THE SWORD IN ANCIENT EGYPT AND IN MODERN AFRICA.
The present state of our history shows us nothing anterior to Egypt in
the civilisation of Language, of Literature, of Science, Art and Arms.
We must now modify and modernise the antiquated and obsolete saying—‘ex
Oriente lux’—the fancy that illumination came from India, when the
reverse is true. The light of knowledge dawned and dayed not in the
East, but in the South, in the Dark Continent, which is also the High
Continent.[450] Nor can we any longer admit that
Westward the course of empire takes its way.
As Professor Lepsius teaches us, ‘In the oldest times within the memory
of man, we know of only _one_ advanced culture; of only _one_ mode of
writing, and of only one literary development, viz. those of Egypt.’
Karl Vogt, a man who has the courage to say what he thinks, bluntly
states: ‘Our civilisation came not from Asia, but from Africa.’ For our
origin we must return to
The world’s great mistress in the Egyptian vale.
The modern Egyptologist is reforming the false and one-sided theories
based upon the meagre studies of anthropological literature in Greek,
Latin, and Hebrew. Yet in the Nile Valley we are only upon the
threshold of exploration—topographical, linguistic, and scientific. Of
its proto-Egyptians and its primæval workmanship as yet we know little;
and it is truly preposterous to suppose that man began his artistic
life by building pyramids, cutting obelisks, and engraving hieroglyphs.
The ‘Cushite School,’ based upon the Asiatic Ethiopians of Eusebius
the Bishop,[451] and unfortunately represented by Bunsen, Maspero,
Wilkinson, Mariette, Brugsch, and a host of minor names, has determined
that the old Nilotes ‘undoubtedly came from Asia.’ The theory utterly
lacks proof; and the same may be said of the popular assertion, based
upon Biblical grounds—‘The early colonists of Egypt came thither
from Mesopotamia.’ We seem to be reading fable when told (by William
Osburn[452]), ‘The skill of these primitive artists of Egypt was a
portion of that civilisation which its first settlers brought with them
when they located themselves in the Valley of the Nile.’
My conviction is that the ancient Egyptians were Africans, and pure
Africans; that the Nile-dwellers are still negroids whitened by a
large infusion of Syrian, Arabian, and other Asiatic blood; and that
Ethiopia is its old racial home. Æschylus had already robed their black
limbs in white raiment when Herodotus (ii. 104) made them dark-skinned
compared with the Arabs[453] and North Africans. Every traveller finds
his description hold good to the present day. Blumenbach declared
the old Egyptians to be of Berber origin, the race of Psametik, or
the Son of the Sun. Hartmann opined that they were not Asiatics but
Africans, and Dr. Morton modified his first opinion, finding the
cranium to be negroid. I hope to prove their correctness by making a
large collection of mummy skulls.[454] It is certain that the modern
Egyptian’s hair—that great characteristic of race, according to Pruner
Bey—is not silky, as Professor Huxley says, but wiry like that of
his forefathers.[455] Moreover, his type, as distinctly shown by the
Sphinx, is melanochroic-negroid. Lastly, there are other signs, which
need not here be noticed, distinguishing the African—horse as well as
human—from the Arabian.
[Heading: _ANTIQUITY OF EGYPT._]
There is a history of ancient Egypt, into which we have not yet
penetrated. Herodotus (ii. 142) glances at it when he makes the
Ptah-priest at Memphis pretend to an antiquity of 11,340 years,[456]
during which reigned 341 generations of kings and pontiffs.[457] Plato
does the same when he speaks of hymns 10,000 years old, and Mela[458]
when he numbers 330 kings before Amasis, who ruled more than 30,000
years. Mena (Menes), the first man-monarch who founded Memphis (B.C.
4560?) some centuries before the Hebrew Creation, was preceded for
13,000 years by the ‘Dynasty of the Gods’ (god-kings), suggesting a
governmental hierarchy of the fetisheer caste: and this lasted for
ages, till the Soldier upset the Priest and raised himself to the rank
of Pharaoh[459] and king. Traces of the proto-Egyptian dynasties in
which the men of the Pen controlled the men of the Sword long survived;
and in later times the ecclesiastical order again ruled the military.
We know nothing of the hierarchical supremacy but its baldest outline.
When our modest chronologists allow 6000 years to its incept, they
run into the contrary extreme of those who assign to it myriads of
centuries. Rodier[460] is more reasonable; he opines that the cycle of
1,460 years dates in Egypt from B.C. 14,611.
[Illustration: FIG. 151.—1. BRONZE DAGGER; 2. SWORD (14 inches long).]
Again, it will probably be found that ancient Egypt was _not_ ‘the
narrowest strip of land in the world running between a double desert.’
The extent of ‘Kemi’[461] has been arbitrarily confined to the Riverine
Valley as far as the First Cataract, or seven hundred by seven miles
widening out in the Delta-netherland to a base of eighty-one miles. We
may fairly suspect that modern Masr is only a slice from the eastern
half of the antique Mizraim. The Greeks made the frontier of Asia
extend beyond the Suez isthmus and the Nile to the lands of Libya.[462]
This Greater Egypt is still suggested by the system of Bahr bilá má,
large _Fiumare_ now bone-dry, and by the alignment of the oases in
the wilderness west of the River Valley with their giant ruins of
a proto-historic Past. These may date from the days when the basin
of the Bahr el-Ghazal—a lake like the Tanganyika and the Victoria
Nyanza—discharged its annual flood to the North in channels parallel
with the ‘River Ægyptus.’[463] The lacustrine bed would silt up by the
natural process of warping, and the surplus water, no longer able to
discharge northwards, would force itself eastwards to the Nile. The
easier drainage would presently convert the lake into a river-basin and
system, and the lands no longer irrigated would become a waste dotted
like a leopard skin with oases or watered valleys.
An abundance of popular literature has familiarised the public
with the outer aspect of ancient Egypt, but the world is still far
from recognising the message she sent to mankind. We must go back
to ‘the Wonderland on the banks of the mighty Nile’ for the origin
of all things which most interest us. It is the very cradle-land
of language. Her tongue contains all the elements of the so-called
‘Aryan,’[464] Semitic, and Allophyllian or Turanian families, and dates
long before the days of the present distribution. Bunsen’s ‘Egypt’
first noticed this fact at some length, without, however, dwelling
upon its importance. ‘All Semitic pronouns and suffixes,’ says M.
C. Bertin, ‘can be traced back to Egyptian, especially the Egyptian
of the earliest dynasties’; he might have added much about other
mechanical forms. Brugsch tells us (i. 3) that the primitive roots and
the essential elements of the Egyptian grammar point to an intimate
connection of the Indo-Germanic (!) and Semitic languages.[465] The
Allophyllian or Agglutinative Turanian,[466] a _tertium quid_ which is
neither ‘Aryan’ nor ‘Semitic,’ is also traceable in old Coptic.
