THE ZULU ASSAGAI.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5415, 23 June 1879, Page 3

THE ZULU ASSAGAI.

;TheW v are ; two. -principal. . kinds of assagais, the throwing and the .stabbing, the . latter" with a long arid straight blade. To a Kaffir this weapon' is literally the stafFof life. -With-it.he kills the enemy and his game, slaughters and cuts' h* 8 cattle, trims their horns', shaves his own and . his head,' does his carpentry.'and farriery., and countless other jobs of various sorts. In its original form, the assagai was essentially a missile, but the renowned. Chaka, among other military reforms, converted it into a shorter and heavier stabbing spear, unfit for throwing, and only to be used at close quarters. . The ■ shaft, with an average length of nearly five feet, and a diameter equal to a man's little finger, is cut from the assagai tree (Cicrti'sia juginea), which is not unlike mahogany. .The wood is brittle, yet elastic, the latter quality giving the spear that peculiar vibratory motion on which its accuracy of flight depends. On account of the brittleness, a novice will break many shafts before he learns to throw his assagai secundwm ariem. Inaptly cast, the shaft as soon as it reaches the ground is liable to whip forward and break off short above the blade. The assagai heads are generally, blade-shaped, some consist of a a mere spike, and a few are barbed. When the first shape is adopted, whether with or witHoiifc. the barb, there iB invariably a raised ridge along the centre of the blade,' which is concave on one side and convex on the other. The reasons assigned for this peculiarity of form are that this blade acts like the feathers of an arrow, and that, as the heads are always made of soft iron, they can be more easily sharpened when blunted by use.