Curved Sword
Kru / Grebo / Dan / Ngere, Liberia / Ivory Coast
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 (Blandin, Fer Noir, 1992; Elsen, De fer et de fierté, 2003; Zirngibl & Kubetz, Panga Na Visu, 2009).

The handle on this example is original, yet shows signs of restoration. 

Three photographs of interest:

The first example was illustrated in Schwab, Tribes of the Liberian Hinterland, 1947, pictured below.

Another photograph 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.” © Leonard Ernest Greenway.

Another old photo depicts a “A half-Grebo warrior with war knife and costume for war dance," also from Tribes of the Liberian Hinterland.

21.5 in. :: 54.5 cm

InventoryID #13-1804

Price on Request