[Heading: _ORIGINS IN EGYPT._]
What, then, do these facts suggest? Simply that the elements existing
in Egyptian travelled from the banks of the Nile and evolved,
discreted, and differentiated themselves in many centres. The
word-compounding or Iranian scheme found homes in Eastern Europe
(Greece, Italy, and the Slavonic or quasi-Asiatic half); in Asia
Minor—especially Phrygia—in Mesopotamia, in Persia, and finally in
India, where the settlement was comparatively modern. This explains
how a philologist would derive Sanskrit from Lithuania. This saves
us from the ‘Aryan heresy’;[467] this abolishes ‘Indo-European,’ and
worse still ‘Indo-Germanic’—that model specimen of national modesty.
Both are terms which contain a theory and an unproved theory. Again,
the word-developing or Arabian scheme, absurdly termed Semitic (from
Shem!), increased, multiplied, and perfected itself in Northern Africa
and Arabia, while the Turanian, becoming independent and specialised in
Akkadian, overspread Tartary and China.
And this one primæval language of Egypt framed for itself an alphabet
whence are derived all others. This is proved by the fact that each
and all begin, as Plutarch tells us old Coptic did, with the letter
A. Of its age in Nile-land we may judge from the cartouche containing
Khufu’s name, left by some workman on an inner block of the Great
Pyramid.[468] How many generations of articulate-speaking men must have
come and gone before so artificial and artistic a system as the Royal
Signature upon the Shield occurred to the human mind!
But Egypt did still more. She was the fountain-head of knowledge
which overflowed the world. Eastward the great current set through
Babylonia and Chaldæa, Persia and India, Indo-China, China, and Japan,
to Australia and Polynesia. Westward it flooded Africa and Europe. It
may have reached America by two ways. The Oriental line would extend
from China and Japan to the Eastern Pacific coast: the Occidental was
practicable _viâ_ Atlantis, or possibly in the days when Behring’s
Straits did not exist. It found a new Mediterranean in the great
Caribbean Gulf, and new Indies in Mexico and Peru. Indeed, the march of
intellect from Egypt is conterminous with the limits of the habitable
globe.
The invention of an alphabet would necessarily lead to
literature—poetry, history, and criticism. The earliest known
manuscript is the Prisse (d’Avennes) Papyrus, a roll dating from the
days of Pharaoh Tat-ka-ra, last of the Fifth Dynasty (circ. B.C. 3000).
It is a collection of proverbs, maxims, precepts, and commandments, of
which the fifth is, ‘Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy life
may be long’: the style is admirable for its humorous vein, and for its
graphic description of old age—‘Senex bis puer.’ The earliest epic is
the heroic poem of Pentaur, laureate to Ramses II. (B.C. 1333–1300);
it is the prototype of the cyclic songs which, in Cyprus especially,
preceded the _chef-d’œuvre_ of the Homerid chief; and it opens with an
‘Arma Virumque cano.’ The ‘Deadbook’ is the birth of the Drama, and it
may date ages before the dialogues of Job. The ‘Canticles of Solomon’
are in the evocations of Isis and Nephthys.[469] The _critique_ of a
young author’s production by a purist in style might add a sting to
reviewing in the present day.[470] To the Egyptians we must attribute
the invention of maps and plans. They first studied heraldry: every
nome had its distinctive emblem, generally bird or beast; and each
temple and guild its blazon.[471]
Literature would be imperfect without art and science, and accordingly
we find their head-quarters and old home in Egypt. These studies
humanised the people; their code suggests the mildness of modern penal
law; and their reverence for letters, for old age, and for the dignity
of man, makes them an eternal example to the world. The monuments show
their fondness for music and painting. Their knowledge of statuary
is proved by a host of works, especially the wooden Shaykh el-Balad
(village chief) in the Bulak Museum—a marvel of skill, probably dating
from the Fourth Dynasty, B.C. 3700. In architecture they invented the
arch, round and pointed; eight several orders of columns, including
the proto-Doric; Atlantes, Caryatides, and human-shaped consoles. The
‘temple of Jízeh’ near the sphinx is evidently older than the adjoining
pyramids; it is a model of solidity in which the hardest stone is
worked like wood.
[Heading: _EGYPT THE CRADLE-LAND._]
In science they especially cultivated geometry, astronomy, astrology,
and ‘alchemy,’ whose name betrays its origin. Their arithmetic taught
decimals and duodecimals. Their mathematics arose from measuring fields
and calculating the cubes of altars. They knew the precession of the
equinoxes: Rodier (p. 31) considers that they learnt it from observing
the equinoctial point and the rising of Sothis, the Tuth-star, ‘the
axle of the skies,’ in the same zodiacal sign, and that the studies at
Syene date from B.C. 17,932. They knew the motion of the apsides, and
the solar and stellar periods; they invented latitude and longitude;
they denoted by a cross the intersection of the solstices and the
equinoxes, and they published annual calendars. In optics they invented
the lens. They were not ignorant of the motive power of steam, and
possibly the electric fish had taught them the rudiments of electricity.
They were great in the mechanical arts. In medicine they dissected
and vivisected: in agriculture they invented the plough, the harrow,
the toothed sickle, the flail, and the tribulum; in carpentry the
dove-tail; in ceramics the potter’s wheel, and in hydraulics the
water-wheel. In gardening they transplanted full-grown trees. They
made glass, porcelain, and counterfeit pearls and precious stones;
and they used emery powder and the lapidary’s wheel. They spun silk,
and knew the use of mordants for stuffs and dyes for hair. They made
‘babies’ (dolls) and children’s toys of clay, and they moulded masks of
papier-mâché. In some points they were strangely modern. For hunting
they wore dresses of ‘suppressed colour,’ not pink nor ‘rifleman’s
green’: we are just beginning to find out our mistakes. They affected
falconry, and played at the draughts which led to chess; and at
_morra_, the Roman _micare digitis_. They sat on chairs whose shapes
are like ours, not on divans nor on triclinia. In their house furniture
they studiously avoided over-regularity; and Japan is now teaching
England and Germany not to weary man’s eye by monotony.
