Names of African Swords

[Changdao]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

To add to my previous soliloquy;
The 'Mandinka' sabers are as noted typically regarded as from this tribe and from Mali, but obviously there are not distinct geographic boundaries to their regional presence. As far as I have known, there has never been a term for these sabers distinctly assigned, nor a distinct regional categorization...simply that it is a Mandinka saber.

The Mandinka tribes as I have understood were keenly in control of Trans Saharan trade routes which of course went through the important hub of Timbuktu in Mali. This alone would account for the diffusion of these type sabers, and the distinct leather work which seems to come from the west.
It is notable that the flared scabbard tip which is a distinctly Sudanese feature from the kaskara is present on these Mandinka sabers.

Also notable is that these typically have European saber blades, which is atypical for the preference of straight broadsword blades from Sahara to Sudan with the takouba and kaskara. Here I would note that some Tuareg swords with takouba type hilts have such saber blades and are known as ALJUINAR in Taureg parlance.

As far as the MANDINKA saber, I was once discussing these with a Fulani man from Guinea and showed him photos of one of these.
He immediately recognized it and called it KOTA........and pointed out the scabbard as called HOLGA (= house, apparently).

The study of the diffusion of these sabers is far more complex, but of course reflects the importance of the trade routes and how they carried not only goods but many cultural influences far and wide.

Not only there aren't distinct geographical borders, but ethnical as well. These were used in a very wide area from the Atlantic coast by a wide range of ethnicities, from Mandinka to Wolof and various varieties of Fulani (Tukulors, those in the kingdom of Kaabu, those in Futa Djallon, etc.).

The Mandinka, particularly Dyula, were indeed in control of many trade routes, but these were internal ones, which we know were pretty intense. Mali lost control of the various terminus cities of Trans-Saharan trade in the 1430's to the Magsharan Tuareg, and never recovered them. However, Mandinka traders were present all over west Africa, from the coast to the interior, and traded a high volume of various things. One of these was metal implements forged by skilled Mandinka blacksmiths.

Particularly relevant to these sabers, the Portuguese confirm the presence of sabers all over modern Senegal in the 1450's (from the south bank of the Senegal river to the river Gambia, from where they specifically came and where they were likely forged by Mandinka smiths and exported). Obviously we don't know how these sabers were (or the 80 cm long doubled edged shortswords described also by the Portuguese in the 1600's), but I don't believe that it is a very far-fetched idea to at least suppose they were related to the "Mandinka" sabers and shortswords/daggers. Particularly interesting is the fact that there are notable similarities in the abstract shape of the hilt of both types, especially in the metallic knob in the pommel.

The widespread of the basic idea but with so many regional variations, particularly seen in weapons from Sierra Leone at the edge of the distribution range speaks of the deep roots in history of the weapon family, especialy given the profound Mandinka influence in the history of the region and local ethnogenesis before and as a consequence of the Mane invasion around 1550 (especially because their panoply was apparently identical to the Mande-speaking Susu and to Mandinka caravan guards in the river Gambia!)

The takouba likely has a similarly deep history in West Africa, with its wide range of distribution and regionalised styles. Particularly intriguing is that Leo Africanus c.1510 states that European blades were imported to the Songhay Empire and sold at Gao, for a pretty high price, presumably to be mounted in the local style. Given that we have extant takouba blades from the XVIIth century, at the very least it gives evidence that the practice goes at least a century before that. Without much in the way of solid evidence, but again a reasonable inference in my view, I would say that the takouba style hilt was also present in some form by that date.

I would not overemphasize the European blades. Probably what there is at play is survivor bias, in that most "mandinka" sabers that have survived were captured at the tail end of the 19th century, at a time when Africa (and the rest of the world) was flooded by European-made industrial blades. That's not to say that the imports were not significative, though.