War and Art in Pre-Colonial West Africa

This book is intended as a reference guide for aspiring researchers and postgraduate students of West African history, as well as anyone fascinated by the region’s material culture. Rarely encountered or studied, edged weapons from the Kingdom of Dahomey on West Africa’s Guinea Coast are often misidentified, despite their striking morphological characteristics. This book collates the features and characteristics that identify these unique weapons, which date from the kingdom’s rise in the early 18th century to its demise against France in 1894. The result is an exploration of the remarkable creativity and improvisational quality of these swords and the role they once played as items of regalia, as well as instruments of war and execution, in the kingdom’s highly centralized military bureaucracy. The primary tool used in this study is morphological analysis, drawing on an investigation of sword forms from around the world. However, other research techniques have also been employed. These span the full spectrum of archaeological investigation – from technological analysis in high-tech labs to ‘history of art’ methodologies designed to unpack the symbolism and craft of these unique objects. The Kingdom of Dahomey was a truly remarkable kingdom. Not only was it the most significant slave-trading nation in West Africa, and played a disproportionate part in shaping the diasporic African cultures that took seed in the Americas, its unique structures and institutions are finally gaining popular attention internationally. In recent years, the famed agodjie – a female fighting force like no other in known history – has become a major topic of conversation, featuring in movies and blogs on a grand scale. The swords here played a central part in that history – in human sacrifices, as weapons and sidearms to Dahomey’s soldiers, including the famed Amazon women warriors, and as objects of regalia for a powerful and unique dynasty.