And as they were advanced in literature and politics, the religion
of earth, so they assiduously cultivated religion, the politics of
heaven. The Biblical student has found among the tombs of Nile-land
the absolute truth of what Celsus said—namely, that the Hebrews
borrowed their tenets and practices from Egypt. Their date of the
creation _ex nihilo_ (B.C. 4004–4620) was evidently Manetho’s period
of the succession of Mena, and it is used even in our day. Their
genesitic cosmogony, as Philo Judæus shows, and as Origen expressly
declares, was an adaptation of Nilotic allegories and mysteries which
the vulgar understood factually and literally. Their ‘Adam’ suggests
‘Atum,’ whence ‘Adima,’ the First Man amongst the Hindus. Their App or
Apap (Apophis), whose determinative is a snake transfixed with four
knife-blades,[472] is the great old serpent, the ophid-giant, Sin,
Sathanas. The ‘Flood’[473] is the annual Nilotic inundation modified
by the Izdubar legends of the Interamnian Plain. Noah, Nuh, Nöe, is
suspiciously like Nu or Nuhu,[474] the Sailor of the Waters, the Lord
of the Full Nile. Ham suggests Kam, the black race. The ark is the
Bahr or Ua (Baris, Argo navis) of Nu, the sacred vessel portrayed in
the ruins of Egyptian Elephanta, the boat of Osiris, or Uasur, the
man-formed Sun-god; and the floating cradle of Moses is a mere replica
of Osiris’ ark. In that complicated idolatry of deceased ancestors,
based upon a system of monotheism,[475] or rather the worship of
glorified man, which formed the religion of Egypt, the Sun typified
human life. He rose as the infant Horus; he was the Lord Ka of the
mid-day; as Tum he became old and set; and as Hormakhu (Harmachis) he
shone to the under world below the horizon, Night and Death being the
forerunners of Light and Life.[476]
The preternatural apparatus of both faiths (original and borrowed) is
the same. The four genii of Death—Amset (under Isis), Hapi (Nephthys),
Tuamutef (Neith), and Khebsenauf (Sebk)—became the four archangels. Of
Urim and Thummim, the latter is the plural of Thmei (Themis), the blind
or headless goddess of Truth and Justice.[477] Even such phrases as ‘I
am that I am’[478] are loans from the hierogrammat; Ankh (I am Life)
was rendered Yahveh (Jehovah). This ‘ineffable name’[479] is borrowed
by some, Colenso included, from Semitic heathenism; but Brugsch shows
that Egypt supplied the Mosaic conception of the Creator. There
appears, indeed, direct derivation in the unity of the Deity and in the
duality of Typhon, Set, Satan, the Evil Spirit. Later ages copied the
local Triads of Kemi, in which the third proceeded from the other two.
Both ecclesiastical establishments contained Prophets (_Sem_),[480]
High Priests,[481] Priests, ‘Holy Fathers,’ and Scribes. The Decalogue
is a _résumé_ of the forty-two commandments in the Deadbook (chapter
125). The portable shrines of the great Egyptian gods originated the
Tabernacle, which grew to be the Temple; it corresponds with the Σχήνη
ἱερὰ or movable tent of the Carthaginians. The African practice of
circumcision was probably intended originally as a prophylactic against
syphilis, of which traces have been found in prehistoric bones. The
peculiar Jewish hatred for pork is reasonless unless we explain it by a
superstitious horror of the Typhonian beast. Rationalists tell us that
the meat was religiously forbidden because unwholesome in the tropics,
a _causa non causa_: it is the favourite food in the Brazil, in China,
and in Christian India; even the Maráthás will eat wild hog; nor are
the habits of the animal more filthy than the duck’s. The truth is that
these dietary prohibitions served to make a _differentia_, to disunite
man, to pit race against race and to feed the priest.
But while the Hebrews drew largely upon the wisdom (and the unwisdom)
of Egypt, they ruthlessly cast out the eminently Nilotic ideas of a
Soul, of a Judgment of the Dead, and of a future state of rewards
and punishments—three tenets which, in modern days, form the very
foundation of all faiths. ‘If a man die, shall he live (again)?’
asks Job (xiv. 14), in a chapter showing that life once lost is lost
for ever.[482] And apparently from the days of Moses this was the
peculiarity of ‘Semitic’ thought; it lived in the Present and had
no Future, or rather it spurned the world to come. ‘Moses,’ says
Professor Owen, ‘could not admit the after-life, or teach of reward and
retribution in a future state, without risk of tainting his monotheism
with some trace of the manifold symbolism environing the “divine
son of Amen” (Osiris), who after suffering loss of the mortal life,
which he had assumed for bettering his kind, became, on resigning his
divinity, their judge.’ The Hebrews adopted Soul and Judgment, Heaven
and Hell, many centuries after Moses from their Assyrian kinsmen,[483]
who also supplied them with their present names for the twelve months
and sundry astronomical notions. And their modern descendants by
universally accepting a Resurrection have done that against which Moses
so carefully guarded.
I need hardly say that the mythologies of Greece, Etruria, and Rome
only corrupted Egyptian mysteries and metaphysics. Three instances will
suffice: Charon is a degraded Horus; Minos is Mena, and Rhadamanthus
contains the word Amenti, the right side (of Osiris), the west.
