Shula S'boula/Jiboula

[Jim McDougall]

Terms for ethnographic arms are typically problematic, and for many years here we have referred to these NAME GAMES (not many younger folks here likely recall Shirley Ellis!) as just that, banana fana fo fana!!

These with the curious 'I' handle hilt seem to recall the early European form known as baselard, and like numbers of elements of Moroccan arms appear to reflect those influences. Like most weapons in tribal settings, diffusion via trade networks and nomadic movement was expected, and these seem to have moved eastward.
Some of these were known with similar hilts etc. in Ethiopia (as noted in several references) sometimes inscribed in Amharic, but are not considered indiginous to those regions.
Beyond this, undoubtedly via trade networks to the south, they ended up as far as Zanzibar, where Burton ("Book of the Sword", 1884) may have encountered them, however his reference to them was taken from Auguste Demmin (1877) who described them as from Zanzibar.

Charles Buttin (1933) who lived much of his life in Morocco, corrected this in his descriptions to properly s'bula from there, noting the Demmin/Burton discrepancy(#1032,1033)

Many of these, from the more consistent Moroccan context, seem to be fit with old bayonet blades, and as with these kinds of tribal weapons and continuous remounting, any number of blade types may be encountered.