War and weapons

In very few matters has man been so creative as in the art of killing his kin. In Africa, like in the rest of the world, wars have always been fought for power, for faith, for the control of trade routes, for slaves, for cattle and just to measure swords and show one’s daring. Where no great empires existed, wars were small: young men would make a raid on a neighboring village to display their courage. and peace would return. However, sometimes raiding groups would grow and turn into an army, and their leaders would become great military chiefs. Then wars would become nothing to make fun about, and the art of weapon making would reach its highest point.

In South Africa everybody was scared of the raids of the Zulu infantry armed with long-headed spears and bull-leather shields. On the contrary, in West Sudan, many ethnic groups knew no shields at all, so that the Bamana and the Maninka languages don’t have words for that object. They did have cavalry, though, which could move fast across the savanna, controlling vast expanses. Without it, Ancient Mali, Songhay and Kanem would have hardly reached their greatness.

In the 15th century, Europeans arrived on the coast, bringing firearms, and soon guns got to Tropical Africa with the Arabs across the Sahara. The era of the slave trade began, when everybody would make war against everybody, and weapons were improving faster all the time. At last, the colonizers came, who reserved the right to make war only for themselves, and that was the end of the history of African weapons.

Likomakos Ababa. Ethiopia (Abyssinia).   A. I. Kohanovski. Early 20th cent.