Nor can we be surprised if Egypt is now giving rise to scientific
superstitions. Every reader of ‘Pyramid Literature’ will note the
mysterious influence which Kemi is exercising upon the modern mind.[484]
[Heading: _EGYPTIAN METALLURGY._]
In the preceding chapters I have noted the development of metallurgy by
the ancient Egyptians. They probably began with gold,[485] the easiest
of all ores to find and to work; it was abundant in Upper Egypt, and
about B.C. 1600 they found a California in ‘Kush’ (Æthiopia). They
called it Tum, Khetem, and Nb, which is variously pronounced Nebu,
Neb, and Nub, whence Nubia. It has two hieroglyphic determinatives
[Hieroglyphs], the necklace and the washing-bowl covered with the
straining-cloth. The Kemites called silver ‘white gold,’[486] showing
the movement of invention; and they could draw silver wire three
thousand years ago. Wilkinson (II. chap. viii.) remarks, ‘The position
of the silver-mines is unknown’; but he wrote before the discovery
of Midian, where surface-stones have been picked up containing
three ounces per ton. As their pictures prove, they worked iron,
although little has outlasted the corrosion of Time. They applied the
blow-pipe to the works of the whitesmith. They were well acquainted
with soldering by lead or alloys,[487] as is shown by the Shesh or
Sistrum of Mr. Burton. I may here remark parenthetically that this
_crepitaculum_ used in temple-service gave rise to the Maracá or
Tammaraka, the sacred rattle, a gourd full of pebbles worshipped by
the Brazilian Tupis, who thus acknowledged the mysterious influence
of rhythmic sounds.[488] They were skilful in the damascening[489] or
inlaying of weapons, an invention claimed by those model ‘claimants,’
the Greeks. Their simple process was to cut out the ground, to hammer
in gold and silver, and, finally, to file and polish the surface.[490]
[Heading: _EGYPTIAN WEAPONS._]
The metallurgic proficiency of Old Egypt would lead to the development
of arms and armour, and enable the soldier to win easier victories
over the ‘vile, impure, and miserable Gentiles’—i.e. all men except
themselves. The god Anhar, or Shu, is ‘Lord of the Scymitar.’ Horus,
as a hawk-headed mummied deity, is seated holding two Swords. Amen-Ra,
Lord of Hab, is a ‘great god Ramenma, “Lord of the Sword.”’ The
‘wearer of the Pshent or double crown’ (the Pharaoh), the image of
Monthu, god of war, was _ex-officio_ ‘His Holiness’ (high-priest) and
Commander-in-Chief, who personally led his warriors to ‘wash their
hearts’ (cool their valours) as the Zulus wash their spears. Like
Horus, he is ‘valiant with the Sword.’[491] When going to war he was
presented with the ‘Falchion of Victory,’ and thus addressed: ‘Take
this weapon, and smite with it the heads of the unclean.’ In paintings
and sculptures he is a large and heroic figure: he draws the bow, he
spears or cuts down the foe, and he drives his war-car over the bodies
of the slain. His soldiers are divided into Calasiri (Krashr[492] or
bowmen) and Hermotybians, the latter unsatisfactorily derived[493] from
ἡμιτύβιον, a strong linen (waist-?) cloth. The two divisions represent
the second of the five castes, ranking below the priestly and above
the agricultural: they held one of the three portions into which the
land was divided. Recruits were taught in the military schools that
originated the Pentathlon and the Pancratium, the Palæstra and the
Gymnasium. They were carefully trained to gymnastics, as the monumental
pictures in the Beni Hasan tombs show; they used Mogdars or Indian
clubs, and they excelled in wrestling, though not in boxing. The royal
statues are those of athletes, with their broad shoulders, thin flanks
and well-developed muscles. The soldier practised single-stick, the
right hand being apparently protected by a basket-guard, and the left
forearm shielded by a splint or splints of wood, strapped on, and
serving for a shield (fig. 152).
The standing army consisted of foot and horse,[494] the latter being
mostly in chariots; and they were divided into corps, regiments,
battalions, and companies. The men were officered by Chiliarchs
(colonels), Hekatontarchs (captains), and Dekarchs (sergeants), as the
Greeks called them. The ‘heavies’ were armed with a long strong spear
and an immense shield provided with a sight-hole. Some carried the
‘Lisán’-club, the battle-axe, and the mace; and almost all had for
side arms pole-axes,[495] Swords, falchions, and daggers. The ‘light
bobs’ were chiefly archers and slingers, also weaponed with ‘Lisáns,’
axes, war-flails, and Swords. The chariot-corps or cavalry, besides
bows and arrows, had clubs and short Swords for close quarters. The
battle-axes show clear derivation from the stone celt, which supplied
the hieroglyphs with the word Natr or Netr (Neter, &c.), meaning god,
gods, or goddess ([Hieroglyphs]).[496] In the Demotic alphabet the axe
was K (_Kelebia_).
[Illustration: FIG. 152.—SINGLE-STICK IN EGYPT.]
[Illustration: FIG. 153.—EGYPTIAN SOLDIER AND SHIELD.]
[Illustration: FIG. 154.—EGYPTIAN SOLDIERS.]
[Illustration: FIG. 155.—EGYPTIAN SOLDIER.]
[Illustration: FIG. 156.—1. EGYPTIANS FIGHTING, FROM PAINTINGS OF
THEBES; 2. EGYPTIAN SOLDIERS, FROM THEBAN BAS-RELIEFS.]
[Illustration: FIG. 157.—BRONZE HATCHETS IN WOODEN HANDLES, BOUND WITH
THONGS. (Heads, 3 and 4½ inches, Hefts, 15½ and 16½ inches.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 158.—POLE-AXES.]
[Illustration: FIG. 159.—KHETEN OR WAR-AXES.]
The action began, at the sound of the trumpet, with an advance of
light-infantry, bowmen, slingers, and javelineers. Then came the charge
by the ponderous phalanx of ten thousand men, one hundred in front by
one hundred deep, and flanked by chariots and cavalry. Thus the close
combat was not the disorderly system of duels that prevailed in the
barbarous Middle Ages of Europe. In storming fortified places they used
the pavoise and testudo, the ram, the scaling-ladder, the bulwark or
movable tower, and the portable bridge. They were also skilful military
miners.
[Heading: _THE EGYPTIAN SWORD._]
The Egyptian phalanx was armed with the large shield, lance, and Sword;
the latter was generally called Seft, [Hieroglyphs], or [Hieroglyphs],
or [Hieroglyphs]; also inverted to Setf, [Hieroglyphs]: it becomes
Sifet in Æthiopia, and in Berber Siwuit. The weapon in the hieroglyphs
is of four different shapes. The first is the boomerang-Sword
[Hieroglyphs], _m_ or _ma_, meaning ‘to destroy’: this M is the root
of the Hebrew and Arabic _Maut_ and the Prakrit-Sanskrit, _Mar_.
The second is the Knife-Sword [Hieroglyphs], _At_ or _Kat_, the
determinative of cutting. These two are joined [Hieroglyphs] in the
root _ma_ (cut, mow). The third is the Khopsh, Khepsh, or Khepshi,
[Hieroglyphs], the sickle-Sword, still used in Abyssinia and throughout
Africa: with a flattened curve it became the Hindu Kubja, the Greek
‘Kopis,’ and the Gurkha ‘Kukkri.’ The second two are combined in the
root Smam, [Hieroglyphs], ‘to smite.’ Other names of the Sword are Ta
or Nai, [Hieroglyphs], and Nai, Na’ui, or Nakhtui, [Hieroglyphs].
The falchion (_ensis falcatus_), called Shopsh, Khepsh, or Khopsh,[497]
is represented as early as the Sixth Dynasty (after B.C. 3000). Hence,
says Meyrick, the Κοπὶς of Argos—Argolis being a very mixed province,
where the base was Pelasgian and the superstructure was Egyptian;
the latter introduced by Danaus, and followed by the Phœnicians, who
founded the town Phœnicia. Quintus Curtius (lib. iii.) says: ‘Copides
vocant gladios leviter curvatos, falcibus similes, quibus appetebant
belluarum manus.’ Apuleius (‘Met.’ lib. xi.) also speaks of ‘copides et
venabula.’[498]
Evidently the Egyptian Sf, Sefi, Seft, or ‘Sword’ generically,[499]
gave rise to the Mesopotamian Sibir, Sibirru, and Sapara; to the Greek
ξίφ-ος; to the Aramæan Saiph, Sipho, and to the Arabic صيف (Sayf-un),
the second syllables being merely terminative; while the Latin _spatha_
and the German Schwerte, and our Swerde and Sword, are the latest
echoes of Sef and Seft. The Germans say rightly, ‘Nichts wandert so
leicht als Waffen und Waffennamen.’
