Mandara (???) dagger

[TVV]

To be fair to everyone in this thread, identifying knives from West Africa and the Mandara mountains is not an easy task. Outside of the 70s Wente-Lukas book, which I do not have, there really is not much published on the subject. Zirngibl focuses on prestige and rarer items. Other books may have an example or two, but often times we will see knives simply classified as Hausa, Fulani or simply Kirdi, which to my understanding is a somewhat derogatory term used by Muslims to describe all the pagans in the Mandara area.

The best source are probably the Quai Branly online collections, but finding the right match, if one even exists there, requires a lot of browsing. It is always very valuable when someone like Martin who collected in the field can post examples that are at least somewhat similar.

[Araña_del_Sol]

Thank you Detlef, Martin, and everyone who responded, I appreciate the picture references and additional information.

- ADS