.»*s?--^* mug -'- r r riTi^^r Arms and Armor Africa in Helmut Nickel J U800 N48 • ReinforcedBinding S5.25 Arms and Armor in Africa The oldest surviving tools and weapons in the world, pebbles chipped into blades, have been found in Africa. Later, the stone-age men of Africa used the same kinds of weapons and tools that stone-age men used everywhere: pri- marily the hand axe. which served for hacking, slashing, and cutting, and still later, flaked flint blades and arrowheads. However, a special type of hand axe, the cleaver, has been found in Africa and nowhere else. But little is known about the life, the weap- ons, or the defenses of the people of Africa between the end of the stone age and quite recent times. Few clues to such history remain because the Africans passed from the stone age directly into the iron age, missing the bronze age entirely. Iron decayseasily asdoes the wood and other organic materials the early Africans used for their buildings and for their art and weapons. TTierefore. the African arms and armor that we know about are either very ancient or quite modem. The text, photographs, and drawings presented here show the things that have been gathered from the various natural geographic zones of the huge continent. 1014:510 Arms and Armor in Africa EGYPTIAN HUNTING CHARIOT Arms and Armor Africa in Helmut Nickel Curatorof Armsand Armor for the Metropolitan Museum of Art Atheneum 1971 New York Copyright© 1971 byHelmutNickel All rightsreserved LibraryofCongresscatalogcard number75-115090 PublishedsimultaneouslyinCanadaby McClelland &Stewart.Ltd. Manufactured intheUnited StatesofAmerica PrintedbyThe Murray PrintingCompany, ForgeVillage,Massachusetts BoundbyH.Wolff,NewYork Designedby Harriett Barton FirstEdition • m. Contents FOREWORD I HistoricalIntroduction 3 WestAfrica 10 Sudan 17 The Congo 28 EastAfrica 36 SouthAfrica 43 North Africa 47 PICTURE CREDITS 55 INDEX 57 1 BINI (BENIN) 2 DAHOMEY 3 ASHANTI 4 SENEGALESE 5 MANDINGO 6 MOSSI 7 HAUSSA 8 BORNU 9 BAGHIRMI 10 KANEM 11 MANGBETU 12 AZANDE 13 DINKA 14 SHULI 15 BAGGARA 16 PYGMIES 17 FOREST TRIBES 18 FANG 19 AMHARS 20 GALLAS 21 SOMALIS 22 WATUSI 23 MASAI 24 KIKUYU 25 SWAHILI 26 BUSHMEN 27 HOTTENTOTS 28 HEREROS 29 ZULU 30 BECHUANA (BOTSWANA) 31 BASUTOS 32 BERBER 33 KABYLES 34 TUAREGH 35 TIBBU Foreword This book was written to point out the amazing variety and richness of an important part of Africa's cultural heritage and to preserve the knowledge of it, because it is disappearing fast in today's rapidly changing world. Most of the information about arms and armor in Africa that you will find here naturally refers to earUer times, because the modern states of Africa have, of course, modern armies for their defense. However, in some places the an- cient traditions are strong enough to have preserved age-old forms to the presentday.