Knife Identification

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Hello! I have a patron who would like to identify a knife. It is wooden, with a pregnant woman on the handle. She has wire wrapped around her neck, and her ears are very large. It was found approx. 30 years ago - so we have no specific age of knife. Please help to identify! Thanks!
 
A picture would help a lot.

Is the entire knife wood? When you say the woman has large ears do mean overall large or just long ear lobes? What are the knife's dimensions? Where was the knife found? What is the blade shape?
 
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librarylady

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May 18, 2001
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thanks for the reply wild bill - I have put in a call to the knife owner for more specifics! will post as soon as possible! Thanks.
 
This is sounding like an African native art/tourist piece. If it is all-wood it is probably a letter opener. As I recall, neck stretching rings are used as a beauty enhancement by some of the natives in the Congo region. Large ear lobes could be a similar clue if they involved disks inserted in the lobes. The tribe famous for some of this are the Ubangis.

Correction: I was associating the Ubangi river of the congo with the Ubangi tribes of the Sudan. Neck stretching etc. is associated more with the upper Nile region. Here is a link to an article from close to 30 years ago in that region. It sounds like the shape of your woman (search for ubangi in the rather long article).

http://www.miskatonic.net/research/lewis/da03.htm


[This message has been edited by Jeff Clark (edited 05-18-2001).]
 
Jeff,

It might be a tourist piece, and then again this may just be a maternity symbol on a common african utility knife. A picture would really help.

N2S
 
I think that first, I would simply nicely ask the lady to get off the handle of my knife. Then, maybe gentle questions of her could elicit answers to questions about why she was sitting there, and how much she knew about the history of the knife. I know she might have only been there a few minutes, but it seems entirely possible she's been sitting there for eons.

------------------
Asi es la vida

Bugs
 
I am sending this to the Bernard Levine knife identification forum. You may have better luck getting info there. BTW, welcome to the forums!
David
 
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