🔎 UNIDENTIFIED knife.....handle and scabbard made from hide

[Deangreen]

I got this knife at an auction. It is about 11 inches long. The handle and scabbard looks like some type of hide (note some of the hairs on the hide are still visible). Any idea on the maker? There are no maker's marks. Could it be made by native Americans?

 

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[Red-Coat]

Nice. There’s a rather similar one in the Horniman Museum in London, apart from the sheath not being dyed:

It’s a very interesting museum with a decent world-wide anthropology collection (I visited a couple of months ago). Unfortunately, the picture was retrieved from Google’s image cache, not directly from the museum’s website, so I can’t tell you what the accompanying description said. The website itself has no search engine, so I can’t readily find the item in their collection.

You might try contacting them by email to see if they can give you more information:

Contact us - Horniman Museum and Gardens

Have a question or comment? Get in touch with us by phone, email or by post.

www.horniman.ac.uk

 

[BAW]

It is a knife made and used by the Masai people of Kenya and Tanzania in Africa. If you do an image search for “masai knife “ you will find identical examples.

 

[Deangreen]

Nice. There’s a rather similar one in the Horniman Museum in London, apart from the sheath not being dyed:

View attachment 2208159

It’s a very interesting museum with a decent world-wide anthropology collection (I visited a couple of months ago). Unfortunately, the picture was retrieved from Google’s image cache, not directly from the museum’s website, so I can’t tell you what the accompanying description said. The website itself has no search engine, so I can’t readily find the item in their collection.

You might try contacting them by email to see if they can give you more information:

Contact us - Horniman Museum and Gardens

Have a question or comment? Get in touch with us by phone, email or by post.

www.horniman.ac.uk

Thanks very much for the info. I have emailed the museum for help in IDing the knife.

 

[Red-Coat]

It is a knife made and used by the Masai people of Kenya and Tanzania in Africa. If you do an image search for “masai knife “ you will find identical examples.

Good ID. Apparently it’s a type of dagger or short sword with a relatively rounded point variously called a “seme”, “simi”, “ol alem” or “Njora”. Used by both the Maasai and Kikuyu peoples of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda in East Africa.

Scabbards are traditionally made of wood covered with rawhide and dyed red. I think the Horniman example has faded from age.

 

[Deangreen]

It is a knife made and used by the Masai people of Kenya and Tanzania in Africa. If you do an image search for “masai knife “ you will find identical examples.

Thanks very much. I am sure it is a Maasai dagger from the photos.