THE ASSEGAI.

Temuka Leader, Volume 2, Issue 157, 25 June 1879, Page 3

THE ASSEGAI.

In an article on Zulu weapons, Public! Opinion says:—" There are two principa kinds of assegais, the throwing and the stabbing, the latter with a long and straight blade. To a Kaffir this weapon is literally the staff of life. With it he kills his enemy and his game, slaughters and cuts up his cattle, trains their horns, shaves his own or his neighbour's head, does his carpentry and furriery, and countless other jobs of various sorts. In its original form the assegai 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 assegai tree (Curtisia jaginea), 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 so much depends. On account of the brittleness, a novice will break many shafts before, he learns to throw his assegai secundum artem. Inaptly cast, the shaft as soon as it reaches the ground is liable to whip forward and break off short above the blade. The assegai-heads are generally blade-shaped, some consist of a mere spike, and a few are barbed. - When the first shape is adopted, whether with or without the barb, there is 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."