[Illustration: FIG. 160.—DIFFERENT FORMS OF THE EGYPTIAN KHOPSH
(KOPIS), WITH EDGES INSIDE AND OUTSIDE.]
Another Egyptian name for the sickle-shaped blade is Khrobi,[500] which
suggests the Hebrew Hereb (a weapon, a Sword). We are also sure that
the words are primitive Egyptian: the proof is that the symbol of ‘Má’
(‘destroy’ &c.), the Khopsh or _ensis falcatus_, is the numeral nine;
and the straight flesh-blade (_Kt_) is the pronoun thou, thee: the two
together alluded to the oldest religious practice.[501]
The falchion, shaped in the pattern of Ursæ major (?), was thick-backed
and weighted with bronze; the blade, in later days at least,[502]
was of iron or steel, as shown by the blue colour. Champollion[503]
notices blue Swords with golden hilts in the tomb of Ramses III., and
a ‘weapon Kops’ with the gold, of which the hilt consists, running up
the concave back of the blade. ‘The gold was therefore either sunk into
the iron, or gilded on the back. In other cases the Kops of kings was
entirely of gold, or, like other Swords, entirely of brass (copper?).
In another similar weapon, brass (copper?) and iron were blended in the
blade.’ An iron ‘Kops’ was found in a tomb at Gurnah.
[Illustration: FIG. 161.—1. EGYPTIAN SLING; 2. UNKNOWN WEAPON; 3.
SHEATHED DAGGER; 4. HATCHET; 5. SCORPION, OR WHIP-GOAD.]
[Illustration: FIG. 162.—EGYPTIAN DAGGERS.]
[Illustration: FIG. 163.—EGYPTIAN DAGGER OF BRONZE IN BRITISH MUSEUM.]
[Illustration: FIG. 164.—OFFICER OF LIFE-GUARD TO RAMSES II.,
APPARENTLY ASIATIC.]
[Illustration: FIG. 165.—BRONZE SWORD, FOUND AT AL-KANTARAH, EGYPT.]
The Khopsh, a sickle in type, and originally a throwing weapon as
well as a cutting arm, was always carried by the Pharaoh, who used it
indifferently with the pike (_Taru_), the mace, axe (_Aka_, _Akhu_),
battle-axe, or pole-axe (_Kheten_). Officers and privates, ‘lights’
as well as ‘heavies,’ also wielded it in pictures. Those commanding
infantry-corps are armed with the simple stick like the Roman centurion
and our drill-sergeant of bygone days.
[Illustration: FIG. 166.—1. AXE; 2. SPEAR-HEAD; 3. KHOPSH; 4.
LANCE-HEAD.]
[Illustration: FIG. 167.—BELT AND DAGGER.]
[Illustration: FIG. 168.—EGYPTIAN DAGGERS.]
The fourth or long-straight Sword, which does not appear in the
hieroglyphs, had a two-edged cut-and-thrust leaf-shaped blade from two
and a half to three feet long,[504] with a foining point like that
of the Somal.[505] These large weapons seem to have been used by
foreign mercenaries. The leaf- also becomes a trowel-form, betraying
its origin and derivation, the spear-head. The grip was hollowed away
in the centre, gradually thickening at either end, and was sometimes
inlaid with metal, stones, and precious woods. The pommel of that worn
in the Pharaoh’s girdle is surmounted by one or more hawk-heads, this
bird being the symbol of Ra[506] (the Sun). The handle is also adorned
with small pins and studs of gold, shown through suitable openings in
the front part of the sheath. With this weapon the warrior stabs the
enemy in the throat, as Mithras strikes the bull behind the shoulder.
A modified form was the Sword-dagger, of which two are sometimes
represented with the Pharaoh: it was generally carried in the belt.
This shape of weapon found its way to the Caucasus;[507] and the
Georgian Khanjar, hanging to the girdle in the place of the Sword, is
also a survival.
[Illustration: FIG. 169.—ASSYRIAN DAGGERS, SHEATHS, AND BELTS. (BRITISH
MUSEUM.)]
The Egyptian weapon is of various lengths. The bronze blade of Amunoph
II., found by Wilkinson at Thebes, measures only five and a quarter
inches: others rise to seven and even ten. Mr. Salt’s specimen in the
British Museum covers eleven and a half inches, including the handle;
and others reach one foot, and even sixteen inches. Many of these
blades taper from an inch and a half to two-thirds of an inch near
the point. Dr. John Evans[508] has a Sword, found at ‘Great Kantara’
during the construction of the Suez Canal; the blade is leaf-shaped,
and measures seventeen inches, and the whole length twenty-two inches
and three-eighths (fig. 165). ‘Instead of a hilt-plate, it is drawn
down to a small tang about three-sixteenths of an inch square. This
again expands into an octagonal bar about three-eighths of an inch in
diameter, which has been drawn down to a point, and then turned back
to form a hook, perhaps the earliest mode of hanging to the belt.’ At
the base of the blade are two rivet-holes, and the hilt must have been
formed of two pieces which clasped the tang. Dr. Evans also mentions a
bronze Sword-blade, presumably from Lower Egypt, in the Berlin Museum:
it has an engraved line down each side of the blade; it is more uniform
in width than the Kantara specimen, and the hilt is broken off.
[Illustration: FIG. 170.—DAGGER FROM THE CAUCASUS.]
[Illustration: FIG. 171.—EGYPTIAN CHOPPER-SWORDS.]
[Illustration: FIG. 172.—EGYPTIAN KHOPSH.]
Not a few Egyptian Swords are much thicker at the middle than at the
edges, and many are slightly grooved. The bronze is so well tempered,
either by hammering, by hydraulic pressure, or by phosphorisation (?),
that it has retained spring and pliability after several thousand
years, and is still elastic like the steel of our modern days. I have
already noticed[509] the Passalacqua and the Harris daggers—both from
Thebes. The dagger-handle was generally covered in part with metal like
that of the Sword; and the sewing of the leather-sheath again recalls
the hide-scabbard of the Somal.[510] The Egyptians, as the hieroglyphs
prove, had also single-edged cutting-knives shorter than Swords, and
apparently of steel; they resemble our flesh-knives,[511] and may
correspond with the Greek μάχαιραι (Ang.-Sax. _Meche_), while the
daggers proper represent the ἐγχειρίδια and the parazonia.
