Mafa Dagger

[Pertinax]

I've added a new piece to my African collection.

I believe it's from Northern Cameroon.

Mafa / Matakam / Mafahay / Mofa / Natakan
The Mafa also called Mafahay, is an ethnic group localized in northern Cameroon, Northern Nigeria and also scattered in other countries like Mali, Chad, Sudan, Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone.
The Mafa occupy the centre of the Nothern Mandaras, consisting of the whole of the northern parts of the plateau of Mokolo and the mountain ranges north of Mokolo, leading down to the plain of Koza and reaching as far as the Moskota hills northwest of Koza.

This example clearly shows the influence of various tribes.
Handle shape – (sbula) Berber, Beja/Hadendoa, Morocco, Tunisia.
Pommel – Tubu/Daza.
Blade – Hausa, Kirdi (Cameroon).
Sheath – Tuareg, Kirdi, Hausa.
Sheath tip – Kirdi (Cameroon).
Leather decorations – Mandingo.

The connecting link is undoubtedly the Tuareg, who controlled the trans-Saharan trade for several centuries, and the Tubu/Daza, who led the caravans across the Sahara.

Overall length in sheath: 460 mm, blade length: 315 mm, width: 35 mm, thickness: 4 mm, weight: 223 g

[Sajen]

Hi Yuri,

A very nice and rare dagger and you described it very well! Great catch!

Regards,
Detlef

[Ian]

What an interesting transcultural piece! And very accurately described. Thanks Yuri.

[Pertinax]

Thanks, colleagues!

This is my first specimen of Mafa culture; it's always interesting to explore something new, unusual, and rare.

Actually, this was a gift from my wife; she asked me what I wanted for Christmas. Well, I chose it.

Sincerely,
Yuri

[TVV]

Merry Christmas! Really nice dagger. Wente-Lukas shows a very similar one, number 298 in her book, which she attributes to the Ndjeny, while mentioning the Daba use similar daggers. In the map of the region, the Ndjeny are shown in the Southern Mandara mountains (and so are the Daba), just north of the Fulbe.

On his site, Wolf-Dieter Miersch shows a couple of similar daggers as Ndjeny/Mafa, and posts a link to a 1910-1912 drawing of such daggers:

http://bildarchiv.frobenius-katalog....rpos=98439.png

Ultimately, your dagger is a really nice, complete example from the early 20th or late 19th century, and it does not get better than that.

[Pertinax]

Originally Posted by TVV

Merry Christmas! Really nice dagger. Wente-Lukas shows a very similar one, number 298 in her book, which she attributes to the Ndjeny, while mentioning the Daba use similar daggers. In the map of the region, the Ndjeny are shown in the Southern Mandara mountains (and so are the Daba), just north of the Fulbe.

On his site, Wolf-Dieter Miersch shows a couple of similar daggers as Ndjeny/Mafa, and posts a link to a 1910-1912 drawing of such daggers:

http://bildarchiv.frobenius-katalog....rpos=98439.png

Ultimately, your dagger is a really nice, complete example from the early 20th or late 19th century, and it does not get better than that.

Thank you very much!

This is very valuable information. Based on the catalog, I can truly confirm the authenticity of my copy.

I've reviewed numerous sources, but unfortunately, I couldn't find any information about the Ndjeny tribe. Perhaps we're dealing with a confusion of tribal names, which is common in Africa. In the accounts of 19th-century travelers, it's very difficult to decipher the names; each one called the tribe by their own name.

Sincerely,
Yuri

[Pertinax]

Some thoughts out loud regarding the names of African weapons.

Among our collectors, it's common to name weapons based on their affiliation with a particular people or tribe. But is this true?

Often, objects blend various cultures, as is clearly evident in this dagger.

Yes, the Tuareg and Toubou/Daza tribes undoubtedly contributed to this "cultural exchange." But there's another very important factor, a crucial link in this exchange.

These are the blacksmiths of Africa.

19th-century explorers of Africa describe blacksmiths in their reports as occupying a distinct social position among many peoples. They were credited with knowledge of magical potions and evil arts, yet simultaneously expressed boundless contempt; they were considered an inferior race, often enslaved. Blacksmiths, in a sense, were outside civil society; they did not go to war and were not allowed to marry into the higher orders. They spoke the language of the tribes among which they lived, but many believed they had their own language.

The craft was passed down from father to son, and the children of blacksmiths married only within their families, thus maintaining a distinct, pure, and unmixed caste. It's safe to assume that marriages were made with distant families to prevent incest. All this facilitated the transfer of experience, skills, and traditions from one region to another.

Therefore, perhaps we shouldn't be so meticulous in attributing objects to a particular people or tribe, but rather by their region of origin.

What are your thoughts?

[TVV]

In the context of African arms, especially the non-Islamic ones, the tribal approach seems perfectly justified to me. Because weapons were not only fighting implements, but had a lot of cultural and religious significance, ethnic groups developed and held onto their own unique forms. The few cases in which we see the adoption of a wider spread form, such as the takouba is within the open areas of the Sahara and Sahel, where large Muslim Empires were able to form. In contrast, in the Congo basin for example, the various state entities all had totally different swords and knives from each other.

[Changdao]

I think there are merits to both arguments, because the fact is that Africa is an extremely diverse continent and what is true in one region may not hold in another.

West Africa was populated by an enormous variety of ethnic groups, but with very close commercial and political links. Ethnicity was often a religious or economic designator; for example, Mandinkas, Bambaras, Wangaras, Dyulas, Markas, and so on, stem from the same medieval people but to which exonyms based on those factors have been applied. For example, "Bambara" originally meant Mandinka populations that remained pagan, Wangara and Dyula designated trader Mandinkas in Hausaland and the Atlantic coast respectively, Marka was used in the Early Modern period for Muslims within the Segou Bambara state...

Besides, these groups lived mixed with each other. In a region for example you would have a Mandinka village with Fulanis tending the cattle and Soninke traders and artisans living among them, and they might be visited by trading Wolof marabouts, Papel and Beafada mariners trading from the south, and Euroepans and tangomaos. Any attempt at separating them cleanly is doomed to fail, because they tend to regionally mix culturally. So you see "microregional" styles, but shared by a variety of peoples living there, as opposed to another "microregional" style used by those same peoples but elsewhere. This was a fluid and transitional landscape, without clear breaking zones between a particular local style and the next, but the extremes are obviously different.

In this regard, the point made by our friend Pertinax is relevant. Here it is much more sensible to speak of regional styles rather than make arbitrary attributions. I have written elsewhere about this particular issue regarding the so-called "Mandinka" sabers. Takoubas are another example, being a term so broad temporally and geographically, and morphologically, that it is sort of like saying "arming sword".

However, this isn't necesarily the case everywhere. Indeed, in Central Africa there are more specific cultural ties between weapon shapes and a particular people/s. There are exceptions, but it is more clear cut, owing to the particular ecological and sociological traits of the region.

Regarding the dagger in the OP, the area where it comes from is rather interesting. I link a book chapter giving some context.

https://books.openedition.org/irdeditions/25098