Curved Sword
Kru / Grebo / Dan / Ngere, Liberia / Ivory Coast
Forged iron, wood
19th century

Numerous examples of this very distinct knife were photographed and collected on the border of Liberia and the Ivory Coast. Most are attributed to the Kru of Liberia, but Blandin reports collecting examples in western Ivory Coast, near the Liberian border. While little information about meaning and function was recorded, photographs show these knives being conspicuously brandished.

A small broken piece of the handle was professionally restored in Europe many years ago. It is hard to spot, but can be seen in the fifth image (circled). 

One photograph (reproduced below) was described as: King Fla and his bodyguard at Cape Palmas on the border of the Ivory Coast and Liberia in the late nineteenth century. Most of the men carry European cutlasses or machetes, but the man on the far right holds a sword commonly used by the Kru people of Liberia. The forerunners of such swords might have inspired the early travelers’ accounts of the ham-shaped weapons they observed in use along the Guinea coast.”

Another nineteenth century photo depicts a “Grebo warrior,” proudly displaying his curved sword (Blandin, Fer Noir, 1992; Elsen, De fer et de fierté, 2003; Zirngibl & Kubetz, Panga Na Visu, 2009).

Photo (group) © Leonard Ernest Greenway.

Photo (individual) © Schwab, Tribes of the Liberian Hinterland, 1947.

20.5 in :: 52 cm

InventoryID #13-1269

SOLD