[Heading: _EGYPTIAN SWORDS._]
The long Sword must have been rare or rather barbaric, for it is seldom
found in the pictures and bas-reliefs. Yet Rosellini figures one which
resembles an Espadon or heavy two-handed weapon of our Middle Ages. An
inscription of Ramses takes as booty from the Maxyes (Cyrenians) of
Libya one hundred and fifteen Swords of five cubits (seven and a half
feet), and one hundred and twenty-four of three cubits long.
[Illustration: FIG. 173.—BRONZE DAGGERS AND SHEATH (1 FOOT LONG). (From
Theban Tomb, Berlin Museum.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 174.—SHAPES OF EGYPTIAN BLADES. (Meyrick.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 175.—SWORD-DAGGERS.]
Meyrick,[512] in his general introduction to the weapons of all
nations (vol. i. Pl. 1), gives two forms of Egyptian blades, or rather
choppers. One (_a_, fig. 174) is a straight bill-shaped cutting-blade
with the tip upturned, and the handle is provided with cords and
tassels. This is in fact the old Turkish Scymitar and its offshoots, of
which I have already spoken; and thus Egypt led to the chopper-types,
which will presently be noticed. The other (_b_) is a curved Scymitar,
with a bevelled end and a double cord at the hilt.[513] The former
seems to be an imitation of the obsidian flake: the latter is a
development of the Khopsh or sickle-Sword.
[Heading: THE SWORD IN AFRICA.]
And here I must temporarily abandon the chronological for the
geographical order, and briefly treat of the Sword in modern Africa.
In the Dark Continent, as in the New World, the weapon has scant
importance. Reviewing the arms of the former ‘Quarter,’ we must
conclude that its favourites are the war-axe (employed in rough work),
and the spear[514] (used in fine work); while the Sword proper is
confined, as a rule, to Moslem Africa.
We have seen that in olden time the Mashaua (Maxyes) of Libya,
bordering upon Egypt, used large Swords. The Adyrmachidæ, or ‘first
Libyans’ of Herodotus (iv. 168), called by Silius Italicus (iii. 219)
‘gens accola Nili,’ were also armed with curved blades.
Denham and Clapperton inform us that the Knights of Malta exported
great numbers of the straight double-edged blades which they affected,
to Benghazi, in North Africa, where they were exchanged for bullocks.
From the Tripolitan they were borne across the Sahará to Bornu, to
Hausaland, and to Kano, where they were remounted for the use of the
negroid Moslem population. Modern travellers note that the trade still
continues at Kano, where some fifty thousand blades were annually
imported across the Mediterranean—the reason is that these negroids
cannot make their own. Hence they are passed on to the Pule (Fulah)
and Fulbe tribes, the Hausas, the Bornuese, and others dwelling in the
north-western interior. The great Mandenga family, miscalled Mandingos,
are also purchasers of European blades, which they mount and sheathe
for themselves. Far to the south-east Mr. Henry M. Stanley (_loc. cit._
i. 454) notes that the ‘King of Kishakka possesses an Arab scimitar,
which is a venerated heirloom of the royal family, and the sword of the
founder of that kingdom’ (?).
Barth (‘Travels’) has left us accurate though scanty details concerning
the weapons of the North-Western and West-Central Africa. ‘Spears and
Swords’ (say the people) ‘are the only manly and becoming weapons.’
The blade, mostly made at Solingen,[515] characterises the free and
noble Amoshágh or Imoshágh; and all travellers remark that it preserves
the old knightly form of crusading days; the low-caste Tawárik carry
only the lance and the regular African Telak or arm-knife. The Forawy
trust almost wholly to their Swords: the Kel-Owy (Khayl, or people, of
the Owi Valley) and the Kel-Geres carry spear, Sword, and dagger. The
Imgád, a degraded tribe of the negroid Berbers, are not allowed to use
either Sword or spear: similarly the bow is confined to the servile
caste among the Somal. The son of the Kazi, near Agades, was armed with
an iron spear, Sword, and dagger (vol. i. 395): a Musghu chief had a
boomerang-Sword (Front. vol. iii.). Few of the Baghirmi can afford
‘Kaskara’ (Swords), and they rarely wear the Kinyá or arm-knife: the
favourite weapon of these races, as well as the Kamuri or Bornavis,
is the Njiga or Golîyo, which has been noticed under the name of
Danisko.[516] It is a short and double-pointed Egyptian hand-bill,
thrown, as well as used for cutting. At Sokoto the traveller found good
iron (iv. 180): at Kano, in Hausaland, he observed a blacksmith making,
with the rudest tools, a leaf-shaped dagger, a long-ribbed, highly
decorated, and very sharp blade. The Tawárik call the smith ‘Enhad’; in
Timbukhtu he becomes the Mu’allim or artist.
The Sword-play of North Africa is that of Arabia and India,
apparently borrowed from the original Sword-dance.[517] In Tangier
it is picturesquely described by a lively Italian writer, Edmondo de
Amicis.[518] ‘There were three swordsmen, and they used the stick
in pairs. It is impossible to do justice to the extravagance and
buffoonery (_goffagini_) of that _school_: I call it so because we
saw the same style in the other cities of Marocco. There were all the
movements of the rope-dance, high leaps without object, contusions,
leg-actions, and blows, announced a whole minute before by an immense
sweep of the arm. Everything was done with a holy phlegm which would
have allowed one of our experts to have distributed, amongst all four,
a volley of blows without the least risk of receiving one.’
The old Egyptian Sword-types spread deep into the Dark Continent, and
preserve their forms to the present day. The Somal’s weapon shows the
straight or spear-blade. The Shotel or Abyssinian Sword (fig. 176) is
a direct descendant from the Khopsh-falchion. Nothing less handy than
this gigantic sickle; the edge is inside, the grip is too small, and
the difficulty of drawing the blade from the scabbard is considerable.
The handle, four inches long, is a rude lump of black wood, and the
tang is carried to the pommel and there clinched. The coarse and ugly
blade has a mid-rib running the whole length, forming a double slope
to the edges; it is one inch broad at the base, and tapers to a point
which can hardly be used. The length along the arc is three feet
thirty-seven inches; the curve, measuring from arc to chord, is two
inches; and the projection beyond the directing line is four inches.
