240903 - Old African Ngbaka ceremonial weapon - Congo.

Old African Ngbaka ceremonial weapon, from Congo.
Size: 49 cm long and made in the first half of the 20th century with certificate of authenticity.

Here we have a parade knife. It is a knife that is exhibited during ceremonies. Long collected by explorers and soldiers as trophies or objects of curiosity, African weapons are, in addition to their initial use as a combat tool, real works of art that should impress the adversary, either by their brilliance or by their shape. Other uses have also been made of them: Currency, initiation parades, symbol of power. The shapes are inexhaustible, with a particularity linked to the African continent and no other place in the world,Magnificent and rare execution knife also called double Ngulu or victory knife, it symbolizes a man with raised arms. Also, given that a change from the simple to the more complex was the evolutionary direction of African knives, we can see how complex throwing knives descended from types such as this incredibly sophisticated sickle blade, which itself evolved from much simpler forms (Elsen, Tribal Arms Monographs, Vol. 1 No. 1, 1996, Fatal Beauty: Traditional Weapons from Central Africa, 2013).Published: 100 African Blades, no. 58 (Rider, 2021).