THE ZULU ASSAGAI.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 820, 27 June 1879, Page 2

THE ZULU ASSAGAI.

There are two principal kinds of | assagais, the throwing and the Btabbing, the latter with a long and straight blade. To a Kaffir this weapon is literally the staff 'of life. With it he kills the enemy and his game, slaughters and cuts up his cattle, trims their horns, shaves his own and his neighbor's head, does his carpentry and farriery, and countless other jobs of various sorts: In this original form, the assagai was essentially a missle, but fee renowned Chaka, among other military reforms, converted it into a shorter and heavier Btabbing 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 amah's little finger, is cut from the assagi tree (flxwtisia juginea), whioh 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 flights depends. On account of the brittleness, a novice will break many shafts before he learns to throw assagai sceundem arterth Inaptly oast, 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 mere spike, and a few are barbed. When the first is adopted, whether-with or without the barb, there is invariably a raised ridgo 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.