corsican cavalry saber, or.............

M ELEY · 26th July 2008, 01:42 AM

Very interesting development on these. Just read this thread and had assumed that these were absolutely of Moroccan origin. Interestingly enough, over a decade ago I had one of these. When I bought it, they told me it was a "Cuban sword from the Span-Amer War". Now this early guess might be proved out. I can see the cross-over from Spanish Morocco to a Caribbean area. One only has to remember the pirate routes from the Corsairs territory across the ocean to the West Indies. I'm reminded of a sword reportedly carried by one of Captain Morgan's European crewmen that was a Chinese ken sword. Interesting...
The thing is, when you look at the first example on this thread, you see a cut-down Euro sword with a fairly common pattern seen in Mexico and S America today (19th century machetes, the Brazilian espada discussed, etc.). BUT I have seen some that are not cut-down Brit pieces, but ones with flared points on them (Artzi has had several examples). My point is, if you're ever seen the wide variety of reused/recycled blades reworked into machetes, it would be easy to write these off as only from the Cuban region). Other examples, with their decoration, hilt elements and blade design, make it seem entirely possible that these came from Morocco. In which case, they made the jump from the Rif Valley to Havanna nicely!

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26th July 2008, 01:42 AM	#10
M ELEY Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: NC, U.S.A. Posts: 2,184	Very interesting development on these. Just read this thread and had assumed that these were absolutely of Moroccan origin. Interestingly enough, over a decade ago I had one of these. When I bought it, they told me it was a "Cuban sword from the Span-Amer War". Now this early guess might be proved out. I can see the cross-over from Spanish Morocco to a Caribbean area. One only has to remember the pirate routes from the Corsairs territory across the ocean to the West Indies. I'm reminded of a sword reportedly carried by one of Captain Morgan's European crewmen that was a Chinese ken sword. Interesting... The thing is, when you look at the first example on this thread, you see a cut-down Euro sword with a fairly common pattern seen in Mexico and S America today (19th century machetes, the Brazilian espada discussed, etc.). BUT I have seen some that are not cut-down Brit pieces, but ones with flared points on them (Artzi has had several examples). My point is, if you're ever seen the wide variety of reused/recycled blades reworked into machetes, it would be easy to write these off as only from the Cuban region). Other examples, with their decoration, hilt elements and blade design, make it seem entirely possible that these came from Morocco. In which case, they made the jump from the Rif Valley to Havanna nicely!