Belawa — The Mansfield Collection

Belawa

Belawa
Dervish Kingdom - Darawiish - British Somaliland - Italian Somaliland (Somaliland - Puntland - Somalia - Ethiopia)
Dervish - Somali
1910
Steel, horn, zinc, iron, brass
Blade: 15 1/4" (38.7cm)
Hilt & Blade: 22 3/4" (57.8cm)
Hilt, Blade, Sheath: - (cm)
Collection Date: 2026
Collection Number: 549

Ex. Gallery Rider: Oakland, California, USA (2026)
Ex. Cowan's Auction House: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA (2019)

An very good example of the Somali belawa sword from the Horn of Africa during the Somali Dervish uprising period. Many examples were captured as war trophies in British Somaliland during the British war campaigns of Somaliland between the years 1899 and 1920. This particular example was collected by Col. John Caswell in 1910, likely during his time while on Eastern African hunting expeditions.

The straight asymmetrically leaf- shaped steel blade is double- edged with a central flat plane at the base that extends approximately 1/4 length of the blade before transitioning into a medial ridge for the remainder to the point. The hilt is carved from dark buffalo horn, closely stacked and layered in zinc spacers between. A brass spacer is present near the top of the hilt. One side of the hilt is engraved with the words "Col. John Caswell 1910". Iron ferrule. The pommel ends in a three- pronged tin pommel with a central spike.

Col. John Caswell, born 16 of January 1873, New York, NY. John spent three years at Harvard College and one year at Harvard Law School. During much of his life he made his home at Prides Crossing, MA, and served in the state's militia and the Federal Officers Reserve Corps. He attained the rank of colonel, chief of ordnance, in the Massachusetts militia. Before the US entered World War I, Colonel Caswell served as an ambulance driver in France in an American volunteer unit with the French Army and in 1915 he presented an ambulance to the unit. Later he was a major of ordnance with the American Expeditionary Force.

The lure of big game hunting twice took him to Africa retracing the path previously shot over by Colonel Theodore Roosevelt in 1909 and 1910, where his kills included several world records while also surviving an attack by a mother cheetah. Trophies of his hunts can be seen in the American Museum of Natural History, New York, the Agassiz Museum at Harvard, and the St. Mark's School in Southborough, MA. He was interested in the study of small arms ballistics and the use of military and high- powered sporting rifles. His book SPORTING RIFLES AND RIFLE SHOOTING is ranked among the authoritative works on the subject.

An old and very good quality example, provenanced to Col. John Caswell, while dated 1910.

Photograph 14: Somali weapons panoply. ca. 1920.
Photograph 15: Postcard: Somali warrior in Dire Dawa, Ethiopia. Early 20th century.
Photograph 16: Postcard: Somali warrior, Published Catholic Mission of Somaliland 25. Early 20th century.

[1] https://galleryrider.com/index.php/african-art/archive/asymmetrical-blades/somali-short-sword-belawa (This Sword)

[2] https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/73787299_somali-belawa-sword-dated-and-provenanced-col-john-cincinnati-oh (This Sword)

[3] W. O. Oldman, “Illustrated Catalogue of Ethnographic Specimens”, List No. 87 Vol. vii.; Item No. 23 (15906)

[4] Spring, Christopher. 1993. “African Arms and Armor”. Page 105 – 106 (Info)

[5] https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1979-01-5019

[6] https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1979-01-4953

[7] https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1933-1114-48-a

[8] https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1928-0509-44

[9] https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1928-0509-42

[10] https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/E_Af1947-16-170-a

[11] https://www.weltmuseumwien.at/en/objects/dolch-644570

[12] http://www.oriental-arms.co.il/item.php?id=6234