The rough scabbard of untanned hide is shod with a hollow brass knob,
a ferule ruder even than the blade; and a large iron buckle affixed
to the top of the scabbard under the haft, connects with a belt or
waist-strap. Such a weapon never belonged to a race of Swordsmen.[519]
The Africo-Arab tribes of the Upper Nile (e.g. the Bisharín) also
preserve Egyptian forms derived from the Lisán-stick. The Galla Sword
is shorter and simpler than the Egyptian. But the Flissa of Northern
Africa, the Yataghan whose type, by the support of the Duc d’Aumale,
supplied France for years with a bad bayonet, if borrowed from the
Lisán, has assumed a peculiar curve. Colonel A. Lane-Fox looks upon
this Flissa of the Kabyles (= Kabáil, the tribes) as resembling the
‘Kopis-blade straightened, like those represented in the hands of the
Greek warrior on the vase in the Museum at Naples.’[520] Nothing can be
better adapted for close fight than the handy stabbing weapon: stuck
on the end of a musket, and making the barrel top-heavy, nothing can
be worse. But, as the ‘military tailor’ in the British army seeks the
philosopher’s stone in the shape of a suit of uniform that shall be
at once warm and cool, heavy and light, airy and impermeable to wet,
handsome and lasting, cheap and good, so the Frenchman would transform
the bayonet into a _multum in parvo_, a Sword, a saw, _a coupe-choux_,
in fact everything that a bayonet is not and ought not to be. The
absurd Yataghan-bayonet has only lately been banished from the French
army, and retains its place in most Continental forces.
[Illustration: FIG. 176.—ABYSSINIAN SWORD, A LARGE SICKLE.
(Breadth at hilt, 1 inch; tapers to point.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 177.—SMALLER ABYSSINIAN BLADE.]
[Illustration: FIG. 178.—ABYSSINIAN SWORD IN SHEATH.
(Scabbard open to allow passage of blade.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 179.—FLISSA OF KABYLES.]
The Sword amongst the Dankali tribes, who occupy the south-western
shores of the Red Sea, north of the Somal, is evidently of European
origin. The straight, thin blade, with two or more longitudinal
grooves, is about four feet long, and broadens towards the point:
the handle consists of a pommel, of a grip whipped with wire, and of
straight quillons, forming a regular cross-guard. The modern weapons
are made in Germany—I believe, at Solingen, which seems to supply all
Africa north of the Equator.
[Illustration: FIG. 180.—DANKALI SWORD.]
[Illustration: FIG. 181.—CONGO SWORD.]
Our age has at length realised the fact that the heart of Africa is
inhabited by a homogeneous race speaking tongues of the same family.
It is a large and strong-bodied people, often cannibal, and showing no
likeness with the negro of the tobacconist-shops. Scattered amongst
these man-eaters, and possibly the aborigines of the country, are
comparatively dwarfish tribes, evidently the crane-fighting Pygmies of
Homer and Herodotus, now known from their various clans, Aká, Tikitiki,
Doko, Wambilikimo (two-cubiters), and so forth. Both the dwarfs and the
(comparative) giants, of whom the Mpángwe, or Fans, first became known
in Europe, are metal workers, and both work well. They despise arms
and tools that chip and snap, and therefore prefer to ours, with ample
reason, their charcoal-smelted native produce, and they temper it by
many successive heatings and hammerings without water-quenching.[521]
According to Major Serpa Pinto (ii. 128) the Barotse temper their iron
with ox-grease[522] and salt. He notes, however (ii. 356), that the
Ganguellas ‘manufacture steel out of wrought iron, tempered by cold
water, into which the metal is thrown while hot.’
The Gaboon river also produces the Babanga[523] (?), a leaf-shaped
Sword with a square end, made at Batta, and used by the Mpángwe; a
Glaive also leaf-shaped with a long handle, having a point at the butt
end, and Swords with triangular blades more or less broadened at the
apex.
Upon the glorious Congo river[524] I was shown a Sword belonging to the
Mijolos or Mijeres, a tribe inhabiting the upper valley. All declared
it to be of native make, and used during the Sword-dance performed in
presence of the Prince. But it is an evident copy of some weapon of the
fifteenth century; and the knightly model, like that of the Mpángwe
(Fan) crossbow, had drifted into the African interior. The handle and
its pommel were of ivory (in poorer weapons wood is used): the guard
was a thin bar of iron springing from the junction of blade and grip;
forming an open oval-shaped _pas d’âne_ below, and prolonged upwards
and downwards in two quillons or branches, parallel with the hilt and
protecting the hand. The blade, which had a tang for hefting, was
straight, flexible, and double-edged.
[Heading: _AFRICAN SWORDS._]
In the Despotism of Unyoro, on the northern shores of the (Victoria)
Nyanza Lake, Sir Samuel Baker found a knife of the Egyptian leaf-shape,
the _Lingua di Bove_ of the Italians. The blade has a high mid-rib, and
the handle is whipped round with copper wire. It is evidently used,
like the Somal weapon, for stabbing as well as cutting.
[Illustration: FIG. 182.—UNYORO DAGGER-SWORD.]
[Illustration: FIG. 183.—ZANZIBAR SWORDS.]
The Arabs of Zanzibar preserve the old two-handed weapon of Europe,
with a thin, flattish, double-edged blade ending in a bevelled point,
and much resembling the executioner’s Sword prolonged. They bear the
Solingen mark. Zanzibar, however, has two Swords. The shorter weapon
(_a_, fig. 183) is three-grooved and single-edged, the blade measuring
one foot ten inches; the handle and sheath are of copper, embossed or
engraved, and adorned with fine stones. The second (_b_, fig. 183),
which is the usual shape carried by Arab gentlemen, is three feet to
three and a half feet long; the long tang tapers towards the hilt,
and is cased in wood and leather; the pommel is cylindrical, and the
grip wants guard and quillons. Demmin (p. 396) finds it ‘difficult to
understand how this singular weapon could be wielded.’ It serves mostly
for show, and when wanted is used like a quarterstaff with both hands.
But the Zanzibari’s Sword is always clumsy, as dangerous to the wielder
as the old blade of the Gauls and Ancient Britons. Their cousins, the
Bedawin living about Maskat, have conserved with a religious respect,
many ancient weapons won or bought in older days, and possibly dating
from crusading times. These valuable articles travelled far: the
Portuguese found amongst the Moors of Malacca ‘Swords bearing in Latin
the inscription “God help me.”’
The Sword is also known to the blood-stained Despotisms that border the
West Coast of Africa—Ashanti, Dahome, and Benin. Many of the shapes are
borrowed: such are the Maroccan Yataghan, the Turkish or rather Persian
Scymitar, and the Malay Krís (crease). Provided with silver hilts and
scabbard mountings, they are generally wrapped in cloths, showing
only the upper part of the sheath and grip. Some of the forms have
developed till they look almost original, especially the short broad
blades pierced with holes like fish-slicers, and ending in circinal
curves. They suggest the well-known Indian choppers, and probably in
both countries they derive from Egypt. In Ashanti-land and Dahome
they are mostly of iron, some are of brass, and others of gold;[525]
and they are fantastically punched into chevrons and pierced with
open-work. These ‘fish-slicers’ are used in sacrifice and in beheading,
an operation which they perform very badly. Mr. Henry M. Stanley[526]
refers to ‘long-handled cleaver-like weapons’ amongst the savages of
Makongo; and to iron bill-hooks and ‘massive cleaver-looking knives
with polished blades’ in Karagwé.
