TEBU DAGGER in FISHTAIL SCABBARD

[Andy Stevens]

Just thort we'd chuck our five pennies worth into this thread with a picture of one of our Tebu's. This one has a nice age and a slightly different scabbard design than we've seen before. Incidently, the previous owner insisted the weapon was of North American origin; we of course tried to enlightend him but as an auctioner told him of its high plains history, we stood no chance!

[thinreadline]

Originally Posted by Andy Stevens

Just thort we'd chuck our five pennies worth into this thread with a picture of one of our Tebu's. This one has a nice age and a slightly different scabbard design than we've seen before. Incidently, the previous owner insisted the weapon was of North American origin; we of course tried to enlightend him but as an auctioner told him of its high plains history, we stood no chance!

How very interesting .... thats a real nice dagger and what a scabbard! Thanks for showing it
Richmond

[Iain]

Came across an older thread today with another couple fishtail examples.

http://vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=8079

[thinreadline]

Originally Posted by Iain

Came across an older thread today with another couple fishtail examples.

http://vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=8079

Thanks Iain ... excellent .

[TVV]

I am attaching another example with a fishtail to add to the database.

Regards,
Teodor

[TVV]

While these are associated with the Tebu, they seem to have been popular around lake Chad among other groups. In Smaldone, there is a picture of "Hausa daggers" from the collections of the Smithsonian, including one with a fish tail scabbard. The attribution of course is somewhat questionable.

I recently obtained a copy of the 1985 catalogue of Central African weapons from the Ethnographic Art Museum in Frankfurt. While the book is literally just a catalogue of items with black and white photos, it is very useful in one regard: it provides notes on the date and place the items were collected. For the purpose of this topic, there is a dagger very similar to the ones in this thread, and particularly similar to the one shown by Chregu in post #8. It is described as Sultan's knife from Goulfey, with a local name provided as well:"mogheo te me". We also know that it was collected during the Duke of Mecklenburg's expedition in Cameroon in 1910-1911, which at least establishes these daggers as early 20th century, potentially even earlier.

So, what does Sultan's Knife mean? Goulfey is nowadays a small town in Cameroon's far north, just South of Lake Chad. The German version of Wikipedia provides some information about the Sultanate of Goulfey, which prior to the colonization of Cameroon was a city state, vassal to the Kotoko Kingdom, which in turn was part of Kanem Bornu. Maybe these daggers were status items, or maybe the Sultan of Goulfey happened to give one to the Germans as a present, who knows.

[DaveA]

Very useful information! The term "Sultan's Dagger" aligns with what a source of mine said. I've posted pictures and info of my own tebu (tubu) elsewhere in this thread.

- Dave A.