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Old 4th December 2004, 06:44 PM   #2
Freddy
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Sint-Amandsberg (near Ghent, Belgium)
Posts: 830
Thumbs up More African axes

Why not show more African axes. These weapons are rarely seen on the forum.

First two axes from the Mende-tribe in Sierra Leone :



Second picture is of two Songye axes from Congo



The third pic is my best axe. Again from the Songye tribe. All three these axes have a handle covered in monitor skin. This piece is huge : the cutting edge measures 39 cm. The blade weighs about 2 kgs.
Nice detail are the heads carved in the axe blade. In this case, there are 42 small heads.





Tim, about your axes : the first one is definitively South African (Zulu or Swazi). The others perhaps from the Tschwana (Botswana) or the Mangwato (I've seen an example in the book from Fischer & Zirngibl).
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