[Illustration: FIG. 184.—GOLD COAST SWORDS.
(Captain Cameron.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 185.—ASHANTI SWORD-KNIFE.]
[Illustration: FIG. 186.—SWORDS OF KING GELELE OF DAHOME.]
[Illustration: FIG. 187.—BEHEADING SWORD.
Cutch; also used in Africa.]
[Illustration: FIG. 188.—WASA (WASSAW) SWORD.
Gold plates on wood, sewn with wire, and then beaten until the
stitches can scarcely be seen.]
[Illustration: FIG. 189.—KING BLAY’S SWORD.
Gold leaf stamped and beaten. Sworn by before going to war, ‘If
I come back, cut my head off.’]
Gezo,[527] the warrior king of Dahome or Ffon-land, who loved variety
in, as well as number of, weapons, manufactured Swords with two blades
like scissors. He also had _in terrorem_ a company of ‘Amazons,’ called
Razor-women, from the ‘Nyek-ple-nen-toh’ blade. This was simply a
European razor on a large scale, with a steel of thirty inches rising
from a plain handle of black wood, and kept open by a spring. It was
used to decapitate prisoner-kings, and the very look of it made the
lieges tremble.
[Illustration: FIG. 190.—CAPTAIN CAMERON’S MANYUEMA SWORDLET, SHEATH,
AND BELT. 1. Copper; 2. Wood; 3. Steel; 4. Wood; 5. Skin.]
My friend Captain Cameron[528] gives interesting details concerning the
Sword in parts of Africa which he first visited, and he has kindly sent
me a specimen of the Manyuema (Maniwema) Swordlet drawn to scale. He
describes the Wahumla tribe as using double-edged blades of iron shaped
like those of the Roman legionary. The chiefs adorn their steel blades
with neat open-work in various patterns, and some carry a fringe of
bells all along the lower side of the sheath. The belt of twisted hide
loops into a rolled fur (often otter-skin), and ends in two bells: it
is slung over the left shoulder. The Rehombo chiefs use similar blades
with broad and crescent-shaped edges; the commoners are armed with
heavy spears, and short knives, also used when feeding.
The people of the central Copper-lands[529] have only long knives
shaped like spear-heads. Stanley (ii. 81) calls them ‘short Swords
scabbarded with wood, to which are hung small brass and iron
bells.’ The Swords used by the chiefs under ‘King Kasongo’ are left
undescribed:[530] these weapons appear to be like those seen by me on
the Congo. These negroes have a kind of sham attack in honour, a custom
well known amongst the Bedawin. ‘When sufficiently bedaubed’ (with
pipeclay or cinnabar) ‘the chief returned the bag to his boy, and,
drawing his Sword, rushed at Kasongo, seemingly intent upon cutting
him down; but just before reaching him, he suddenly fell on his knees,
driving the Sword into the ground and rubbing his forehead in the dust.’
The Poucue (Pokwé) of the Lunda chiefs is not allowed to the people.
This weapon (fig. 191) has also found its way from Egypt into lands far
south of the Equator, and may be traced in the dagger-formed knives of
the Ovampos. It is a large two-edged knife, three spans long by four
inches broad: the sheath is of leather, and the weapon hangs under the
left arm.[531] The Pokwé not a little resembles the short leaf-shaped
iron blades from the Gaboon River, West Africa; and these again suggest
the Swords and the spear-heads of the ‘Bronze Age.’ Stanley (ii. 228)
shows the ‘Baswa knife’ on the Upper Congo exactly resembling the
Pokwé; these weapons ‘vary in size from a butcher’s cleaver to a lady’s
dirk’ (?). He also found ‘splendid long knives, like Persian Kummars’
(Khanjars?) and ‘bill-hook Swords.’
[Illustration: FIG. 191.—POKWÉ OF THE CAZEMBE’S CHIEFS.]
[Illustration: FIG. 192.—GABOON SWORDS, BOTH EVIDENTLY EGYPTIAN.]
[Illustration: FIG. 193.—CLEAVER OF THE HABSHI PEOPLE.]
The Habshi people inhabiting Janjhíra (El Jezírah = the island),
off the West Coast of India, south of Bombay, retain a curious
relic of their African origin. These negroids, who call themselves
Abyssinians, are originally Wásawáhíli from Zanzibar. Their cleaver
is a straightened Khopsh wholly of iron, handle, plain cross-guard
and pommel (fig. 193). The blade is fifteen inches broad, the back
is an inch and a half thick, and the weapon is as heavy as a man can
wield. These ex-pirates, under the Habshi Nawwáb, are still feared,
on account of their great strength[532] and violent temper, by all
their effeminate Indian neighbours. It is well to note that in case of
another ‘Indian Mutiny,’ we can easily raise on the eastern coast of
Africa a negroid force sufficient to put it down.
[Illustration: FIG. 194.—FRANKISH BLADE, WITH MID-GROOVE OUT OF CENTRE.]
Colonel A. Lane-Fox[533] remarks that one of the most peculiar forms
of Sword used in Africa is the corrugated, having an ogee-section.
On each face a portion of the blade is sunk on one side only, and
on the other face the depression is on the reverse side. Thus the
transverse section somewhat resembles the angles of the letter Z. We
can understand the use of this device when adapted to the pile of the
arrow or the javelin. It would give the weapon a rotatory motion on
the principle of the screw-propeller, the action being only reversed
instead of the screw propelling itself by acting upon the surrounding
medium: in this case the air impinges upon the screw flanges and
rotates the arrow, thereby increasing the accuracy of its flight.
But the peculiarity has been preserved where it is wholly useless;
and, curious to say, this ogee-form is persistent in all the Swords
obtained from the Caucasus, while the iron blades of Saxon and Frankish
spears discovered in the graves of England and France have the same
distinctive. Both may have derived it from Egypt: the Caucasians
through Colchis, and Western Europe by means of the Phœnicians. The
illustration is taken from the ‘Pagan Saxondom’ of Mr. J. Y. Akerman,
who was the first to draw attention to the strange resemblance between
the Saxon and Hottentot spears.[534]
Thus we see that whilst Egypt originated the three shapes of
Sword-blades—straight, curved, and half-curved—the rest of Africa
invented positively nothing in hoplology. Negroids and negroes either
borrowed their weapons from Egypt or imported them from beyond the sea.
Intertropical Africa never imagined an alphabet, a plough, or a Sword.