Algerian dagger?

[fennec]

Originally Posted by Pertinax

Thanks fennec for the info. Do you have any examples of fleece daggers before 1850?

Best regards,
Yuri

Yep mate, actually, I guess that a lot of those staight knives, are clearly from before 1830, and many things can proov that. First of all, a lot where tooken in the very few times of colonisation on algeria, but the tourists models actually made a lot of time to exist, after algeria was "pacified" (for the north..).
You can also notice that set displayed upper, is a pure "ottoman era" work, probably for someone important etc.. but not a tourist. A tourist will buy a beautifull sword, and well deocrated set, but here, is a WAR sword, with two usefull guns. Clearly the habitual set of ottman era. So the knives are obvioulsy from same period (pobably not very old, but before france, and not decorative). Even the arabic sentences are directly in relation with battle war etc, mentionning Allah etc... not the kinds of things we made later for tourists.

However, I also have this beautifull baby, that I think is even older that those ones.. I'll try to find you some other models soon

[Pertinax]

Originally Posted by fennec

Yep mate, actually, I guess that a lot of those staight knives, are clearly from before 1830, and many things can proov that. First of all, a lot where tooken in the very few times of colonisation on algeria, but the tourists models actually made a lot of time to exist, after algeria was "pacified" (for the north..).
You can also notice that set displayed upper, is a pure "ottoman era" work, probably for someone important etc.. but not a tourist. A tourist will buy a beautifull sword, and well deocrated set, but here, is a WAR sword, with two usefull guns. Clearly the habitual set of ottman era. So the knives are obvioulsy from same period (pobably not very old, but before france, and not decorative). Even the arabic sentences are directly in relation with battle war etc, mentionning Allah etc... not the kinds of things we made later for tourists.

However, I also have this beautifull baby, that I think is even older that those ones.. I'll try to find you some other models soon

Hi fennec!

I didn't ask about the Kabyle daggers for no reason.

K. Lacoste notes:

- Only a few types of bladed weapons fall into the category of daggers. Some of them are even practically unusable, the handle is not even the size of a small palm.

- As for the use of this weapon, it is undoubtedly a secondary or additional weapon. We can also ask ourselves whether they were created recently, in which case their small size would make them preferable to large ones, but this is only a hypothesis.

I completely agree with her on this issue. An example is my specimen. Total length - 395 mm, blade length - 300 mm, handle (from blade to head) - 70 mm. The blade is made of fairly decent steel, quite functional, well suited for both cutting and stabbing. But the length of the handle does not allow it to be used practically.

Kabyle daggers are not mentioned in the sources and this is very strange. Perhaps this is due to the fact that, unlike the khanjar, jambiya or kummiya, the fleece dagger/knife is not part of the national costume. But such a type of weapon must be!

Sincerely,
Yuri

[werecow]

Does that 7cm include the pommel? My palms are about 7cm across. It may just have been made for someone with small hands.

[Pertinax]

Originally Posted by werecow

Does that 7cm include the pommel? My palms are about 7cm across. It may just have been made for someone with small hands.

The length of the handle without the pommel is 7 cm, I also have a narrow palm - 9 cm and it is very uncomfortable to hold the dagger in my hand. Such small handles are on almost all Kabyle daggers. What is this - a souvenir, a product for tourists?

[werecow]

I think you're underestimating your own hand size!

It could have been made for a boy perhaps, or just someone with smaller hands like mine. Mine is 8.5cm and it leaves me with at least a cm of unneeded space (probably more like 1.5). 7cm would most likely be OK for me.

[Pertinax]

I evaluate everything adequately and it is not for nothing that I quoted K. Lacoste. She does not have an answer to the question about the size of the dagger handles.

I will also add - any knife and dagger, in addition to combat use, is used for purely domestic needs, and therefore must be convenient to use. This is not observed here, beautiful - yes, but extremely inconvenient in practical use.

That is why I would like to see a dagger before 1850.

[werecow]

I'm not sure what you're saying. I'm telling you my experience... I can assure you that a 7cm hilt is probably usable for me and easily enough for a younger version of me. Admittedly I'm relatively short for a Dutch guy but in international circles I'm about average in size. Maybe I have tiny hands, but it's never come up.

[fennec]

Originally Posted by Pertinax

Hi fennec!

Kabyle daggers are not mentioned in the sources and this is very strange. Perhaps this is due to the fact that, unlike the khanjar, jambiya or kummiya, the fleece dagger/knife is not part of the national costume. But such a type of weapon must be!

Sincerely,
Yuri

Hi Yuri, about this quote, I unfortunatly have to make just a little politic, but I promise not too much !
You can really not compare algeria to its neighbours on those subject, that are the rests of our ancient history, craftsmanship, arts, etc.. Unfortunately, we had the most violent, and long, colonisation of north Africa, that practicly erased everything from our identity, for 130years. My algerian grand mother dont knew how to write in arabic, but send me a postal card in perfect french all my childhood... And, when Ive begun that searches, in my interest on ancient algerian weapons a decade ago, NO ALGERIAN was able to talk with me about a "nimcha", a "flissa", or anything else. Actually most of them, when I mentionned a saber was like "oh yeah a "samurai"" (algerian word for "katana"). The most "direct" ear to a real kabyle blacksmith (I mean, a sword maker, because its still ancient smiths in Kabylie) was given by a old men, talking about his grandfather, and not being able to really give me information about making, etc. Just some legends as the meaning of deco etc...

Well, all of that just to explain, that its logic, that peolpe who begon their analysis long time after was algeria suffered, didnt found in this country, a lot about its ancient crafts (Lacoste was born in 1929.. one century after algeria colonisation). There is also some "foreign" look to some thinks with all my due respect (because without Lacoste, and many french ethnologist or historians, I woundt know what I know... in a way, they "saved" what was aldeary desapearring for years, by documenting them). This is the case for the lenght of handles, or even meanings of decoration, that ALWAYS refer to "genital parts" or "fertility", wich is totally absurd when you know a bit of our culture (as mentionned before, much more about sky, stars, natural elements like montains, see, etc, or simply animals, even more on weapons). Just as an exemple.
So (and sorry for the lenght of my answers), I have many reasons, that have to be taken together to explain the lack of info on those daggers (and generally, algerian weapons) :

1/ Colonisation, lot of pieces lost, taken, real blacksmith turning to deco maker, jewelers of kabylie starting making "knives" too, but without same skills, etc.. (not only for tourists, but also because of many geograhic mooves, due to colonisation ---> Kabylie was the first destroyed, and "pacified", in algeria.

2/ Dont know if I told it before, but I presume that even if this knife existed before France, it was probably not the most liked. The same makers (or others, in this area) was making yatagans etc .. there is many "khanjar" (as written on the blade, but actually a "yatagan knife") with damascus blade and sylver handles and scabbard was madea also there. So I presume that most of the made knives, wasnt flissa daggers. Probably just this model survided in local peoples, and even Kabyles prefered more effective knives as seen on descritptions.

3/ it is also possible that this shape and inlays, became more produced under french era, for evident tourism purpose. But however, we have many other models, that can be called flyssa, even if they are clearly different, and way more older. So the idea of a "flissa dagger" used by the local is just obvious. How its shape and esthétic changed with the time is still a mistery even for me today.

Like this one, fully ottomanish style, but still a flissa for me.
https://www.invaluable.com/auction-l...20e284c7a9bb64

Well, all that speach just to explain why algeria is one of the african coutnry that suffered the most from info about its last century culture, and Im still today digging ancient ottoman archives that nobody can read ! May be will find an answer about that one day..