Silver Hilted Kaskara for comment

[Iain]

Originally Posted by Wisram

Thank you Ed for your comments.
Is the combination of an Ethiopian blade on a Sudanese Hilt common? Does it make it any less "Kaskara"?

A good question, that required a somewhat convoluted answer!

First of all 'kaskara' is something of a collectors' invention. You might enjoy this article I wrote a while ago which lays out the history of the term.

Generally speaking the kaskara form, as with the takouba to the west, are defined by their characteristic hilts. As the blades were often imported and in a variety of styles a purely blade based classification is quite difficult. Local terms tend to exist for different blades, usually focused around the number of fullers, but the hilt remains the defining characteristic.

So, in my view, using a blade that was produced in Europe, probably under contract from one of the Armenian arms suppliers who were active in Abyssinia in the 19th century, to be hilted and used in Abyssinia and then likely captured and subsequently rehilted in the Sudan, does not make it any less of a 'kaskara'.