Boa Mambeli Sword
Boa / Angba / Bandia or surrounding neighbors
Uele District, Congo Free State - Orientale Province, Belgian Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Late 19th - Early 20th century (ca. 1900)
Iron, wood
Blade: 50,2cm
Hilt & Blade: 59,1cm
Hilt, Blade, Sheath: -cm
Collection Date: 2022
Collection Number: 315

Ex. Scott Bergmans Collection: Lommel, Belgium (2022)
Ex. Belgian Collection: (ca. 1900)

Short sword known as a mambeli from the tribes of the Azande, Boa, and the numerous surrounding subsect neighbors of the Congo. These short swords served as symbols of status among the men and were distributed extensively throughout the region in diverse varieties.

This example has a double-edged steel blade with a slightly raised central rib, decorated with linear incision grooves, which are offset on each side of the blade. The base bevels and seperates into two prongs, leaving a central area cutout before joining back together, passing through a circular cutout hole, and eventually tapering into a long point. Hour glass shaped carved wood handle in typical form. From an old Belgian collection. Ca 1900.

• “Beauté Fatale. Armes d’ Afrique Centrale”. 1992 Page 179: #283

• W. O. Oldman. “Illustrated Catalogue of Ethnographic Specimens”. December 1904: List No. 21; Item #22 (4366), #23 (3697)

• https://africanarms.com/gallery?boa-binja-53-7-cm

• https://www.quaibranly.fr/en/explore-collections/base/Work/action/show/notice/357194-couteau/page/9/357194-couteau

• https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1903-0717-

• https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1954-23-2502-a-b

• https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1954-23-2425

• http://vikingsword.com/lew/w0168/w0168.html