enough, and where a full sized sword or sabre would be too much or simply unobtainable.

The janwi (djenoui, genoui) on the other hand seems to be of shorter, more regular dagger size proportions and hilted like a koummaya. Obviously, longer versions like the one Kubur posted from wodimi's site exist, and there are certainly shorter daggers with an H-shaped hilt. There is no clear line between the two sometimes, taking us back to Jim's post about the futility of trying to come up with a rigid classification system.

To sum it up, I use "sboula" to refer to a longer dagger (20 inches+ blade) with an H shaped hilt, and "genoui" to refer to a regular sized straight dagger with a koummaya type hilt, with the understanding that this terminology is imperfect and exceptions and in-between versions of both forms exist.

Teodor

[Kubur]

Well Teodor I agree we like to put names on things.
But I'm not satisfied with the sbula with a H shaped hilt, neither completly satisfied by the Moroccan attribution. I agree that most of them are Moroccan but not only. If the genoui was inspired by the little Italian dagger, yes it should be under 40cm long. For the hilt I'm not sure...